Here Are Some Thinds Relating To
Past PDE/PD/MDE Field Trips:

Third Year Joint PDE/PD Field Trips:

New England (1990)

New England (1992)

San Francisco (1993)

Central Europe (1994)

New York (1995)

Year 3 PD/PDE Field Trip To Boston

(October 1990)

Day 1: Staggered off the plane and witnessed a subway mugging after a mere 2 hours in Boston. Up to the top floor of the Hancock Building to view the city from 60 floors. Felt drained after pasta eating competition. Dave won ...

Day 2: Breakfast at Dunkin Donuts (where else?). Off to Boston Common for some serious shrubbery, then the Aquarium, tanking sharks, turtles, piranhas and general mutants of the fish world. Flipper and Kiki provided hours of fun at the Dolphinarium, and sailing was a far from ideal subject to demonstrate the delights of a sensaround 360 degree cinema at the Omni-theatre (felt seasick ...).

Day 3: Serious work starts. Visited consultancies. Leather Breakfast (but seriously ...) told us their struggles, and Design Continuum became somewhat frosty after Norman explained our involvement with Converse. Reebok are premier clients of Continuum - ho hum! MIT are a computer lab where students play about on expensive gear all day and sponsors buy them videos and compact disc players - needless to say our department is currently seeking sponsorship!

Day 4: The Converse presentation. Met the Boss ant the design team. Four $600 prizes were presented to the winners after a tour of the factory where size 22 boots were being made! Another consultancy, another slide show, another forty winks. A night of celebration (overindulgence) was had, leading to a somewhat queasy journey the next day for some ...

Day 5: Dave seemed to suffer from Motion Discomfort on the way to Pittsfield (GE Plastics - we are talking BIG!). Saw a plastic house "influenced" by that ol' fave Charles Rennie M, featuring remote controls beyond belief and electric LCD curtains ... Despite constant requests for Macattack, a stop off at Wendy's barely seemed to satisfy anyone's hunger. Visited the Shaker Village at Hancock (the people who invented vacuum cleaners, clothes pegs, circular saws and celibacy (and Goretex!!)).

Day 6: Rhode Island. Hey ho, let's go. Arrived at Providence in the evening and met the students - a diligent bunch. A potluck food party, followed by indulgent festivities in the "tap room" upstairs. Befriending students for their accommodation was even easier than expected - a smashing bunch!

Day 7: Perhaps Koto Engineering holds the most memories for some of us ... every one of them unpleasant. Hysterics were never far off, while their manager animatedly described the workings and manufacture of Relay Switches. We were shown the Automotive Design part of the School of Design, where slick renderings and plasticine cars fascinated at least one member of the class. Everybody was free to express their rights as a consumer and much was consumed (esp. Woolworths - at least 10 times sleazier than Britain's - selling gerbils, mousetraps and inflatable pumpkins ...). Time to break the news to the students that we are, in fact, vagrant for the night - most are willing to comply...

Day 8: A brisk drive to Boston Airport. Take the subway back to Boston for more consumption (bucket price CDs, baseball bats, swatches and Big Trousers). Frisbee Frolics on Boston Common finished off the day with everyone feeling dead miserable ... Managed to take the wrong train to the airport just to excite things up a bit, and ended up flying back Executive Class ... the tortures of being plied with champagne and fresh strawberries and cream ...

Andrew, December 1990.

PD/PDE Joint Study Trip To San Francisco

(October 1993)

Introduction:

Devised to expose 3rd year students to the unique design, engineering and manufacturing culture of the west coat USA. Using San Francisco as our base, we travelled around the Bay Area, visiting companies and individuals who are considered to be the world leaders in their fields of expertise.

Our group was made up of: 40 students, 4 faculty members and 1 journalist. We had unprecedented access to key companies, their personal and their working environments. This afforded us unprecedented insight into their work practices, methodologies and the concerns.

