Current Design Focus

One can apply design to just about every aspect of life. Currently, I see myself having 3 major passions where I can apply design techniques that I have learned to improve these subjects. I would love to pursue a career which would allow me to focus on improving designs in these 3 major passions.

1. Sustainability

   1. I personally define sustainability as one's ability to sustain a process given a limited amount of resources. To me, I see sustainability as the biggest issue facing our generation, as we have to begin to see the impact that we have on our world as "distance is now dead". Sustainability for me is tied directly in with the environmental movement, as us humans have a set amount of resources that which we can use, and the current methods that we use them are very inefficient. If we can start to squeeze more out of the current systems that we use, and make things cleaner and less polluting, we can help sustain our process of living on our planet which contains limited resources.

   2. Sustainability is a very broad term that can be applied to just about any process in any field. Therefore, making designs sustainable will work in numerous fields. Not only will making designs sustainable help out the environment, for the most part they are also more economical. I feel being able to go into a company and tell them how redesigning certain facets of their product line will not only be more environmentally friendly, but possibly save money as well. An example of this is your classic optimization problem of packaging. If you are able to vary the thickness, material, size of packaging, you could possibly use less resources to save money, increasing the value of the product.

   3. I would eventually love to work in a field that allows me to do my part to improve the human race's sustainability from what it is now. The current path that I am on, I feel will lead me to work on creating sustainable designs. I am currently involved in as Director of the UB Student Association's Environmental Department and the club Engineers for a Sustainable World, which helps me do my part here on campus. It also helped me land an internship at a company in Columbus, Ohio called American Municipal Power, as a smart grid intern. The smart grid is something that has been under development for awhile now, and I see it as a sustainable design. With the smart grid, we are basically taking the current electric grid and placing two way communication within it to more accurately monitor and distribute our resource of electricity. The designing of the electric grid to become more sustainable is one possible avenue to make a design better.

2. Aircraft

• 1. Ever since I was young, I have had a passion for anything revolving aircraft. Flight in its most basic form is amazing to me, as it is an object saying no to gravity for extended periods of time. It is even more amazing to me that it only took 60 years from the time humans first achieved sustained flight, to reach the moon. I would love to see that continued progress on aircraft design. Personally, I have been creating designs since I could remember, either with Legos or on paper.

  2. This passion for aircraft helped get me into the position I am in currently, which is pursuing an engineering degree with where I could maybe one day work in this field. It would be awesome to me to work in a company where I could improve upon the sustainability of aircraft. This is an area of improvement to which I feel there is a huge demand for, as many people want to reduce their impact on the environment, but still need to travel long distances in relatively short periods of times. To pursue sustainability in aircraft design, might entail thinking way outside of the box to develop new ways over powering the aircraft, or even attempting to improve upon the air-traffic control system so planes do not have to wait around an airport circling and wasting fuel. Boeing has recently begun investigating into this sustainable air craft design, and processes with it's new Boeing 787 Dream-liner.

3. Biomimicry

• 1. Biomimicry is taking designs that nature has developed and applying them to useful mechanical designs, or even general processes. The video on my home page shows an example from the European Space Agency applying designs found in nature towards proposed future missions. I first learned of biomimicry when I was on TED.com and saw a description of a new adhesion technology that was developed by studying the feet of geckos. Biomimicry is a very interesting design field that can be applied to just about any field. For example, I went to a conference this past October 2010 for Engineers for a Sustainable World, and one of the keynote speakers spoke of biomimicry design. His company was a carpet company that observed that patterns in nature aren't anything at all like their then current patterns of carpets. They took this idea, and made their pattern process more random, improving both on cost, as they didn't need to maintain nearly as high of a tolerance when creating the carpets, as well as aesthetic appeal, as this carpet became their best selling product within it's first 10 weeks on the market.

  2. Biomimicry also goes right along with sustainability. There are so many animals out there that have yet to be discovered or animals that have not been studied enough. Nature has been doing certain things we cannot, and if we can copy this via biomimicrky design, there can be huge benefits for society. If we can help preserve this resource of biology, we also help preserve our resource of biomimicry designs that can be developed.