After doing our research presentations and report, I got to talk to my professor one on one about my project to help narrow down my project focus and determine my user testing plan. The whole carbonization process would be too large of a scope to work on in the span of our academic year, so I …
To raise funds for our projects and for our trip to Tanzania, we have been working with the Business students on various fundraisers. We have also set up a page through our University's crowdfunding platform called Future Funder. Help support our projects by donating on Future Funder below. https://futurefunder.carleton.ca/project/from-buckets-to-rainbarrels/
After half a semester of research, discussions and preliminary sketches, the team compiled all of our findings and insights into a report and presentation. We have identified the problem areas we would all like to focus more on, as well as potential design directions for our project. The slides for our presentation, as well as …
Continue reading Milestone 1: Research Report and Presentation
To have a more clear picture of the stakeholders of my project, I decided to create personas. I made one for women, one for men and one for children. I'm hoping that I can revise these personas after visiting Tanzania and getting firsthand experience talking and interacting with the Maasai. But for now, these personas are …
After organizing my research a bit and discussing with Steve, I realized that the problem I was looking at (waste repurposing) has uses and benefits beyond just sanitation and waste. The idea that I'm currently exploring for my project is focused on a household method of turning waste into charcoal. Upon discussing with Steve, I …
Now that everyone has narrowed down their design directions, we storyboarded use scenarios, problem spaces and users for each of our projects. We examined our specific problems read in more depth, considering the environment of use and the activities of the user. These helped us better understand the scenarios we are designing for, as well …
Following our group Skype call with Virginia, I had a few more questions regarding specifically about waste and sanitation. So I sent a follow up email to better understand the social and cultural context of waste and sanitation in Longido and specifically among the Maasai community. Here are some of the questions and answers from …
Human waste can contain pathogens and harbour bacteria that can infect humans with diseases such as cholera, typhoid, and diarrhea among others. But human excreta also contains valuable nutrients that can be used as fertilizer. The question is, how do we treat human waste in an affordable and efficient way so that it is safe …
With resource scarcity being a big problem in many developing countries, it is important to be able to reduce our use of new resources and to repurpose whatever resources we currently have. Humans produce waste every day and here lies the potential to convert that waste into something that can be used for good. Converting …
In developing countries, there is often a heavy emphasis on water access. Sanitation and waste management are often considered of lesser priority, because if there is no access to water to drink or wash with, how can we develop sanitation systems and products? In Schiller and Droste's Water Supply and Sanitation in Developing Countries, they argue …
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