Product Design Gala 2018 at Aalto Design Factory.

“All you need is Love, Design, Business and Engineering! “

This was a showcase for the students who had been participating in a product development projects.  Students from engineering, business and arts came together to develop state of the art solutions to real problems.  At this event, I was able to witness and experience unique and exciting discoveries to many problems we face today.  Twelve teams presented their products in this showcase.  The members of the teams came from Aalto University in collaboration with students around the world.  

Team Unit 3.  "In 2010 Aalto University merged three of Finland’s finest schools into one: Helsinki University of Technology, Helsinki School of Economics and the University of Art and Design Helsinki. Now that the business and design students will be joining the Otaniemi family; one of our oldest and most beloved organizations – KY – has sponsored the development of a symbol of ‘Student Unity’.

Team Unit3 has accepted the challenge of creating something that symbolizes student life at Aalto University. It is our hope that it will also be used as a functional space by our future students. In addition to this, our design must incorporate wood as a featured material."

Team WeBrew. "Home brewing is becoming a growing trend in the world. However, it is a very delicate process which needs practice and experience. To achieve desired quality, brewers should make sure to maintain sensitive parameters throughout the process. Even if there are products in the market to make this process easier, the problems still remain in controlling parameters and the usability of the products. Our objective is to identify these problems and solve them with the help of current IoT technologies."

Team FutuLift. "Our mission is to develop an elevator car that can be installed by a robot, as well as develop the robot to do this task. This project is all about futuristic technology and making a case study of robotic-centric product design. If the product is designed to be assembled by a robot, the parts can be compiled together in a way that is not possible for a human. Also with a robot for example the mass of different parts and ergonomy while assembling are not an issue.

The project is sponsored by Kone Oyj. We have a talented international team in which six members work in Helsinki and five members in Munich. Our strength is in mechatronics, but we also have for example a business shark, a designer, a computer wizard and an applied mechanics guru in our team.

So far we have done our PD6 prototype, played with Arduinos and Lego Mindstorms, brainstormed ideas for both the elevator car and the robot, made schedules and rules for the project, and bonded as a team. In May we will have finished prototypes of both the elevator car and the robot."

Students were sponsored by technology companies and they had 8 months to develop a product.  The following companies sponsored the teams; AALTO EXPLORER, ABB, ERICSSON, KONE, KY, MURATA, ORTHEX, RESTEL, SAAB, SAFERA, TRENOX, and VALTRA.  The collaborating Universities were Munich University of Applied Sciences, Pace University in New York, Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Porto Polytechnic, Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, University of Tartu, University of São Paulo, Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Warsaw University of Technology and ISDI Parsons Mumbai.  

Team Wasp. "Our goal is to rethink the way air traffic is controlled with the Remote Control Tower (RCT). With Saab’s high standards of quality in mind, Team WASP works to improve the RCT, making it more user-friendly, efficient and safe for air traffic controllers. Working together like in a swarm of wasps, and combining our multidisciplinary background, we will achieve something that will make one of the hardest jobs in the world easier!"

This device was designed for ambulances.  

I was able to test this to see how it lessens the bumps on the road to hospital. 

Team Atarum. "We want to shape the future of emergency patient care by developing solutions for mobile gyro-stabilized treatment platforms. We use Murata’s world-class MEMS sensor technology for extreme reliability and high performance. Our aim is to decrease time-to-treatment for patients who require stabilization or treatment on transportation."

I had the pleasure to talk to all the teams and learn about their products.  Fascinating.  This also gave me new ideas for our Robotics team for next year.