Nando was the result of a first-semester studio course. The concept is a phone charger that uses your body's temperature to generate electricity, using a property called the thermo-electric effect.
The task was to create a product that aided in sustainable urban living. Our team's strategy was to focus on the extreme conditions so we could design for their needs. We mapped out different environments, from coastal to poor to war-torn and researched problems that exist in these cities.
We converged on small island cities and looked for the unique problems that these cities endure. Selecting two of these problems, we created several tensions that led us to look at the opportunity space of natural resources. We researched unique natural life and their adaptation to small island cities and contrasted their characteristics with sustainable urban living.
Our research led us to barnacles as a focus point. With their hard shells, and parasitic nature, we wanted to mirror their characteristics in our product. So we set up our criteria from barnacles and factored sustainable urban living.
We brainstormed ideas and looked at the possible environments in urban lifestyle that could afford energy parasites. We analyzed at different types of energy and different ways we could make parasitic products.
We were most intrigued with electricity generation through heat waste so we looked for occurrences in everyday life. The most ubiquitous, and personally most interesting occurrence we found, was body heat.
To make this concept we decided to design a wearable device. We looked at practical the feasibility of clothing and accessories and technical feasibility of thermo-electric generators. We created mock ups of bracelets and tested them until we settled on a design that was flexible but afforded the most flat surface area possible.
We wanted to make a design mock-up of the bracelet to gauge the scale and ergonomics of the design. We cut the pieces out of red oak wood and used a homemade jig to create the precision angles. We coated the parts with outdoor paint and connected each of the pieces using suction-cup tape .
To contrast the complexity of the technology, we wanted to give the product a simple, meaningful name. Nando is a Japanese term, which means ‘how many degrees’. We wanted to couple this name with a simple logo and a package that displays the beauty and simplicity of our product.
Our final concept is a product that works as a bracelet on the body, but also can unwrap and adhere to other hot surfaces, such as vents, windows and coffee cups.