UPenn IPD & Northwestern EDI 24 Hour Design Challenge
In October 2015, I participated in the third annual 24 Hour Design Challenge between the Northwestern Engineering Design & Innovation and University of Pennsylvania Integrated Product Design master's programs. We spent Friday evening mingling with our assigned teams of 2-3 students from each school and learning about this year's prompt: to raise awareness about food allergies and improve access to treatment for anaphylaxis on college campuses.
Dr. Ruchi Gupta, M.D., M.P.H., spent a lot of time teaching us about food allergies, the social issues that accompany them, and even showed us how to administer the treatment, epinephrine, to grapefruits. We hit the ground running on Saturday morning in a speed edition of the design process.
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Process
We started our research in the dining hall. Every student that we spoke to knew someone with a food allergy, but none of them were familiar with how to administer epinephrine. They usually learned about their friends' allergies when they went out to eat with them and heard them ask about ingredients.
After brainstorming how we might be able to make friends more knowledgeable about food allergies and their treatment, we decided upon an advertising campaign. |
We developed the "Stab Me Save Me" interactive poster pictured to the left. The tester EpiPen is attached to show viewers what they look like, and allow them to practice the proper way to use them.
It took a long time for students to read the instructions on the testers we showed them, so we replaced them with pictures and an easy to remember rhyme: "Pull the blue cap high -
It's time to be bold! Press the orange cap to thigh - Count to 10 while you hold!" |
ImpactThis challenge was such a cool experience! In less than 24 hours, we teamed up with new designers who we had never met before, learned about a social challenge that impacts a tremendous number of people every single day, conducted user research, ideated, prototyped, obtained feedback, and presented our final designs.
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