Some thoughts i had in building the Personal range finder.

They are a pretty good overveiw of my thinking when building though.

 

1. useful-- to design a object that had application and utility without the
need of much explanation;

2. cost--based on technology that is off-the-shelf;

3. scaleable-- to be able to be easily customizable to the individual     owner; and

4. production cost based on labor hours--make the concept
essentially open source so the actual implementation would generate the cost and design advancements.

The major challenges with this device are:
functionality--how well it actually works.;
budget--keeping it under a specific amount, in this case $100;
dissemination of the device--having a network of use to get feedback.

These are the issues that I try to keep in mind when designing an object. The current mode of design and product understanding lags behind the technological implementations that now exist. Most industry and design functions are from an industrial revolution mind-set where achievement and advancement were only possible through industries of scale. This is no longer true for 70 percent of the product market. The ability to have flexible applications and devices has blossomed with the advent of dependencies based on software and accessibility instead of the justification of large centralized labor and the modern day consumer it created.

It is once again feasible to try and design for the individual in a cost effective manner or better yet have the individual be able to customize their devices by themselves. This design technique also is able to allow for the ability to reuse and retrofit technologies to new uses cutting down on production cost and waste. The job of the designer is now not to produce a mode of function but to let the individual function better in their own mode. This point is especially true in the field of medical and physical assistance where the vast majority of problems are as individualized as the people themselves. With every individual a new implementation of a device needs to be designed and built.  The real solutions will come from the ability to implement product systems that will allow the individual to easily harness the power of a device while it adapts to their own personal life.