Week three marked the end of BUSI 220 and the start of EDES 200 and EDES 301. EDES 200 is an engineering design class focused on how Japan has solved its engineering design problems differently than the rest of the world because they developed independently for a long time. As part of exploring this we have to find and identify 10 examples of unique engineering design solutions and write about them on digication. So far I have their bike racks, which you place your bike up onto; the microwave that acts as both a microwave and a toaster oven in one; the umbrella driers, which you can move your umbrella in to remove any excess water; and the napkins/bibs they give you before you eat at a Ramen shop. In class we also talked about how Japanese engineering has developed to be much more efficient than American engineering due to their significantly reduced access to natural resources.
Then in EDES 301 we have been working on developing our basic arduino skills and so far have covered the use of variable resistors, LEDs, buzzers, and photoresistors. Then on the conceptual side we have looked at how to design PCBs (printed circuit boards) and learned about converting binary to hexadecimal and base 10.
Homework has picked up a little bit but the professors gave us Thursday and Friday with no in person class so we could go complete a scavenger hunt like thing. On this scavenger hunt we visited the Lovot cafe, a cafe with these little lovable robots that are supposed to replace pets; DAWN avatar cafe, a cafe manned mostly by robots controlled by remote pilots who are often bedridden people without a way to easily interact socially; Akihabara the electric city, where we had to look for technology that was developed differently than in the US; the TOTO toilet showroom, which, side note, my parents came and visited and they wanted to come on this part of the scavenger hunt and they had an absolute blast for some reason I’m to young to understand; then finally we visited a public bathroom that had walls which are usually transparent but become opaque when someone walks in.
Lastly, this weekend some of us in the program went to go visit the World Expo in Osaka. The world expo this year was held in the World’s largest wooden structure and contained pavilions intricately designed from every country to showcase their heritage and culture. It was a bunch of fun to walk around, try all the different food and learn more about countries I had never been to!
Next week we are going to start working on our prototype to solve some issue with accessibility in Japan. Accessibility has been a huge focus for Japanese innovation recently as they have a rapidly aging population and need as much help as possible to support it.