PSS : Blog comments

Gabriel Ly

James Chen

Stan Darmawan

Monica Lu

Rebecca Womersley

PSS model image

PSS : VegieChest

Vegie chest is a self-contained vegetable planting system which promotes healthy eating habits.

It is aimed at primary school children in suburbs with lower socio economic status. “Socio-economic status is strongly related to high risks for overweight and obesity in industrialised countries.”^

It is a holistic approach to stopping unhealthy eating habits. Professional dietitians chefs and local gardeners are employed to educate primary school children.  

Primary school children have been targeted because “of the powerful influence children’s early feeding/eating environments have on their future health behaviors and eating patterns, early stage prevention is warranted.”* The services of Vegie Chest help the children in the short term by correcting current unhealthy eating habits. It also teaches the children how to grow, prepare and cook healthy foods, which is a vital life skill that many children in suburbs with lower socio economic status often lack.

The services of Vegie Chest are hired for a term at a time. During this time teams of dietitians chefs and local gardeners regularly hold classes, teaching the children on healthy eating habits, food preparation and growing fruit and vegetables. When the Vegie chests are returned to the HQ they are serviced, they are fertilised and have their soils mulched.

At the end of the term(s) a school fete is held to cap all of the learning outcomes of the children. The community members who have helped in the program are all awarded.

Vegie patch is innovative as it incorporates an easy to read gypsum block moisture detector, which displays emotions based on the moisture content of the soil. If the plants have been watered correctly a face is shown on the lcd screen.

During weekends or other times when the chests, cannot be watered by the students, a timed watering system can be used. The chests are daisy chained and can be easily arranged in rows.

^Nicole Darmon, E. F., Andre Briend (1/7/2003). "Do economic constraints encourge the selection of energy dense diets?"

*Carolyn M, Meredith Beck-Joslyn (26/5/2012). "An overview of the problematic eating and food-related behavior among foster children"

Slip casting

Some images from my casting class at cofa

The light bulb conspiracy

The lightbulb conspiracy is a documentary about the conception of Planned Obsolescence and how it shaped manufacturing and consumerism during the Twentieth Century.

Planned Obsolescence is a decision made by the manufacturers or designers of a product, purposely design, manufacture and distribute a product to become obsolete or non-functional, to force a customer to buy a next generation product.  This is decision is often made even before the next generation of products has been conceived.

From a business perspective this is remarkable, at the beginning of the 1920s, a group of businessmen were struck by the following insight: 'A product that refuses to wear out is a tragedy of business”. A positive of mass manufacturing in the 1920s was that many goods became widely available and were very affordable, this is one of the first cases where people began shopping for fun.

The industrial revolution saw the real rise in planned obsolescence; this is because of the massive growth in mass manufacturing. “The whole issue with products being made to last not as ling is part of a whole pattern that came about in the industrial revolution, when new machines were producing goods so much more cheaply which was a good thing for consumers could not keep up with the machines, there was too much production.

The light bulb a symbol of innovation and new ideas was the first victim of this decision, its lifespan reduced increasing the amount of light bulbs that consumers had to purchase every year. The title of the documentary the light bulb conspiracy is ironic it is often used as a symbol for innovation or a new idea, however in the manufacturing world it has a very high consumption rate, it embodies the practice of planned obsolescence.

I think that this documentary views us consumers as a society that has been trained by marketing, business strategies, and the frivolous nature of consumerism. But I think that this is only relevant to the consumer market, ie lower price brackets of product lines. Buying goods of higher quality with less frequency is much more beneficial than buying less expensive goods more frequently.  

Take home Messages:

Planned obsolescence was concieved in the 1920s

Growth can not always be sustained

Cormack blog comments

Liah KANG

Anastasie Panagopoulos

Aryetta Pazpinis

Lily Nguyen

Andrew Bae

Cormack : Wobble Bobble

Current bubble bath bottle designs are cumbersome and unwieldy, their large rectilinear, blow moulded designs are hard to handle and are not very interactive in use. They also do not interact with the child or parent.

Due to the way that they dispense the liquid there is often a large amount of wastage, which is frustrating for the parent(s).

The solution was to incorporate a self dosing screw top to the bottle, this prevents wastage, and allows for regular controlled dosages. Squeezing the bottom section of the bottle forces liquid up the inner tube up to the dosage section.

The bottle is shaped like a penguin, the child is encouraged to play with this fun and interactive package design. As the contents of the bottle is used it, becomes a fun floating toy. Refill bottles can also be purchased, saving the valuable dosage part from being sent to landfill.

“Young preschoolers often prefer familiar contexts and visuals objects, and animals that they can verbally label, such as a cat, a dog, or a horse. They especially like nonthreatening real or animated animals, such as kind birds, friendly dinosaurs, and babyish creatures”.

Patti M Valkenburga, J. C. (2009). "The development of a child into a consumer." 

 22(1): 61-72.


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