Daylight savings has just ended signalling that winter is on its way. Winter means low temperatures, shorter days, wild weather, woolly coats and warm drinks. But along with this, it also brings its own unique set of challenges.
Here is the challenge:
It’s up to you to design a solution to a problem that is faced by you and your community during the Winter* months (June, July, August).
The solution can be as big or as small as you would like! Some examples of problems include:
- Ice on walkways that act as a slipping hazard.
- Shorter days affecting the use of community spaces for sport and recreation.
- Take away food containers losing too much heat and cooling down too fast.
- Increased energy bills due to increased heating demands in your home.
- Reducing waste associated with lost or broken ski gear.
*If you live in northern Australia the problems that you face may not be related to the cold. Instead, they may be related to something else such as weather systems, increased number of tourists coming to a warmer region and the list goes on. You know better than we do, so tell us about it!
When thinking about your problem some things to consider are:
- Specify who this problem affects and what are they currently doing to mitigate the effects?
- What resources are available to fix the program?
- Does this problem effect everyone in the same way and would the solution that works best for you suit everyone else?
- How much will the solution cost?
Submission
Due 5pm, Wednesday 1 June. Email your submission to wie@unsw.edu.au with the Title “GIE Winter Challenge” and your name, school and year stage.
In your submission make sure you include the following:
- A brief introduction about yourself, what the problem is and how it affects you and/ or your community.
- Your solution to the problem.
- What resources you would need to implement your solution.
- Images, prototypes, models, sketches, videos etc of your solution.
- OPTIONAL are there currently solutions on the market? What are they and why is your solution better than those solutions?
Format
- 2-6 page PDF document; or
- 2-5-minute video; or
- A2 poster **
If there is an additional format that you think would work better for you solution run it by us first by emailing wie@unsw.edu.au.
**Note that when doing a poster, you should try to limit the amount of text you use and preference diagrams to make it easy for the reader.
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