Design toolkit instigating concept generation and project opportunities
The creation of mass-produced quality assured products for manufacture has previously remained within the context of professional practice. Digital manufacture presents opportunities for producing products in low volumes, catering to bespoke requirements.
This phenomenon can benefit parties where the manufacture of goods has previously been financially impractical, i.e. non-government and charitable organisations. Open hardware (accessible electronic components) can complement digital manufacture, enabling bespoke products to become intelligent, with the ability to sense, monitor, record and produce data.
The toolkit focuses on Open Design / Citizen Science, drawing from practice-based research and supporting ethnographic activities to foster new projects, discussion and territory definition. The findings were published and are available to download as a PDF [ get Adobe Acrobat reader free ]. The cards and map are available to download as a ZIP (48MB) [ get Winzip unzipper free ].
“It evolves public engagement by enabling amateurs to make their own monitoring equipment for environments around them”.
Workshop participant, Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology
