Assignment 2, part 2.

Following on from my previous Assignment 2 post, my team met up at lunch time on Monday for one last bit of discussion and mind mapping. We picked three of the possible solutions for road rage that we brainstormed last time, and made a mind map of how they would work, and how they could be used.

Mind mapping our solutions.

We decided that our three best options were:

1. a stress ball installed as the gear knob in your car
2. the air conditioning in your car being perfumed with calming scents, like lavender
3. in-car CCTV, with a camera attached to the rear-view mirror, so that you could play back video of your journey, watch your behaviour, and learn from it; there would also be a service attached to this – an ‘app’ where you could track your progress in learning to deal with your road rage, and a forum where road-ragers could post and talk about their issues

A mind map of our 3 final solutions.

I think that all three of these solutions could be used together – squeezing the stress ball could trigger the air conditioning to come on, to cool you down and chill you out with a wee burst of lavender, or your own chosen calming scent, and of course, later on you could review the CCTV footage of you raging in your car and begin to work on your behaviour and learn from your road rage experience. Squeezing the stress ball could even trigger your smartphone app to put a note with a time stamp and a geotag in your calendar, so that you could see if you become stressed at any particular times or places in your journeys.

I have quite enjoyed working on this assignment. It’s been refreshing to work on something that doesn’t entail sitting and working in my material matters sketchbook, and it’s also been a new experience for me to work as part of a team.