This graduation project was initiated as the continuation of Rixt Siebinga’s thesis: “The redesign of a Solar Home System - An expandable and understandable solar home system for rural Cambodian families". During this project, her results were evaluated and additional focus topics (that defined this project's design goal) were identified. The first six months were conducted in Cambodia, after which the design was finalized in the Netherlands. The redesign of Kamworks’ Solar Home Systems was developed based on the following goal: “Making clean energy more accessible to rural Cambodia”. Four focus topic were defined that needed to be tackled in order to achieve this mission: modularity, expandability, transportation and supply. The eventual result is an expandable and combinable Solar Home System series. The ability to expand a system anticipates to the growing energy demands of rural households. The integrated design can be compactly transported by motorcycle, allowing the supply of clean energy to the remote areas of Cambodia. Moreover, costs were reduced to make sure a higher percentage of Cambodia’s inhabitants can afford renewable energy. Throughout the project local shops, factories and markets were visited to explore the possibilities of the context. Prototypes were made and validated with users to ensure that the outcome would be feasible and contribute to the vision of the company: improving the rural areas of Cambodia. This thesis is an overview of the actions and considerations that led to the design of a next generation Solar Home System series. ... Read more

BACKGROUND: The concept of comfort is one way for the growing airline market to differentiate and build customer loyalty. This work follows the idea that increasing the contact area between human and seat can have a positive effect on comfort [5, 6, 7]. OBJECTIVE: To improve comfort, reduce weight and optimise space used, a human contour shaped seat shell and cushioning was developed. METHODS: First the most common activities, the corresponding postures and seat inclination angles were defined. The imprints of these postures on a rescue mat were 3D scanned and an average human contour curve was defined. The outcome was transferred to a prototype seat that was used to test the effect on perceived comfort/discomfort and pressure distribution. RESULTS: The resulting human contour based prototype seat has comfort and discomfort scores comparable to a traditional seat. The prototype seat had a significantly lower average pressure between subjects' buttocks and the seat pan over a traditional seat. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that it is possible to design a seat pan and backrest based on the different contours of study subjects using 3D scan technology. However, translating the 3D scans into a prototype seat also showed that this can only be seen as a first step; additionally biomechanical information and calculations are needed to create ergonomic seats. Furthermore, it is not possible to capture all different human shapes and postures and translate these into one human contour shape that fits all activities and all human sizes. ... Read more