C.V PROJECTS/2009-2012 PRODUCT DESIGN BEIRUT PASS THE COOL WATERCOLOR MELODY TAG ROTARTOAST
READYMADE GREEN OLD DAY
INTERACTIVE DESIGN SWARM IDEA BUMP
LAI, YEN-JU
C.V OF LAI, YEN-JU, 2013
No.8-5, Tianyang Ln., Dacun Township, Changhua County 515, Taiwan (R.O.C.) +886-932-600-145 mls21426@gmail.com
Extracurricular Activities
Education since 2011 2006-2011
National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
2011-2012
NCTU Digital Music Creation Club
Institute of Applied Arts, M.A.
2007-2009
Leader of western painting group in NCKU Art Club
2004-2005
President of 17th TCGS Guitar Club
National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan (Double Major) Department of Industrial Design, B.S.
2003-2006
Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, B.S.
Informatics
National Taichung Girls’ Senior High School, Taichung, Taiwan
Graphic Design
Professional Experience since 2011
Graduate Research Assistant/ National Science Council Projects, Taiwan
2012-2013
Exhibition Coordinator/ Downshifter - Joint Exhibition by NCTU Institute of Applied
2D/ Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Sketchbook Designer 3D/ Solidworks, Alias, Keyshot
Programing
/ Java, C++, C#, C, Processing, Arduino
Language
Arts, Hsinchu, Taiwan
Mandarin(native language), Taiwanese(native language),
2012
Visual Designer/ 2012 Taiwan UX Summit, Taipei, Taiwan
English(TOEFL iBT 87, TOEIC 895), German(Goethe Zertifikat A1)
2010-2011
Design Assistant/ Center for Technologies of Ubiquitous Computing and Humanity, Tainan, Taiwan Leader of Exhibition Design Team/ Mind Design - 2011 Graduation Exhibition by NCKU Department of Industrial Design, Tainan, Taiwan
2010
Award 2011
Product Design Intern/ Airmate Electrical Co., Ltd, Shenzhen, China
Young Designers’ Competition, Taiwan/ Nomination
Exhibition 2013
Downshifter - Joint Exhibition by NCTU Institute of Applied Arts
2011
Mind Design - 2011 Graduation Exhibition by NCKU Department of Industrial Design
BEIRUT
LED TABLE LAMP SPEAKER, 2012
BEIRUT LED TABLE LAMP SPEAKER, 2012
This project was inspired by the American band "Beirut", which is also the name of the capital city of Lebanon. Beirut is a speaker lamp made from a vibration speaker, an LED light strip, and polypropylene sheets which function as both the resonating surface and the light shade. The low sound quality of the vibration speaker appropriately presents lyricism of lo-fi music, and the pattern of interlocking edges delicately reveals exoticism and romanticism of Balkan folk.
BEIRUT
PERSONA Miss Chen age 26 A young single career woman who usually works overtime. At the end of every exhausting day, she likes to lie on the bed and spend some time reading books or writing something while listening to music before sleeping.
FORM To design the speaker lamp which can produce sound in response to electrical audio signal input and illuminate with LED light. I thought of a curved surface with one space for resonance of sound and one space for light covering.
LED TABLE LAMP SPEAKER, 2012
LED TABLE LAMP SPEAKER, 2012
BEIRUT
ROUGH MODEL Base on the persona, I supposed the product should be produced by low-cost material and can be easily manufactured. After deciding the shape, I chose the polypropylene sheets because of the exibility and chose the vibration speaker component for it is small and inexpensive. I tried different ways to form the shape and used only polypropylene sheets without any glue or fastener.
BEIRUT
LED TABLE LAMP SPEAKER, 2012
LED TABLE LAMP SPEAKER, 2012
BEIRUT
USED MATERIALS/ Polypropylene(PP) Sheets Acrylic Ball LED Light Strip Vibration Speaker Component 12V Transformer 3.5mm Audio Cable
The body of BEIRUT, includes the visible main part and the holders of both the LED light strip and the vibration speaker component, are made of six polypropylene sheets that interlock with each other and lock with the acrylic ball shaped base. Users can choose the preferred colors of the body and the base of BEIRUT and assemble it by themselves.
PASS THE COOL
PASS THE COOL GREEN DESIGN, 2011
“Pass the Cool�is the glass jalousie window consists of inner water cooling system which takes away heat while the water circulates inside the double layer glass. It keeps the indoor space cool; meanwhile, it maintains a good view in the window. The weather in Taiwan is burning hot. Green Building has became the trend. The opening ratio is important because a oversized window can bring too much heat inside and cause the energy consumption problem. We use the concept of Green Building on a window, which makes a normal building have the functions of heat insulation, energy conservation, and greening.
