Speed is the prime mover of contemporary life. From quick check-in to time-to-market, speed is the central protagonist in the hyper-extended clockworks of our age. It's reflected in our language ("fast forward", "slow motion", "quick-release", "hurry-up offense"), our activities (speed skating, speed chess, bullet train travel) and our artifacts (toaster pastries, push-to-talk cellular phones, speed records, speed traps). We live in a society obsessed with motion, progress and activity, and more and more, the race is about pace.

From James Gleick's Faster to the Slow Food Manifesto, speed is a topic that people feel passionate about. Some things are better when they're faster (post-surgical recovery, microchip processing), and some things are better when they're slower (therapeutic massage, weight training). Either way, designers are forever tinkering with the meters, producing changes in objects and ergonomics, impacting almost every aspect of human endeavor. In faster cars and speed-reading, in slow-burning fuels and long-playing records, speed is more and more the central dial on our cultural dashboard.

PSC77 Challenge #3: Speed is to design a product that explores novel opportunities for speed. The product should be designed to solve some sort of personal need--sport, entertainment, work, social, creative, political, etc. It should be based on existing or emerging technologies, not on magic or nonexistent materials.

Following are some additional thoughts:

A means or an end
Speed can be either an ingredient or the whole enchilada. Add a little and you've got some spice (tobogganing); take it straight up and you've surrendered to some serious physical laws of nature (skydiving). Is the role of speed to enhance or reduce; is it a compliment or the whole point? What products want to be faster, and what products need to be faster? Or slower? And how do we get them there?

Speed is relative
If something is fast or slow, it is probably faster or slower than something else--pressure cookers are faster than Dutch ovens; a triple blade is slower than an electric shaver. But speed can be paradoxical too: Caffeinated coffee can speed some folks up, while caffeinated tea can calm others down. So the perception of speed can be both ambiguous and personal, and is always relative. Are there any universal truths about speed, and are there products that can help us understand them?

Measurement
Speed can be measured in miles per hour or meters per second, and scale can play a huge role. From the photon to the Neon, the act of measuring speed has become as important as the speed itself. Are there novel ways for measuring speed that make us think differently about the lives we lead?