Design for disaster reflection

I found this assignment to be an extremely good learning experience. It was a very interesting and refreshing assignment. We often have briefs that feel frivolous and not that beneficial to the community but rather just adding more “stuff”, possessions, to people’s homes. This assignment felt as if we were really making a useful and beneficial product that had a purpose and in that respect I really enjoyed the assignment
I not only have I learnt about bushfires, the damage they can cause and what problems arise, which was interesting in itself. i found that while reading on the internet problems that occurred and experiences that people felt, it was actually the person interviews and firsthand accounts that were the most useful because you got a really good understanding of what it was like to be in a bushfire. Which is an experience that is not imaginable and the issues that arise are not the typical smoke inhalation and heat problems but many other unexpected problems that both the firemen and the survivors experience.
What I mostly had a learning experience about was materials. Due to the product I had to make I had to find out which materials would be able to withstand temperatures of up to 1000 degrees. There are not very many that will do that, and those that do are expensive and often quite harmful for the environment. Also while a lot of these materials can withstand that temperature and exists on kilns and other high heat ovens, they are not able to withstand the wind and change in temperature of the outside environment. I feel that i have grown in my knowledge about these materials and have learnt about insulation effects of different materials as well as heat resistance, expansion and thermal co-efficient.
One area that I felt that I was really lacking in is my knowledge about how the different materials interact with each other the environment also the electrical engineering of it all. I felt that this assignment, while the concept and form was to be made by a designer and maybe the initial material choices should be made by the designer. The actual material specification and figuring out the electronics was more of an engineer’s job then a designer. In this sense i really struggled trying to grasp the concepts of material science and electronics.

(for pictures please refer to submit folder, cause the i just didnt manage to make the picture load)