Yen-Ju Lai Jyun-Ru Lin Chin-Hsuan Yui
PASS THE COOL
GREEN DESIGN, 2011
The sun, the air, and the water, are the basic human requirements, and the two of which are just included in the functions of windows. Windows almost provide every requirement of what people inside need for outside, and that makes windows change for different landforms and different climates. Therefore, our goal was to explore: “What do people inside/outside the window want?”and “How to keep the environment outside the window better?” For the sweltering weather in Taiwan, the important aims of the Green Building design is to insulate against heat and conserve energy. While considering buildings’ wall-to-window ratio is the key factor that influences energy efficiency, we wanted to maintain the size of windows in order to provide good views; meanwhile, people can enjoy cool indoor temperature with less energy consumption.
Step 1. Solar Heating The sun’s rays which cause high indoor temperature also drives the water cycle. Step 2. The Water Cycle inside the Double Layer Glass The water inside the glass heats up for sunlight and rises to the top of the window. After going through the heat-sink, the water cools down and flows down through the pipelines inside the window frame. Lastly, it goes back to the double layer glass and continue to circulate. Step 3. Plants The heat-sink through which the water flows contacts with the other heat-sink inserted into the soil of the plants. The system makes the heat preservation characteristic of soil and the transpiration of plants into the nature heat dissipation method. Step 4. Human Users need to water the plants to keep the heat dissipation of water cycle and maintain the high heat insulation efficiency.
PASS THE COOL
Heat-Sink
PROTOTYPE TESTING We made the small working prototype to do the testing process. The left one is our double layer glass with the inner water cooling system, and the right one is the normal glass. We used the halogen lamp as the function of sun. After lighting for a while, we found that the water cooling glass had been cooler than the normal glass for about 2-3째C; moreover, the temperature of the water cooling glass had increased slower than the normal one.
GREEN DESIGN, 2011
01 Plant Drawer 02 Under Soil Heat-Sink 03 Drawer Case/Vertical Lifting Mechanism 04 Water Cooler Heat-Sink 05 Slide Rial 06 Water Pipeline/ Axis 07 Double Layer Glass Shutters 08 Water Tight Rubber Seal 09 Upper Cover 10 Shutters Linkage Mechanism
Water Pipeline/ Axis
Double Layer Glass
11 Water Wheel 12 Lead Counterweight 13 Plant Drainpipe 14 Lifter Drawing Bar 15 Spring Latch
GREEN DESIGN, 2011
PASS THE COOL
The concept of Pass The Cool is to make the water cycle happen automatically without electric power, in order to achieve the target of heat insulation. The water inside the glass is heated by sunlight and starts to ow, and cooled down via soil and plant transpiration which carries away heat. While keeping the indoor temperature low, Pass The Cool gives outdoor environments a little greenery.
1. Lifter Drawing Bar of Plants Users can pull down the plant drawer case to water the plants. 2. Plant Drawers Users can pull out the four plants drawers to take care of plants easily. 3. Heat-Sink Each plant box has an aluminum heat-sink inserted into soil. When they are lifted back and contacts with the water cooler heat-sink, the heat will be exchanged and the temperature of the water will be lowered. 4. Outside the Window(Young Designers' Exhibition, 2011, Taipei.) 5. Water Flow Display There’s a waterwheel inside the pipelines. When users look at the transparent panel, they can see the waterwheel rotating and make sure if the system goes well.
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WATERCOLOUR
WATERCOLOUR, PEOPLE WALK BY DECONSTRUCTION × LAMP, 2012
In places where people walk by, a period of time can be separated into tiny moments. At every moment we can find people at their own locations, and which change every moment. In the lamp WATERCOLOUR, each round hollow on the x-y planes represents a position of people and moves in every moment along the z axis which represents the increasing time. I used the pattern of moving people at one place in one minute to generate the lamp form. The inner structure of thick glass produces beautiful caustics. Users could also fill it with different colors to vary the feeling of light.
DECONSTRUCTION × LAMP, 2011
DECONSTRUCTION × LAMP, 2011
WATERCOLOUR
Y
Z Y X
X
CONCEPT
I shot people at the squares in a fixed direction. The different functions and different planning of the places influence the movement of people. I cut six seconds as a bit, and drew circles at the positions of each people on the x-y planes which represent every sixsecond bit. The circles grew bigger alone with the increasing time.
In the one-minute film we could find the people in front of the Log Cabin Waffle generated the dynamic pattern: The circles of the people sitting at the bench grew concentrically; the circles of the queuers grew with small moves; and the rest of them, the circles of the people walking and waiting, was distributed randomly.
