In a time of Elon Musk fan boys and entrepreneurial obsessees it’s programs like the James Dyson Award that foster designs that solve real world conundrums. Don’t believe me? Take a look at these five past contestants and marvel at how not-so far-fetched they are. No flying cars though, sorry.
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There are many methods that can be used to create a carbon fibre part. The technique you choose will depend on factors including, size of part, complexity particularly if there are any undercuts, strength requirements, type of carbon fibre sheet used, intended use of part.
Here we see a simple part created in a step by step picture story. This part was used as a structural support part in a beam in a performance yacht. Notice in image one that the layers of carbon fibre are laid in a sequence so that the direction of fibre is alternating from the previous layer, this adds strength. The CF sheet weight we used here is 400 grams per square meter. Once we finished layering the carbon fibre we bound it together with rubber elastic and masking tape and let it set at room temperature.
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Since winning the JDA, Respia has received interest from many people including parents and people with asthma and entrepreneurs, angel investors and venture capitalists. Respia has also been featured on new.com where Jennifer Dudley interviewd me about Respia's win. You can find the article here.
I also had the pleasure of talking on 2UE's segment 'Talking Technology' about Respia and how it helps people improve their quality of life. You can listen to it here.
Today I received a phone call from the James Dyson Foundation notifying me that Respia has placed as International Runner up in the James Dyson Award! The James Dyson Award is an international design award that celebrates, encourages and inspires the next generation of design engineers. I am over the moon with this news! It is absolutely exhilarating to have been picked by Sir James Dyson himself from the Top 20 worldwide to receive this award.
Today the results of the national James Dyson Award judging were announced. Respia made the Top 5! This is an amazing result as this means that Repia goes onto the next stage for international judging. Respia will be one among 110 entries made up of the Top 5 from 22 other countries. In this stage Dyson engineers will choose the International Top 20 from which then Sir James Dyson himself will choose the winner and runner up. Wish me luck!
This week has been a whirlwind of thrilling experiences. I had the great pleasure of attending the Red Dot Design Concept 2016 awards night in Singapore where I was awarded a Red Dot. It was a great honour to be awarded the prestigious Red Dot Award for my project Respia. It is very rewarding to have my work in creating good asthma management acknowledged in this way as it raises awareness for the condition as well as bringing light to better designs for asthma management.
Identifying good design since 1950, the Red Dot Design Award received more than 18,000 applications in 2016. Making the competition one of the biggest and most prestigious design awards worldwide.
Katherine Kawecki wins prestigious Red Dot award.
Today I learned how to use BobCAD to CNC this pine in 3-axis. I quickly whipped up a design in Rhino and then imported it into Bobcad. The settings you choose depend on several factors including material choice, material depth, complexity of design, quality of finish. Once you have finished set up, the program creates a file which is basically the map of coordinates that the CNC machine will follow to carve out your design. You put it on USB and plug it into the DSP controller and proceed to position the drill bit at 0, 0, 20mm so that is is just touching the corner of your 20mm thick pine square. Then you press start and away it goes. We start with a bigger drill bit to carve out the bulk of design. Then we run the program again with a finer drill bit for a cleaner finish. This process varies machine to machine.
Here we see a step depth of 0.2mm.
We used a 14mm diameter drill bit.
What an amazing night! I was honoured to be a Finalist in the Young Australian Design Awards. It was an exuberant evening of celebrating Australia's best design talent in both industry and university levels. Respia was exhibited in the Good Design Showcase which ran for the duration of Vivid Festival. Thank you to the fantastic team at Good Design that organised this amazing Gala Night and Showcase Exhibition. Australia's Good Design Awards are one of the longest standing and most prestigious design awards in the world, promoting excellence in design and innovation since 1958.
Katherine Kawecki and Marcus Lee representing UNSW at the YADA.
Amazing performances on the Gala Night.
The after party.
The beautiful exhibition space where Respia was displayed over the course of Vivid Festival.
What an amazing way to end four years of study! Tonight we celebrated the fruit of our year long efforts. The Industrial Design Graduands exhibition is a showcase of student honours year capstone projects. I was one of a team of six studenst from our year that opted to be a part of the exhibition committee. We had a blast organising and designing the exhbition over a course of three months.
My parents and my brother Peter Kawecki who I cannot thank enough for his encouragement and critiques throughout my capstone honours year.
One of my lovely and inspirational lecturers Rina Bernabei.
Fantastic lecturer Christian Tietz and my fellow student and bestfriend Ana Jamshidi.
The exhibition committee were surprised with a thank you gift from our year!
Left to right; Christian Reeks consulting mechatronics engineer for Respia, Amy Leedham my fellow student and bestfriend, Mathew Mudge friend and UNSW Science PhD student.
Me and my awesome brother Peter Kawecki
Setting up.
