a Design Museum Boston program

What is Designing A Difference?

Designing A Difference is Design Museum Boston’s program to educate the public on the transformative power of design by creating innovative solutions to social, economic, and environmental problems. Design can change the world through creative problem solving. Each project will unite a nonprofit or social enterprise in need of design services with a carefully assembled team of local design experts. Through a series of workshops, the team will collaborate to design, develop, and prototype useful solutions. Design Museum Boston will chronicle and present all aspects of the project in order to increase public understanding of the design process.

This packet will provide you with a snapshot of the first Designing A Difference project with the nonprofit, Smallbean. It showcases the activities that have taken place so far and illustrates where the program is headed.

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The Backstory

Smallbean and Tanzania

Smallbean and their partner, the Newton-Tanzania Collaborative (NTC), visited the rural village of Kwala, Tanzania to launch the pilot program for their Citizen Archivist Project (CAP). The goal of the project is to provide the people of Kwala with the skills necessary to record and catalogue their history while, at the same time, creating a sustainable infrastructure for education. This was accomplished through the use of a solar powered computer lab. An integral part of this lab is something the Smallbean team has dubbed the “Solar Suitcase.”

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The “Solar Suitcase”

As a power converter and battery housing the “Solar Suitcase” successfully helped power the computer lab but there were areas for improvement. Smallbean came to Design Museum Boston with a desire to enhance the functionality of the unit, make it more transportable, improve serviceability and simplify the usability of the entire system.

4The “Solar Suitcase” prototype

The Participants

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Smallbean is a nonprofit social enterprise based in Boston, Massachusetts. Smallbean provides mobile computer labs and teaches technology skills using a ground-breaking curriculum that documents, pre-serves and showcases endangered cultures around the world. At the core of each Smallbean computer lab is a durable and inexpensive solar power system. As part of its most recent initiative, Smallbean has begun implementation of an ESCARGO (Excess Solar Capacity as A Revenue Generation Option) computer lab at a rural innovation center in Kwala, Tanzania. In addition to serving as an educational and cultural hub in the community, the computer lab will be a financially self-sufficient local enterprise providing low-cost clean power to residents of Kwala. Stemming from a need for design assistance in the early stages of the ESCARGO project, Smallbean approached Design Museum Boston and became a client of the Designing A Difference program.

Design Museum Boston is a newcomer to New England’s cultural landscape and the region’s first museum dedicated solely to design. Its mission is to educate the public on the role of design in their lives and to unite the design community in ways that enrich their collective work and solve real-world problems more creatively. Design Museum Boston is a decentralized network of physical and virtual exhibits. Whether in a gallery, retail environment, public spaces or on the web, its programming gives audiences new insights into the design process and the greater social, economic, and environmental contexts that both affect and are affected by design.

Samsonite is the worldwide leader in superior travel bags, luggage and accessories, combining notable style with the latest design technology and the utmost attention to quality and durability. Samsonite creates unparalleled products that fulfill the travel and lifestyle needs of the sophisticated traveler. For 98 years, Samsonite has continued to build upon its rich design heritage. Samsonite markets products under the Samsonite, Samsonite Black Label, and American Tourister brands.

The Newton-Tanzania Collaborative (NTC) strives to improve educational opportunities for Tanzanian children through participatory development initiatives and relationship building between schools and communities in the United States and Tanzania. NTC was founded on the principle that creating direct personal relationships with the developing world is the most effective way to ensure transparency, accountability, and projects that are meaningful to ‘donors’ and ‘recipients’ alike. NTC believes that a more sustainable approach to development is to involve and connect to the communities we work with, rather than working as outside consultants to the problems they face.

The Workshops

The First Workshop

The first meeting with Smallbean and NTC focused primarily on educating the design team about life in Africa and the kinds of resources available. Smallbean and NTC shared their experiences in Tanzania and the challenges they faced. Following a thorough briefing the design team began the process of ideating. They generated concepts of what the “Solar Suitcase” could be, taking into account who would be using the system, how it could be transported and the environment that it would live in.