WATERCOLOUR
HOW TO USE The circles hollowed the thick glass cuboid one layer after another and build the exquisite interior form which produces beautiful caustics while lights go through. Users can put different colors into the hollows and blend the colors together in order to vary the feeling of light.
DECONSTRUCTION Ă— LAMP, 2011
MELODY TAG
MELODY TAG GIGABYTE GREAT DESIGN COMPETITION, 2011
GIGABYTE GREAT DESIGN COMPETITION, 2011
MELODY TAG are the pairs of stickers play various kinds of melody when they are put together with the same right shape and color. Parents can paste the one of a pair at the bottom of the toy, and paste the corresponding one at the toy’s place. When children put toys at the right places, the stickers would start to play funny melody. MELODY TAG raises children’s interest in picking up toys and helps them develop the good habit of putting things in order.
GIGABYTE GREAT DESIGN COMPETITION, 2011
MELODY TAG
CONCEPT Most children mess up toys everywhere after playing, and parents need to clean up for their children all the time. How to teach children to tidy up toys has been a big issue bothering parents. MELODY TAG evokes kids‘ interest of putting things in order. There are different shapes of MELODY TAG, and each pair of them are in the same shape. There are a melody IC and a reed switch inside the raised one of a pair, and a magnet in the corresponding sunken one. When a pair are in contact with each other, it would start to make a sound or a little piece of music.
Magnet
Melody IC/ Reed Switch
ROTARTOAST
ROTARTOAST RECONSTRUCTION × HOME APPLIANCES, 2009
ROTARTOAST is the wall-hung toaster that turns the process of using toaster into the interesting rotated movement. The user can set the toasting time by counterclockwise rotating the front part and see the yellow color reveal. When the front part turns back clockwise to the original shape, the toast pops-up and well baked. ROTARTOAST provides a new experience of using toasters. It makes time setting more intuitive and visualizes the waiting time of the heating process.
RECONSTRUCTION × HOME APPLIANCES, 2009
ROTARTOAST
RECONSTRUCTION × HOME APPLIANCES, 2009
CONCEPT
ROUGH MODEL
To reconstruct the toaster, I considered functions and operations of the toasters which are currently available, and analyzed it into three parts: 1. a space for putting toasts in, 2. a lever connected with an internal switch, and 3. a thermostat. Under a condition of not changing the current manner of functioning, I tried to find a new using experience by reconstructing the connections between those parts.
In the project, I made some rough models by foamcore and tried to find the new using processes. For example, “How to eliminate the redundant operation steps?”, “Is there any new way to set the timer?”, and “How to make toasts pop-up divertingly?”
RECONSTRUCTION Ă— HOME APPLIANCES, 2009
ROTARTOAST
HOW TO USE 1. Place a slice of bread through a slot in the top of the toaster and into the carriage. 2. Turn the carriage counter-clockwise using the lever at the side of the toaster to set the thermostat. The larger angle is turned, the more yellow area and white dots reveals, and the longer heating time is set. 3. The heating process starts, and the carriage slowly turns back to the primary angle. 4. While the desired temperature is reached and the heating process is completed, the toast would be popped-up!
GREEN OLD DAY
GREEN OLD DAY READYMADE, 2011
Have you ever keep some of your old shirts which will not be worn anymore, such as the high school uniform, the sport team shirt, or the first formal suit. They are full of beautiful memories that we don’t want to forget. So why shouldn’t we keep them into photo frames?
READYMADE, 2011
GREEN OLD DAY
Fold your high school uniform onto the photo frame and commemorate the green old day! Keys can be hanged on the buttons. Letters or some small things can be put in the folds and the pocket.
HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN GREEN OLD DAY?
1. Put the photo frame backplane into the uniform, then fold the button hole side outward about ďŹ ve centimeters.
1
2. Fold the button side up on the other side. 3. Fold rest of the uniform back along the four edges of the frame backplane.
2
4. Use small clips to ďŹ x the folded back part, and put them into the photo frame then complete!
3
USED MATERIALS/ High School Uniform Photo Frame Hair Pins
4
SWARM
SWARM INTERACTIVE DESIGN × LOCOMOTION, 2012 This is the project made at the course named Interactive Architecture. In the course, each of us have to stimulate a form of locomotion and make it into a kinetic creation which could response to the external stimuli. I chose the amoeboid locomotion as a start of project. To escape from the predators, amoebas move by inter-converting gel and sol and changing the centers of mass. I used this principle of motion and planned to make a swarm of the sensitive balls which could start to roll and flee for a little period of time while they are touched by each other or by people.
