Red Dot Design Museum

Well today was a Tuesday which means we have no school all day, man going back to a DAAP schedule is gonna be rough. On today's free day we decided to head out to Essen and visit the RedDot design museum, which is located inside a building at an old Coal Mine, very cool. RedDot is an industrial design based organization that gives out annual awards to top products on the market. This was by far the best design museum I have been too, it is pretty much strictly industrial design. It was four floors and a basement of endless products to look at. I highly reccommend that anybody who is in Germany and interested in I.D. try and make a trip out to this museum.

Getting Technical

So for our project this semester in Wuppertal we are designing a shower radio. For the first month we have been strictly doing research and studying different shower radio products that each student has purchased. We have gone more in depth to materials and processes than we usually do in Cincinnati. I think overall this will prove to be a very vital experience. I'm excited to start thinking about the smaller intricacies of a design like leaving an indentation for product sticker placement so it doesn't just get randomly placed on in production. Thinking through small features like this and how to incorporate them into part of your design as opposed to simply putting them on as a last step. Try looking at the underside of a product next time you use it and it is often a dead giveaway to how detailed the designers and engineers went into making the product. Anyways enough rambling, this is a SolidWorks rebuild of the shower radio that I built. The render isn't the best but it was finished at four in the morning so bare with me.

BARCELONA!!!

We recently found out that we have the a week off from school. We thought there was no better chance to do some traveling during the school year than this, so we are headed to Barcelona for 6 days. Should be pretty fun.

Cologne or Koln

Koln Dom Church. It is quite an intimidating building and makes you feel very small and meaningless. Also it takes climbing quite a lot of stairs to get to the top. This was a fun easy one day trip only about a forty minute train ride away and of course free train ride again for students.

Looking to Travel

The last month that we are here we will be traveling around Europe. Anybody who has any input on what they think are must destinations please feel free to comment or e-mail me.

Amsterdam

About three weeks ago we decided to make a trip to Amsterdam. We took the train all the way into the Amsterdam Centraal and to our surprise it was a national holiday. We pulled in at about 9:30 pm and everywhere you looked people were wearing Dutch orange and every street in the city was closed down for two days. It was shocking walking into that without expecting it. We hadn't booked a hotel yet and the first three places we tried we were told "Good luck you will be sleeping on the streets tonight, It's a national holiday." Somehow we ended up finding a hotel though and then we joined in the festivities for the rest of the night. Amsterdam had a very cool layout to the city. Rivers everywhere and people seemed to always be outside enjoying just being outside, there were coffee shops and local restaurants lining the rivers and every street with people hanging outside it was very cool. Overall I really enjoyed the trip there it was almost otherworldly. Things there are acceptable that aren't anywhere else that I have ever been, it almost makes you rethink everything you were ever taught is right or wrong. A perfect example of this is the photo above in the park. Yep you guessed it, thats an outdoor urinal. I guess that's Amsterdam.

side note- the stairs at our hostel were quite steep.

A slightly larger soccer match

One Saturday we decided to take train into Dusseldorf to watch a soccer match. Which for us as student is very easy all travel is free and it is only about a half hour train ride. It was crazy as we were pulling in. There were swat cars all over the place. The trains were full of people drinking beer and wearing Fortuna red. Speaking of the beer public drinking is highly more acceptable and even expected. When we got off of the train to go to the stadium there were shopping carts that had been put out at the station, what were they for? Beer bottles and lots of them, ha. Anyways this was quite exciting as well to see soccer on a larger scale however it was wasn't the top division, I can't imagine how intense that must be knowing how many swat cars were lining the streets just for a division 2 game.

Local Wuppertal Soccer Match

People here really are crazy about there soccer, even down to the small local teams. I have never been a soccer fan but I can appreciate the excitement of being at a game. This was the local team in Wuppertal who are in the third division and from the groans of the fans who calm their nerves by slamming beers and cursing they will be moving down a division after this season. Anyways this was my first taste of European soccer even on a small level it was fun to experience.

My Apartment

WUPPERTAL

It's time that I start this blog fresh again. No better chance than now.... or one month ago. I have been in Germany now for over one month and figured that documenting what happens here in my design classes as well as life in general could be good for me and for everyone else who is wondering what I am doing. I promise it doesn't involve strictly drinking beer. Anyways I will do my best to keep these posts updated somewhat regularly. Hope you enjoy.