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The Student Life an ongoing journal by Donald Lehman |
....who is Donald Lehman? |
December 1, 2001  by Donald Lehman There aren’t many things in college that can beat out a good road trip. Except maybe a road trip with two Industrial Design students. Add a ’94 Dodge Grand Caravan with the navy blue paint chipping off of it and you’ve got big pimpin’ spending cheese. My friend Sam and I set off for a 3 day whirlwind tour that included Monday night at Sam’s grandma’s house in Erie, PA, checking out Pittsburgh midday on Tuesday then heading over to Columbus that night to catch a Saliva concert. The return drive from Columbus to Rochester would be on Wednesday. Monday: Erie, PA Since Erie is only a 2 and a half hour drive from Rochester we headed out around 3 and got there in time for dinner. As grandma was showing us around, she made an off-hand remark how it would be great if we could put together the office desk that she had just bought for her new computer. Sam and I were more then happy to and after dinner we lunged into it. As veterans of putting together many pieces of self-assembled furniture this fall when we moved into our apartments, we are a bit savvy about the whole process. And being industrial designers we were critiquing the whole thing as well. The diagrams that came with it were very good, which made us happy cause we weren’t about to read any text directions anyway. One breakthrough in furniture assembly that we were able to partake in was the twist-lock. This small marvel of engineering joins two boards perpendicularly with one twist of a screwdriver. After Sam and I finished our happy dance over this innovation we settled down when we realized that we still had to deal with the some of the roadblocks we have seen before.  The first of these was that the desk came in two boxes. The logical reasoning to us was that the desk would be in one box and the hutch in another. But no, pieces were intermingled between both boxes and we had to open them all at once just to get started. This resulted in mass confusion and rifling through the pile of parts. Another thing we thought of was if we were the ones to design the assembly directions, we would have the parts for each step in its own labeled bag so at each step there would be no confusion over using the wrong screw or whatever. After finishing with the desk, we started to put together the computer. When we hooked up the keyboard and mouse and put them on the special “keyboard and mouse drawer” we saw that it was going to be a cramp fit for both to fit on it. Also, there was no room for the mouse pad. You have to wonder if the people who designed this stuff have ever used a computer before. Tuesday: Pittsburgh, PA Pittsburgh is a beautiful city. It has a very metropolitan feel but still has that more laid-back Midwest attitude so it couldn’t be confused with a city along the east coast. Sam got a kick out of one of the University of Pittsburgh’s buildings. It’s the same building that Tim Burton used for Gotham cathedral in the original Batman movie. If you look carefully you can still see Batman and Vicki Vale hanging by Batman’s utility belt from the building. While in Pittsburgh, we made a trip over to Carnegie Mellon to have a look at what’s going on over there. Their ID program is the almost the exact opposite of RIT’s. Where RIT tends to focus on the technical side of the design process (drawings, model making, materials and processes), Carnegie takes the developmental and research based approach. Basically one school’s strongpoint is where the other’s lacks. Sam and I got into a little conversation with two 3rd year Carnegie ID students. We talked about our class structure and the difference between the classes everyone was taking. As we were comparing notes, I think we all came to the realization that there are actually other students out there going through the same kinds of trial and error problems that we are encountering on a daily basis. It’s easy to lose that perspective when you spend most of your time sheltered on your campus. Columbus, OH About 20 minutes outside of Columbus, we heard on the radio that our concert had been postponed. Apparently this had been announced a week before but I guess Ticketmaster felt like they had no obligation to tell us. Wednesday Columbus to Rochester The only good way to break up a 7 hour drive in the rain I figured, was to check out the brand new Apple store in Buffalo. If you haven’t heard, Apple has opened their own retail locations to better promote the brand. Being an acknowledged Mac geek already on step 7 (praying three times a day in the direction of Cupertino, CA) of the 12-step program, this place is like Mecca for me. A stylish, modernist Mecca with computers spinning around on white, illuminated stands.  The part we got the most kick out of was the kid section of the store. There are five iMacs arranged in a circle on a smaller table. What really attracted us though were the foam globe-shaped seats they had around the table. We couldn’t help ourselves from running over and bouncing up and down on them. After a half an hour more, Sam was finally able to drag me out of the store and we got back to Rochester about an hour later. The minivan was still mostly intact and all in all it was a successful road trip. “Just-incase-I-have-to-diffuse-a-bomb-and-I-want-to-do-it-in-style” Design of the Month Club: Leatherman “Juice” pocket utility knives  It’s a cool-looking, lightweight, pocket knife. I don’t think there’s much more to say about it except I want one for Christmas. Hear that mom? |
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