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.

    The problem that my sock dryer aims to solve, is that the homeless, in the rain, wear wet socks the whole day which makes them very prone to foot borne illnesses. My dryer aims to solve this issue. It utilizes centrifugal force and a powerful gear system to fling water out of the socks and leave them barely damp.

    I believe that this important to the homeless and to society. To prevent the homeless from getting sick is huge for them, since they don't have allot of money they may have to give up some of their daily food income to pay for the treatment. Even worse, they may not get treated and the illness and foot growth can get worse, even to the point where their legs need to get amputated. The sight of a man/women with a horrible foot growth or even no feet, can be unpleasing for the rest of society which is where the sock dryer can help.

What is the problem you are trying to solve? 

How did you decide to work on this problem?

Why do you think problem and your solution are important?

What is your solution?

I am trying to fix the privacy in the showers of the pine street inn. Their showers have no privacy to it. Also the homeless people are kicked out at 7:00 am, and it might rain  and homeless people could get infected.

When I was at the pine street inn I saw that there was no privacy in the showers. I imagined if I were lived in this homeless shelter I would want some privacy.

I think the problem and the solution are important because if your in the rain without any protection you could get infected. but if you did have this protection there is a less likely chance that you will get infected.

My solution is to make a shower curtain and a raincoat put together. that way you wouldn't have to carry 2 seperate things home with you.

In the Easing the Street studio, we all had the same goal: to design and create a device that would make being homeless either in or outside of the shelter easier. We visited a homeless shelter in the beginning of the first two weeks, and talked to several people who work closely with homeless people one of whom was also formerly homeless. Homeless shelters are incredibly helpful and important, but upon visiting it was made clear that homeless people lose much of their autonomy there. There were extremely strict restrictions on when people were allowed to come and leave, how much they could eat, what they could do while at the shelter, etc.

Our team came together and knew that we wanted to focus on giving homeless people their autonomy back. After a few days of brainstorming, diagramming, mocking-up, and discussion, we decided to work on a sensory replacement/modification helmet that would give the user the ability to replace 3/5 of their senses (sight, hearing, and scent). Our final project accomplished this through using a viewing port with adjustable filters, a small tray placed directly underneath the viewing port that could insert any scent, and a 3-piece plastic ear cavern that replicates the sound of the ocean.

This was a thought-provoking project not only in that it straddled the line between conceptual and practical, but there were deeper layers behind our intent as well as our final product. Yes, our entire aim was to give homeless people autonomy through giving them control of their immediate surroundings. But we still end up being the ones dictating what their choices were.