Restart Radio: Young people and future product design

Restarters Ben and Faraz had a busy week, starting with a session inspiring UCL engineering students taking a cours on “How to change the world”, and ending with their participation in the mini Maker Faire run by the Institute of Imagination.

Parents and children attending the Maker Faire were happy to find out about Restart’s work during the event. While only mechanical faults were repaired during the Faire, we suspect we’ll see a lot more electrical toys brought to future events, as almost no repair shops for toys still exist.

Engineering students supported by Ben and Faraz were working on a brief by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation on the future design of electronics. Some of the most interesting ideas they saw revolved around dissolvable PCBs and better integration in the provision of spare parts by manufacturers. Future debates will continue to be on who controls and truly owns a device: the customer or the manufacturer?

Correction: during the show we “thanked” Apple for finally allowing iOS users to uninstall default apps they don’t use. Unfortunately we’ve since learned this is not accurate: with iOS 10 you’ll be able to delete the icon of the app, not all data related to the app, which is a shame particularly for devices sold with limited amount of storage.

Links:

• BBC: The most sought-after second-hand tractor
• Ars Technica: macOS Sierra drops support for many Macs from 2007, 2008 and 2009
• The Verge: iOS can hide Apple’s built-in apps, but won’t delete them
• BBC: Google rethinks Project Ara modular smartphones
• Utopia Fair at Somerset House next week

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