Kitchen Design Cambridge
Cambridge Uni Engineering Project?
Hi,
I’m doing engineering at Cambridge and we’ve got a small project to do over the holiday. Basically I’ve got to design a new product for elderly persons living independently. The product is to be either for the kitchen, bathroom or living room and be specifically targeted towards the elderly but inclusive of all other users. I need ideas to get me started, what do you think?
I’d have thought someone purporting to be Cambridge engineering material would at least have the gumption to mention which branch of engineering the project should be in. Ah! well, Obama promised us change – maybe Brown thought he’d better do something too. A further unclearness is whether the product is to be aimed at an elderly person living alone or, as you say, persons living independently (whatever that final word may mean!)
To your question and my suggestion:
Put together a prototype device for the hard of hearing (predominantly the elderly) based on a small cordless (lapel) microphone, transmitting to a radio set which uses cordless headphones. The usefulness of this lies in the problems of the normal hearing aid, with which the sound quality and perception are severely compromised by background noise.
So, in the case of a deaf husband, the wife carries the microphone and the husband the earphone, enabling them to communicate with excellent reception at least in the home environment – or even outside with a small receiver. Especially in circumstances where communication is predominantly between two people this would provide much better quality reception than the all-capturing hearing aid. There’s also no stigma nowadays to wearing radio-type headphones.
Good luck. I’ll buy it if it works even quite well!
Jean Courtney, Creative Designs – Kitchen