Francis Lin
Alumni
I am a designer driven by the love of problem-solving. Regardless of the topic or the purpose, a design problem for me is an ongoing puzzle that drives me to better and better solutions, with a reward intrinsic to the process of designing. I derive my designs from the user's needs as well as from real-world constraints and complete them with strong attention to visual design and presentation.
I am a jack of all trades and a master of a couple. Sketching, modeling, rendering, graphic design, and UI prototypes are a few of my strongest areas, but I also have a fairly robust understanding of manufacturing and materials, Arduino and coding, and a pair of steady hands for high fidelity model making.
Most importantly, I am a fast learner with a hunger for new skills and knowledge. With every project, I add new tools to my belt that allows me to solve more and different problems, and doing so is my passion as a designer.
Slate
Slate is a 30x 38.5 x0.56 inch thin platform placed next to a bed that allows the user to park a wheelchair on. The scale will weigh the user and the wheelchair while on the platform. Once the user transfers off the wheelchair, the scale will capture the weight of the wheelchair and find the difference to produce the user’s weight. The recorded weight will be sent to the Slate companion app, which displays and analyze the user’s weight change over time.
Weight is an important vital sign, and weight tracking helps to prevent health complications like diabetes and heart disease. However, weighing is difficult for wheelchair users. Wheelchair users can’t always stand on a bathroom scale; even for those who can stand a little, most have poor balance and can easily trip. Current solutions for weighing people with mobility impairment are expensive, space inefficient, unfriendly to use and not designed for the home.
The lack of affordable and usable options discourages wheelchair users from weighing themselves at home. This project aims to help wheelchair users regain control of their body weight by offering them the ability to independently weigh themselves.
With Slate, the act of weighing oneself is integrated into daily activities. Most wheelchair users will transfer from and to their beds at the beginning and the end of the day. and their weight would be captured during these actions.
Slate Companion App
The Slate companion app helps facilitate the use of the Slate wheelchair scale. It aims to provide a simple and intuitive experience for the user to learn and use the Slate and be in control of their own body weight.
Slate helps display and organize the user's weight change over time, giving useful feedback and insight. The background collecting and syncing of weight data to the Slate app allows the user to get their most updated weight and weight trend any time of the day, anywhere.
Amp
Class: Make 10 | Instructor: Steve Chininis
Amp is a speaker dock that allows for quick and easy switching of phone connections to speakers.
Listening to music can be a social experience. Nowadays, a phone and an external speaker has become our primary method of sharing. But when it comes to quickly switch out who’s music is playing, our options are quite limited and cumbersome. Headphone jacks were a good option but are basically non-existing with the new trend in cellphone design. Bluetooth, on the other hand, can sometimes be hilariously slow and inconsistent when switching between phones.
As an alternative, Induction speakers use induction coils to pick up signals straight from your phone’s speaker. When aligned to your phone’s speaker, the coils can pass that signal to a larger speaker to amplify the sound.
Amp allows you to simply place your phone on the dock, and with the induction coils, Amp can output your music to external speakers without plugging in your phone or connecting to Bluetooth The small form factor and the easy and intuitive set up makes Amp a great option for sharing music with family or friends at home.