Domino Interface

This coming March 14-16 is the International Home and Housewares 2010 Show here in Chicago. As part of the show, the association has the 17th annual student design competition. This year 283 students throughout the United States submitted their designs. I am proud to say that my son, Brian did pretty well and got an Honorable Mention Award and got a small sum of money to pay for school. Brian and his colleague designed the MWLUG 2009 fixture that greeted attendees last year. Starting with the MWLUG Conference 2010 we are hoping to make it an annual competition similar to what the IHA has done for the past 17 years. The winning designs will be built for the conference. The design competition will be divided into two categories, one for graphics and the other for design. International Home and Housewares 2010 Student Design Competition

It has been a great two days at the MWLUG conference. I could not believe how tired I was after the conference. I actually lost weight. For me this has been a great experience. It took much more of my time than I expected. However, this was a team effort involving IBM staff, other Business Partners, Sponsors, and IBM customers to make it happen. The volunteers and the staff at the IBM Center in Chicago including Donna Hunter, Alan White, and Joanna Bick were great. Thanks to all the speakers who presented at the conference some of who which came from great distance under bad weather conditions. Thanks to Ed Brill for flying all the way from Australia overnight to present the keynote. I hope he enjoys his Buddha and add it to his collection. Attendance was very good. Almost everyone came. Unfortunately, there was a few that had to leave just when they got to the conference because of emergencies. There were a few who could not make it at all because of issues. It seems like...

The design fixture for the MWLUG Conference is almost complete. The team had to redesign the fixture because the design could not hold the weight of the structure. I had to put on my old engineering hat and help the team redesign the frame of the fixture. However, in doing so we had an accident that was almost disastrous. The redesign required replacing certain parts of the fixture with bigger components. During the replacement process we had to solder on new components. Even thought we were extremely careful and covered the entire area with aluminum foil, a slip of the propane torch by yours truly set the fixture on fire. Luckily the material does not burn that easily and we were able to put out the fire. If not, all we had to show at the conference was a few sticks and tubing.

The MWLUG Green Project team have completed the final design of the signage fixture for the MWLUG Conference 2009. The next task is to build the fixture using the selected materials. We had a bit of problem trying to get the materials that we needed. The minimum lot size of our main material, X-board, that we were required to purchase was incredibility large, 100 sheets which would have been $8,000.00. Therefore, we had to find alternative materials that would replace the X-board. The total cost of the new material is about $50.00. If I had it my way, it would have been free. All the materials for the fixture are manufactured within the United States or locally here in Chicagoland area. It will be made from materials that have been recycled, is renewable, or can be recycled. The replacement material uses glue made from corn starch grown in the Midwest. Since the materials are purchased all locally, we saved a significant amount of carbon emission required for shipping. We w...

One of the major goals of the MWLUG Green Project is to carefully track the amount of carbon emissions that the team saved from being emitted into the atmosphere by using online collaboration tools like Lotus Quickr during the design process. We used a variety of online collaboration tools including video conference, instant messaging, file sharing, and online meeting. We calculate the amount of carbon emissions that was eliminated based on the carbon emission footprint of each car driven by the team and the distance that they would have traveled to meet. Every week, we provide an update on the MWLUG Green Project site http://mwluggreenproject.blogspot.com on the amount of carbon emissions that was eliminiated by using online collaboration tools. So far as of July 2, 2009 we have eliminated 851 lbs of carbon emissions that would otherwise have been emitted. If you would like to determine the carbon emissions of your own vehicle you can go to this site to calculate your emission. htt...

The MWLUG Green Project team have completed their 3-D design models of the MWLUG conference fixture. The final design is getting very close and should resemble one of the models or a combination of the three models that they have built. If you would like to see how the current models look like you visit the MWLUG Green Project at: http://mwluggreenproject.blogspot.com

Last Monday, the MWLUG Green Project team was able to get a chance to visit the IBM Center in Chicago as part of our GRANITE Lotus User Group June meeting. It gave the team a chance to view the IBM Center in person so that they had a better idea of the surroundings as they develop their designs. Here is a more detailed description of their thoughts and visit. http://mwluggreenproject.blogspot.com/2009/06/ibm-innovation-center-visit.html#comments

The industrial design interns are on schedule for the MWLUG Green Project. On Friday we had our first video conference call since every team member was in a different location. Visitors to the site will soon be able to track the amount of carbon emissions that was saved using collaboration technology. We were able to accomplished a number of goals. They were able to complete the materials matrix and provide a number of preliminary concept sketches, some which hold promise. If you would like to see the sketches and materials go to: MWLUG Conference 2009 Green Project .