My Process

Early in Term 3, I began with a goal in mind, to make something that the elderly would find useful. In Term 3 week 4 around there, my original question was to think about how the elderly are challenged by obstacles. I further refined that question down to mobility obstacles. But after much though, I realized that not all elderly are very active, and that challenges in the home are more abundant and thus, easier to think of and solve.

From there, I thought about what objects in the home challenge the elderly. Before that, I thought about how some elderly suddenly let go of their utensils during eating. This came up to me as a problem. I created a rubber handle as an add-on to utensils. The elderly of now use chopsticks, spoons and forks, but seeing as we are getting more modern, I think the elderly of the future will be using utensils like forks and knives.

If the elderly use utensils like that and suddenly let go of them, I believe that there will be many utensil related accidents in the future. I consulted with the local elderly expert (aka: my mom) and asked here what she thought of my product. After a while, I realized with all the features I had put on my product, it would still not stop the elderly from dropping their utensils. Thinking about that, I thought about how to prevent the elderly from dropping it, until I was reminded about rubber bands. Thus, I added a rubber band like device to my handle.
I made it so that it would be elastic and allow the elderly to have a safeguard against dropping it. Thus, this is my post about my process of coming up with this product, compressed into a single post.