INTERACTIVE DESIGN × LOCOMOTION, 2012
INTERACTIVE DESIGN × LOCOMOTION, 2012
SWARM
1.
2.
3.
4.
MECHANISM DEVELOPMENT I met many problems when developing the mechanism, such as the lack of torque, calculations of gear ratio, and errors. In the end, I found that I should eliminate the components as many as possible to minimize errors.
ROUGH MODEL In the project, I made some rough models by foamcore and tried to find the new using processes. For example, “How to eliminate the redundant operation steps?”, “Is there any new way to set the timer?”, and “How to make toasts pop-up divertingly?”
5.
SWARM
DETECTION MECHANISM /PROTOTYPE Every time while the balls are touched, they will start to roll and flee away for 3 seconds. I used the mercury switch for detecting a touch by external stimuli, and used NE555, the timer IC, to provide a 3-second time delay. The prototype still has many aspects need to be improved, including both the mechanism of detection and response.
INTERACTIVE DESIGN × LOCOMOTION, 2012
IDEA BUMP
iDEA BUMP! MOE SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM FOR OVERSEAS STUDY IN ARTS & DESIGN, 2012
In the ten day workshop of the 2013 MOE Scholarship Program, we had to design new configurations in design education. The brief said “Define new configuration and tools in design education to engage students in the culture of learning and innovation in a collaborative habitat.” After short researching, I found that it is very difficult for students to communicate with students at the other departments, not to mention the collaboration. Considered the idea exchange should be an important part of achieving creativity and innovation, I thinking of making the moments that students meet with each other everyday and everywhere on the campus into the communicating moments. Idea Bump is an smart phone app that gives opportunities for students to recognize each other when they both have the same kind of ideas.
MOE SPOSAD WORKSHOP, 2012
IDEA BUMP
MOE SPOSAD WORKSHOP, 2012
1.
SOCIAL MEDIA
“Develop The System To Create the New Learning Experience!”
EDUCATION LEARNING SHARE EXPERIENCE APP
DESIGN
2. SOCIAL MEDIA EDUCATION LEARNING SHARE EXPERIENCE APP
Bump!
DEVELOPER GPS IOS SOCIAL-MEDIA APP IPHONE-SDK STUDENT
“I’d like to make a social media app for NCKU students!”
The Kuang Fu Campus of NCTU NCTU
5M
DESIGN
Bump!
3.
BUSINESS DESIGN
ENGINEERING
Bump!
Bump! ENGINEERING
Bump! SAME INTEREST, SAME CONCERN, SAME PASSION, ......
A CHANCE ENCOUNTER CONCEPT
Bump!
COMMUNICATION & COLLABORATION
CONCEPT “How to find partners?” and “How to get more feedback or opinions from different people on the campus?” are what design students often face with. It is very difficult for us to find the collaboration partners. We meet with people from so many different fields everyday in our campus life, but we have no idea if they have the same passion on the same interest as we do.
Therefore, I design the system(smart phone app) that could give notice to users when they encounter with other users who have the same kind of idea on campus: 1. Upload an idea, and enter some tags which describe the idea. 2. When running across another student whose idea has the same tags, the app sends out a notice. 3. Open mind, walk outside and be inspired!
MOE SPOSAD WORKSHOP, 2012
IDEA BUMP
2. BUMP!
4. NEW BUMP
The app sends notices to users who run across each other when there are same tags between their ideas. Users can check on their phone to see ideas and tags and decide whether to begin a communication or skip.
HOW TO USE /USER INTERFACE
1. THE IDEA & TAG
Users upload their ideas and add some tags to describe the ideas. Tags are used to compare the similarities between two ideas.
Users can check for the recent successful “Bump”.
3. TAG GUIDE
Sometimes people might always tag the words only used in their own field and never “Bump” with people from other fields. “Tag Guide” provides the related tags with the used by different department students after user enter the first tag.
5. HOT TAGS 1
Users can see the popular tags used by different department student. Tagging could be a good way of bridging cross-disciplinary gaps because it is nonhierarchical, flexible and intuitive.
IDEA BUMP
VIDEO PROTOTYPE /SCENARIO To make the concept be understood clearly, I made the video prototype to introduce the scenarios of the concept at the final presentation. The video describes the using process and the ways to increase the chances of successful “Bump”.
For the complete video, please visit: https://vimeo.com/57256602
MOE SPOSAD WORKSHOP, 2012
PRODUCT DESIGN BEIRUT PASS THE COOL WATERCOLOR MELODY TAG ROTARTOAST READYMADE GREEN OLD DAY INTERACTIVE DESIGN SWARM IDEA BUMP