Students Without Borders
For the first part of this project we had the opportunity to actually propose what the product of this project will be. Here is my proposal:
TARGET:
Homelessness in San Diego is a huge complication, not only to the city in political ways but to the actual people as well. These poor unfortunate souls are indeed people, and ones we can help. With most of them being unemployed, mentally disadvantaged or without enough money to really go anywhere they are forced to be moved around from place to place until they find a spot they can be comfortable on the street but once they do, they are forced to withstand the elements of San Diego. Our harbor paradise of downtown has amazing weather for the tourists who come for the hot and warming sun, but to the 3,985 homeless people in San Diego this paradise can become a sweltering hell.
PROPOSAL:
With this project being aimed at helping people in need I was hoping to be able to do something that could help us locally and I feel this problem is a great one to address. Even though there are a million ways to alleviate this predicament and to incorporate it into our new project, not a single one is easy; especially keeping in mind the limited budget we have.. Trying to think of an affordable way we can tackle this problem has been quite a journey but I was able to narrow it down to one idea. I think the best way to help this community, while keeping in mind the limitations we have, would be by designing a foldable, UV protective shelter that we could distribute to organizations downtown so they can get the product out to the homeless community. The product would work like a foldable laundry basket or your windshield sun reflector, folding into a manageable size that anyone could have. When opened the product would fold outward into a box shaped tent with a little zipper flap as a door. The top would be made of a UV protected fabric while the rest would be made of a more breathable fabric letting any heat come out. Looking at it from an academic perspective we could incorporate the product into class by studying the chemistry behind UV waves and how they can affect us with long term exposure like the homeless population is.
IDEAS ON THE MANUFACTURING PROCESS
To make these we would need foldable wires, a thin but durable fabric similar to that of camping tents and use a UV ray protective spray for the top. After we obtain the materials needed we would move into the designing and prototyping phase before we put all the fabrics on. After two or three prototypes we can make the final products and give them to homeless shelters or distribute them ourselves. The end product would look a lot like this:
DISTRIBUTION:
Some of the organizations we can contact to see if we can have them help us distribute the product is the Regional Task Force on the Homeless Inc, the Urban Angels and many others. This product production would take from approximately four months. I think one of the hardest parts of this doing this for the project would be speaking to the SD local government to see if we can actually do this (seeing how the Homeless are a big political discussion lately). The materials need to make a one shelter are: about 24 feet of spring roll wire to make one tent, one tent canvas to use as the fabric (or cheaper other fabric) and a UV protective spray.
PRICE:
If we were to aim to give a shelter to all the homeless people in downtown San Diego the cost would approximately be:
$119,550 of Spring-Steel wire
http://www.amazon.com/Stainless-Unpolished-Finish-Precision-Tolerance/dp/B00CNLXNW6
$495 of canvas
$24 of UV protective x 10 = 240
About $120,285 for the 3,985 homeless people in Downtown SD.
Some other questions or parts of the project to look into are:
Thank you guys for looking at and considering my project proposal.
TARGET:
Homelessness in San Diego is a huge complication, not only to the city in political ways but to the actual people as well. These poor unfortunate souls are indeed people, and ones we can help. With most of them being unemployed, mentally disadvantaged or without enough money to really go anywhere they are forced to be moved around from place to place until they find a spot they can be comfortable on the street but once they do, they are forced to withstand the elements of San Diego. Our harbor paradise of downtown has amazing weather for the tourists who come for the hot and warming sun, but to the 3,985 homeless people in San Diego this paradise can become a sweltering hell.
PROPOSAL:
With this project being aimed at helping people in need I was hoping to be able to do something that could help us locally and I feel this problem is a great one to address. Even though there are a million ways to alleviate this predicament and to incorporate it into our new project, not a single one is easy; especially keeping in mind the limited budget we have.. Trying to think of an affordable way we can tackle this problem has been quite a journey but I was able to narrow it down to one idea. I think the best way to help this community, while keeping in mind the limitations we have, would be by designing a foldable, UV protective shelter that we could distribute to organizations downtown so they can get the product out to the homeless community. The product would work like a foldable laundry basket or your windshield sun reflector, folding into a manageable size that anyone could have. When opened the product would fold outward into a box shaped tent with a little zipper flap as a door. The top would be made of a UV protected fabric while the rest would be made of a more breathable fabric letting any heat come out. Looking at it from an academic perspective we could incorporate the product into class by studying the chemistry behind UV waves and how they can affect us with long term exposure like the homeless population is.
IDEAS ON THE MANUFACTURING PROCESS
To make these we would need foldable wires, a thin but durable fabric similar to that of camping tents and use a UV ray protective spray for the top. After we obtain the materials needed we would move into the designing and prototyping phase before we put all the fabrics on. After two or three prototypes we can make the final products and give them to homeless shelters or distribute them ourselves. The end product would look a lot like this:
DISTRIBUTION:
Some of the organizations we can contact to see if we can have them help us distribute the product is the Regional Task Force on the Homeless Inc, the Urban Angels and many others. This product production would take from approximately four months. I think one of the hardest parts of this doing this for the project would be speaking to the SD local government to see if we can actually do this (seeing how the Homeless are a big political discussion lately). The materials need to make a one shelter are: about 24 feet of spring roll wire to make one tent, one tent canvas to use as the fabric (or cheaper other fabric) and a UV protective spray.
PRICE:
If we were to aim to give a shelter to all the homeless people in downtown San Diego the cost would approximately be:
$119,550 of Spring-Steel wire
http://www.amazon.com/Stainless-Unpolished-Finish-Precision-Tolerance/dp/B00CNLXNW6
$495 of canvas
$24 of UV protective x 10 = 240
About $120,285 for the 3,985 homeless people in Downtown SD.
Some other questions or parts of the project to look into are:
- Bringing in professionals to critique?
- Would we just distribute or talk to SD gov.?
- What would happen if Homeless did something illegal in the tent
Thank you guys for looking at and considering my project proposal.
After creating the proposal my project got chosen for the bigger project. Moving forward with it my group began to work on the tent, the instructable page and our team brochure. Here are the links to the websites for our products: