The Floating Jacket offers basic comfort and ease of travel to refugees who are trying to survive. While on their journey to escape their country, refugees have to go up against harsh conditions. The refugee will wear the Floating Jacket throughout their journey. When they are tired or need to rest they can unfold the jacket and inflate to use as a bed or they can simply buckle the arms which will be used as straps to make the jacket into a chair. Not only is the inflatable jacket good for nights when sleeping on the uncomfortable ground, it also works as a raft in case of harsh weather such as heavy rain which can sometimes cause floods. The Floating Jacket is not only useful for refugees. It can also be used for less fortunate people, especially those who are homeless, that find themselves sleeping in the streets. The Floating Jacket may seem like a small piece of comfort but it will make a difference.

One major problem that Syrian refugges coming to Vieanna faces is learning a new language. Syrian's speak Arabic and Austrian's speak German.

We created a board game that is both educational and entetaining, it turns a checkerboard into an 8 by 8 grid of flash German-Arabic flash cards.

We created 8 catagories of helpful words. The catagories are health, food, clothes, house, job, politness, direction, and question words. Each catagory contain 8 words. There are 64 words in total. The German word will be on one side and the Arabic on the other side of the square. The board starts out with just Arabic words on it, a player picks the next move and then correctly translate the word into German, flipping the square over, only then can the player move his or her checker or chess piece. 

The game can be played by two German or Arab kids. They can have fun while they learn. 

When traveling long distances, hygiene becomes an issue for refugees. How does one wash their clothes when they walk for miles and miles every day? Women have an even greater problem; their menstrual cycles. Because of a lack of disposable solutions, many women use reusable rags that they wash, but again, they have no time or place to wash them when they are traveling. Our solution is a hand powered, lightweight and compactable washer/dryer. To wash, you add soap and enough water to fill the bottom of the outer trough (which is a tiny amount compared to a side or top load), and you turn the crank quickly. After another cycle to rinse, you simply slide the locking square into its housing, and you can wring your clothes out with massive mechanical advantage. Though there would be some residual dampness, the clothes would be much more dry than if they were hand-squeezed.

In refugee camps, many kids do not go to school, and end up not having anything entertaining to do. To keep them interested, and also provide physical exercise, we designed and built a play to power machine that generates electricity as the kids play on it. Not only would this reduce their boredom, but it would also empower them: allowing their play to help the people around them. 

We ran into a few problems in the beginning, mostly revolving around originality. We found out that there was already many play to power machines that existed. Some of them were ideas that we had brainstormed before. We discovered swing sets that generated electricity, see saw's, and others like that.  We decided that it would be best if we made our own playground toy, and found a way to have it generate power. 

There is a generator inside one of the boxes, that spins as the kids are balancing from left to right. There is also a ratchet that is connected to the rod, that causes the generator to spin. 

The Backet addresses primarily the issue of stigma against people carrying multiple bags by internalizing storage in the lining of a winter jacket. Beyond addressing stigma, The Backet has the benefit of addressing three additional issues: increased warmth (e.g. a sleeping bag stored in the jacked provides extra insulation), storage, and safekeeping for valuables. We took a jacket and replaced its lining with a fancy fabric with zippered storage. Two huge pockets in the back of the jacket provide space for large items, such as shoes, a sleeping bag or an extra sweater. Four smaller pockets in the front of the jacket provide space for smaller items.

       At the beginning we spent a lot of time jumping around between ideas, not sure which to continue on. However, we liked the idea of "sheet protectors" and manipulating them in such a way so that they could deflect rain but also protect documents. We thought of tent configurations, shawls, and different sleeping bag techniques. In the end though, we decided that a jacket that doubled as a binder was our strongest idea. It would be part conceptual, and part functional with the ability to both show off your documents but also protect them from the elements.

     Throughout this project, we had a lot of crazy and unique ideas. It began with a suitcase, that would split down the middle each side having its own purpose. One side, would house a sleeping-bag and would be used for night time. The other half would have room for both clothes and documents, this second half was more of a mix of a traditional suitcase and a binder. However, once thinking about it for an extended period of time, we ultimately decided against the idea and moved onto a bigger and better idea. We then thought of a tarp, that had pockets on it and would fold up into a binder. We made a successful prototype, but even then decided it needed something more. It originally was also going to have the function of turning into a tent of sorts, with a metal frame that would hold the tarp up. Although we liked this overall idea, we decided to move past the tarp/tent idea because of certain complications. This led us to come to our final idea of a jacket that doubled as a binder, thus giving both you and your important documents protection from the elements. This idea had a lot of potential and after some careful thought, we realized we could make it of materials that were either already in the shop or would be easy to access. With some help from our studio instructor, we came up with the idea of a new kind of fabric that was becoming more and more popular over the internet. This was a plastic fabric, that you could make out of ironing plastics bags ontop of eachother two at a time. It made them tougher and harder to rip, which is perfect for making a jacket. After many trail attempts and a lot of failure, we finally come up with the right sizing for the "pattern pieces." A lot of research had to be done but we found many helpful websites and soon after began to cut out the pieces out of our fabric. After seeing how many holes and tears there were in the imperfect cvs fabric, we decided that there would need to be a second layer ontop. This also served as a way for us to show off the documents being held by the jacket, and would help the homeless people better represent themselves with their possessetions. Once the pieces were cut out and sewn together we printed out the correct size sample documents that were most likely going to be held by the jacket. This finally was another attempt to better replicate what the jacket may actually look like when being worn by a homeless recipient. Overall, this jacket is part functional and part conceptional but not only protects homeless people from the elements but also keeps their documents safe and close.