The band-aid is a great design and innovative thinking tool and exercise for engineers. Go down the band-aid aisle at your local drugstore or grocery store. The conventional band-aid does not cover all wounds well. A cut on you finger is different than a cut on your thumb. Consumers have to buy a box full of multiple shaped and sized band-aids. In a world of "smarts" - the band-aid is also very "dumb."
Entire AmoeBAND. University students in Taiwan have come up with a design that features cutaways so the hand-aid can be adjusted to fit the location of the wound. The name comes from the shape-shifting amoeba.
A pH-sensitive cross at the center alerts the wearer if the wound is infected. Innovation and creativity is making the dumb band-aid smart.
Rethinking the old is always a source of innovation. A new and better future requires a deep and insightful view of the present and past.
The Wall Street Journal had a great quote from Peter Heuken, playground designer, in The Engineer of Playground Pizazz over the weekend:
"Creativity is hard work. Usable ideas require knowledge and a close command of details."
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