Lab+2

__**Lab 2: Design for the Other 90%**__

__1. Which product interests you the most, and why?__

While looking through the low cost design solutions, I began by looking through the designs that are utilized in Asia due to my familiarity with the continent. The first product that really caught my eye was the Aquastar Plus, which acts as a filter to unsafe water. As I mentioned earlier, I have lived and traveled through a number of Asian countries. Having spent a good portion of my childhood in Malaysia, I completely understand how essential water filtration is considering the questionable safety of a lot of the drinking water. Especially in remote villages, clean drinking water is often hard to come by. The Aquastar’s ability to filter larger batches of water would be highly beneficial to smaller communities and villages further out in the Malaysian countryside.

Furthermore, Aquastar was designed to be sold to a more higher end market of consumers in order to fund the use of the Aquastar water filtration in developing countries. I am assuming that through such a program, the use of the Aquastar has reached Borneo, India, Mexico, Peru, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Australia, New Zealand and of course Malaysia. Such a design could easily reach even more countries with issue of unsafe drinking water. While we may not realize it, it is important to remember how essential clean and safe drinking water really is.

__2. Which category would interest you to research further for your group project, and why?__

While all the categories seem worthy of further research, I would personally further my research in issues concerning the government, crime and economic policy. Specifically I would focus on the government and economic policy as I believe governments should act on levels that represent the population while also aiming to be more open and honest to the public. Government policies often affect the social atmosphere and a society’s behaviour. In order for a society to be productive and constructive, I believe it needs the encouragement and support of a government with the people’s concerns in mind.