8The design team with Smallbean and NTC, Day 1Photo courtesy of Dan Gonyea

9The design process, Day 1Photos courtesy of Dan Gonyea

The Second Workshop

Many ideas were generated in the first workshop and it was up to the design team to pare them down and refine them. Ultimately four directions were agreed upon ranging from a fully modular system to one that is completely stationary, each with their own benefits. These directions were discussed and critiqued throughout the day in an effort to come to a consensus on the final design.

This workshop also marked the beginning of Samsonite’s involvement as the program’s newest sponsor. Samsonite shared with the group their capabilities and how they could help turn the design team’s vision into reality.

A major turning point of the day came when Smallbean and NTC shared their latest col-laboration, a program called the Launchpad. At its core, the Launchpad is designed to be a rural innovation center. A key component of the Launchpad program is a revenue generation plan called ESCARGO, short for “Excess Solar Capacity as A Revenue Generation Option.” The idea is to rent out batteries to local patrons as a means of funding additional programming.

With this new requirement in mind, the design team went back to the drawing board and ultimately arrived at a new conceptual model for how the new system could work.

10The design team with Smallbean, NTC, and Samsonite, Day 2

11Revised concepts for the “Solar Suitcase” and the diagram for the new system architecture, Day 2

The Next Steps

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The Big Idea.

Out of the second workshop came a new system architecture for the Launchpad and Smallbean’s ESCARGO program. The following pages illustrate that new architecture and showcase the final direction the design team is working towards along with some of the tools that helped them get there. This design is currently being refined and, with the help of sponsors like Samsonite, is being turned into a reality.

This is a tool utilized by the design team to communicate the life cycle of the new design in use.

The Journey Map

The Storyboards These are used to illustrate the different steps involved in each track of the Journey Map.

The Concept This is the final direction for Smallbean’s ECARGO system. While all of the details aren’t worked out yet, these illustrations will set the direction for all future development activities.

Journey Map

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SchoolsCharged Batteries

Charged Batteries

Empty Batteries

Empty Batteries

Charged Laptop

Empty LaptopsLaunch Pad

Villages

Stakeholders

Local Students

Smallbean Crew

Community Member

THE PATH TO THE CLASSROOM

THE PATH TO THE VILLAGE

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The Storyboards

The Launchpad is an innovation center and home to Smallbean’s equipment.

The laptops are used throughout the day in class.

During the night, laptops are charged by batteries that have stored energy during the day.

When class is over the laptops are returned to the Launchpad to be recharged overnight.

A teacher brings the laptops and a spare battery to the local school.

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15The Path to the Classroom This storyboard illustrates how laptops are charged and delivered to the classroom.

The Storyboards

The Launchpad is an innovation center and home to Smallbean’s equipment.

Villagers rent out the batteries and the proceeds go to enhance the educational programming.

During the day multiple batteries are charged.

The villager uses the battery until it is empty. The student returns and collects the batteries to be recharged.

A student transports fully charged batteries to villagers in need of power.

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16The Path to the Village This storyboard depicts how a battery would charged and rented out to a villager.

The Concept

The Laptop Case This case houses all of the netbooks and their chargers. It also provides some additional storage for cameras, etc.

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The Concept

The Battery Cases There are two major cases for the batteries. One that houses rental batteries that can be purchased by local patrons and a base battery that is used to charge the laptops at night.

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The Concept

The Battery Cases The two cases, along with the molded plastic base, can be set up and used as a charging station.

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The Concept

Rental Battery Option 1 A thermo-formed plastic enclosure housing rechargeable lithium-ion batteries and a charge controller. This unit is carried in a rugged fabric case containing instructions.

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The Concept

Rental Battery Option 2 This injection molded design allows for the strap to be help captive by the housing and is stackable. Instructions can be screened directly to the housing.

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For more information, videos, and photos from the Designing A Difference program please visit:

www.designmuseumboston.orgwww.smallbean.org

© 2011 Design Museum Boston