The faculty members included:

• Graham Green (PDE)
• Peter Fossick (PD)
• Lynne O'Neil (Industrial Liaison Officer)
• Bruce Wood (PDE)

Targeted Companies:

IDEO Product Development

Matrix, David Kelly Design and ID Two merged in 1992 to form IDEO. With 3 locations in Palo Alto and one in San Francisco, IDEO are international design consultants with offices in Europe, US and Japan. IDEO specialise in total product design including engineering, human factors, and interface; with specialisation in hi-tech consumer products. IDEO have developed products such as VPL's Virtual Reality System and the Apple PowerBook.

Lunar Design

The Vice President and head of product development at Lunar Design was kind enough to conduct a tour of this medium sized design office. Lunar are Product Design/Engineering consultants in the Palo Alto area whose clients include Apple. Lunar design is one of the premier design consultants in the Bay Area, whose work is a bench mark for hi-tech and leisure products. They did much of the design work on the LC range of computers for Apple Macintosh.

Frog Design

One of the world premier design consultants with a global network of offices in the US, Japan and Europe. Frog Design is a major pace setter in the world of product design with clients that include Alessi, Olivetti and Apple. The winner of numerous international awards, Frog Design has moved from a young ideals led consultant to become a mature ideals led company, highly respected for its pioneering and innovative design.

NASA Aimes Research Center

The NASA research center is the birthplace of the American space programmes; these include the Apollo and Saturn missions, Voyager, the Space Shuttle, HOTOL the Stratocruiser and planned manned missions to Mars. Boasting the largest wind tunnel in the world the NASA Aimes Research Center has designed and developed both military and civilian aircraft. Since the 1960s NASA has been one of the major driving forces behind the technology explosion in the Bay Area.

US Wind Farms

Wind turbine energy generation is the central commercial activity at the Altamont Pass installations. This the world's largest wind farm facility, able to produce the electricity requirements to service 10,000 homes. Originally set up on tax incentives in the 1970s the original experimental facility has undergone a morphosis to become a highly computerised commercial generator of electricity.

Tandem Computers

Manufacturer of top end computer workstations, file servers and mainframe computers; utilising UNIX operating systems. They have an extensive manufacturing operation in Palo Alto. They produce computers for Silicon Graphics and companies like Visa and American Express.

Apple Computers

Designers and manufacturers of the Apple Macintosh hardware and software. Recently the company has launched the Apple Newton, a personal digital assistant using handwriting interface; a new development in computer interface.

Stanford University

One of California's most prestigious educational institutions. We have established a contact through the head of the engineering programme. We were able to gain insight into the working practices ion the post graduate course and their mechanisms for teaching.

Dannanxi Studios

This company grew out of George Lucas' special effects team that worked on the famous Star Wars films. Dannanxi was founded by Ian McKaig, an ex-GSA student, their expertise is in the use of computers and robotics used in the production of special effects, interactive media and computer games. Recent films which include this technology are Aliens and Jurassic Park. They are currently working on numerous film and multimedia projects.

Achievements:

• Exposure of the students to the very best of design, engineering and manufacture in the world; examining the process of design and development in unique and highly influential areas of technology.
• We forged new links with companies, with the aim of establishing stateside student placement programmes, in companies and industries which are not so well represented in the UK and Europe.
• Encouraged a global view of the design activities of product designers and product design engineers, providing an insight into the diverse employment opportunities for their graduate skills.
• Developed the international profile of Glasgow University and Glasgow School of Art, with its degree courses in Product Design and Product Design Engineering.
• An article written by Winfried Scheuer appeared in the prestigious German publication: Form Magazine, featuring a day by day account of the study visit a profile of the department.

The staff team worked hard to ensure that this trip was a success and that the students were given all the opportunity to have unique and invaluable experience. The students worked equally hard to ensure that the aims and objectives of the study visit were achieved. The students commitment to this element of the course and the recognition of its importance is born out by their considerable financial expenditure on the trip and the energy and enthusiasm they exercised whilst in San Francisco.

Much of the success of this study visit is due to the support of the Department and the recognition of all parties that this element of the course is a necessary and much needed perspective within the unique programme of study offered by the degree programmes of Product Design and Product Design Engineering.

Peter Fossick (22/2/94)

Here are some Photographs to give you a feel for what the trip involved.

Site-seeing round the Bay Area.

Chilling-out at the Café Mac. (... Clearly not used to all that sunshine!).

Visiting professional design teams in their working environment.

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