Prizewinners Winning fo
2011 student prizewinners Each year the IED presents its most outstanding Student members with a prize for their fi nal university projects. Some of this year’s talented winners, along with their projects, are featured in the next few pages of the journal. The award includes a trophy, certifi cate and a year’s free Graduate membership.
BLAZE! Emily Brooke BSc (Hons) GradIED
BLAZE! I recently graduated from The University of Brighton with a first class degree in product design with professional experience. BLAZE! was my final year major project. Before beginning this however, I had spent the preceding months on a bike, training and successfully completing the 1500km cycle from the tip of Cornwall to the tip of Scotland
for charity. During this time I had noticed the stark difference between cycling in the countryside, being tranquil, beautiful and exhilarating, and the cities, that were dangerous, stressful and exhausting. I therefore began my final year of product design with the theme of ‘urban cycling’.
I explored many problems facing city cyclists, quickly realising that by far the greatest was their safety. 80% of cycling accidents occur when the bike is travelling ahead and a vehicle manoeuvres into them, simply not seen in time. For example, the most common cause of cyclist fatalities occurs when the bike is caught on the inside blind spot of a vehicle, typically a large bus or van, who suddenly decides to turn left, crushes the unseen cyclist riding straight ahead. What would help you as a cyclist in this position to be seen? Even when lit up like a Christmas tree with every bike light on the market, in a bus’s surprisingly large blind spot, you are still invisible.
This was the thinking that brought me to BLAZE! BLAZE! is a small, battery powered device, that attaches to the handlebars and using a laser, projects the familiar symbol of a cyclist down onto
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the road. The bright green, flashing graphic travels ahead of you, warning others of your presence, and in enough time. Just imagine being a bus driver, with a bicycle on your left blind-spot that you cannot see. With BLAZE! you would however see the bright, flashing image down on the road in front of you, before it was too late and you turned left. BLAZE! is designed to increase the footprint, visibility and awareness of the bike on city
Blair Hutton, Design Ambassador, with Emily Brooke
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