2019.01 CreaTers at Dutch Design Week
An interview
Renske Mulder, 29-10-2019
This years Dutch Design Week was held from the 19th of October till the 27th of October. Like every year, it's a really special event. But this year it was even more special! That is because a group of Creative Technology students (Niels Kadijk, Sanne Metten, Anna van der Linden, Michelle Sudjito, Connor Stork, Anouk de Graaf, Kai Ferdelman and Timo Petersen) was selected to be featured on the Dutch Design Week with their project: OMNI! And I interviewed them about their project and the Dutch Design Week!
Tell me about OMNI!
In module 6 of CreaTe we had to solve a problem for a certain target group. We chose the visual impaired because 1) we did not know a lot about them and 2) they have a problem which we as sighted people can’t even imagine: they can’t play board/family games, let alone reaction game. So that is why we made one! OMNI is a high speed reaction game fully based on vibrations. We removed all visual aspects, so no visual cues or feedback which makes the game very fair and equal for people with and without visual impairment. The main idea of the game is to feel all the cups, find the vibrating one and flip it to earn a point. Based on that concept we have created three different game modes each with another story and a way to earn points.
What is the Dutch Design Week?
The Dutch Design Week is the biggest design event in Northern Europe with around 350,000 visitors from all around the world. For 9 days there are more than 110 locations across the city of Eindhoven (Noord-Brabant). It has exhibitions, lectures, prize ceremonies, networking events, debates and festivities.
How did you become a part of the Dutch Design Week?
Well, it is all because of prof. Robby van Delden! He signed us up for the ‘selection’ of projects from the UT. We had to go through several steps in order go to the DDW. Luckily we continued with OMNI in module 7 (business module) where we have developed the game and idea some more and created a better video. After a few presentations we got the GO and we got to be one of the 7 UT projects to be featured on the DDW!
What was it like to be part of the Dutch Design Week?
Surreal! We were part of the Design United exhibition we were there with 35 projects of four universities in the Netherlands: TU Delft, TU Eindhoven, University of Wageningen and University Twente. To top of, we were one of the few projects that were not bachelor or master graduations projects. People were impressed that we all did this in our second year of the bachelor and only in about 20 weeks (two modules). It was also so weird to have our own stand in one of the most visited buildings of the DDW. We were in the same building as Renault with their concept cars of the future and KLM with their concept plane for example.
What was the best thing about being a part of the Dutch Design Week?
The reactions of all the visitors. We had people who invited us to give talks at a convention. We had children wanting to play the game so badly that they have visited us multiple times. There were so many questions about where and when the game can be bought. We even made somebody cry because her grandma loved playing games but couldn’t anymore because of her loss of eyesight, she would have loved the game. All these beautiful and unexpected reactions give us so much motivation to continue with OMNI and put it on the market!
Do you have a nice anecdote or fact about the Dutch Design Week?
For our prototype, we had a demo version of the game where the cups just go off randomly. Because of that we had to buy 40 batteries for the whole week! Oh and did you know that the interaction of a product for 9 days at the DDW is equal to the interaction in a household in 20 years? That is quite nice to hear since our prototype survived! Well… 1 of the 4 cups survived, but that was only at the last day, so we’re glad!
Thank you OMNI for this fun interview and good luck with future projects!
