IH02-BryanBoling

From IEOR 170 Spring 2007

Persuasive Design for Campus, City, and Community

Project Proposal

As a working college student I often find myself in such a rush that I hardly have time for breakfast, lunch, or even dinner, which are essential elements of staying healthy and maintaining a high level of energy needed for extensive study sessions. When I can’t make it back to my apartment to make a meal I’ll try to plan ahead and bring a cold sandwich, or possibly a few granola bars, even though what I really want is a nice hot meal. For this reason I propose developing a portable system, which would allow the user to heat up water or canned soups anywhere they may be. With this type of device it would be possible for the user to have Ramen on the go, without having to take a break from studying for meals.

For the scope of this project, my target user group will be college age students, or people who are just too busy to sit down to a home cooked meal. Presently this would include both males and females between the ages of 18 to 30, who live a very fast-paced lifestyle. Here at the University of California, Berkeley this would comprise the student populace, as well as the numerous researchers who work long hours in labs where hot food is never readily accessible. In general this user group tends to be very work oriented, and more often than not, they can be too busy for a home-cooked meal everyday. The bottom line is that this user group needs to eat, and more specifically, they want to eat a hot meal, because a hot meal makes you feel warm and satisfied, especially during a long day of work. As a UC Berkeley student myself, I know I enjoy a hot bowl of Ramen noodles, and this portable heating system would allow me to partake in this luxury wherever I may be working.

In order to consider this project a success, I will need to develop a portable system, which means it must be small enough to easily fit into a back-pack, or other comparable carrying device, and it has to be able to heat enough water/liquid for the user to make a packet of Ramen noodles. As mentioned earlier the target users of this product will be college age students, so the primary location this device would be used would be in computer labs, study rooms, and other buildings where work is being done. However, this portable heating unit could also be used at any number of places throughout campus, as a method of making a quick meal between classes. Having a hot bowl of tomato soup or Ramen noodles could be an ideal lunch as you relax on Memorial Glade waiting for your next class to start, and this would certainly be possible within the scope of this project.

Since this device would most likely be transported in a bag where it would be constantly jostled around and also used outdoors where it could be dropped or get slightly wet, the heating unit would have to be very durable, lightweight, and of course easy to use. Although my target audience is college educated, nobody wants to think about how to make a meal when there are copious other concerns that are more pressing. For this reason, I believe the device should be operated using either a simple on/off switch or a dial for more accurate temperate control, but there should only be a single controller on the entire unit.

Despite being a relatively new idea to me, there are a number of similar products on the market today, ranging from self-heating Army rations to consumer hot plates, and even a wide cornucopia of portable camp stoves. Although all of these items produce a similar function, I propose developing a device that fits the needs of my target user group more closely than anything on the market today. For instance, the self-heating Army food rations are lightweight and portable, but they would only be good for Ramen noodles and they use a chemical reaction to produce the heat to cook with, which would probably be unacceptable for the college crowd, especially here at Berkeley. The portable camp stoves all use propane or butane fuel to produce an open flame, which would be impractical and unsafe in most cases for my target audience. Finally, the majority of the hot plates on the market today require a power outlet for use, and tend to be a bit bulkier than would be carried everyday by a workaholic student.

Figure 1 below shows a rough idea of one possible solution for the portable heating unit described throughout this proposal. As you can see, it would be powered by either batteries placed on the underside of the device, or by an alternative outlet which could be utilized with a laptop power cord. The dial used to control the heating coils would be very simple with markings clearly indicating the off and max heating positions, and most importantly the heating unit would be approximately 4”x4”x2”, which is definitely small enough to be carried from place to place.

Figure 1. Proposed Solution for Portable Heating Unit.

Referenced URL’s:

http://www.tempratech.com/press1.html (Army Rations)

http://www.prospectorgrillit.com/camp_stoves.htm (Camp Stoves)

http://www.target.com (Variety of Hot Plates)