A Solution in Transportation for Detroit

A blog for Art314

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Recent reflections

How successful were you in doing what you set out to do? If you fell short, what factors prevented you from reaching your goals?

We have been relatively successful with Intervention so far. There is, always, the factor of time to consider, and as we go into our last two weeks, it is necessary that we use our time as efficiently as possible. We’ve definitely been successful in teaching skills (i.e. sewing and soldering) to the DCH students as well as keeping them engaged. We hope that by the end of this week, we will have a working prototype of the rechargeable heating pad that can be utilized by the students.

We’re looking forward to our last weeks at Brightmoor and making the most of our last weeks together as a team and with the DCH students!!!

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Wintervention’s Logo and Branding

Wintervention’s branding is grounded in a conceptual approach - the penguin is a symbol for resilience in the cold, a creature that thrives in the most unlikely environments. This makes it a poignant figure to represent Wintervention’s key issue - physical and emotional discomfort with winter. The fire in the penguin’s belly represents the heat and activity generated by the device the logotype represents, a rechargeable heating mechanism crafted with a knowledge of basic engineering. 

The infographic branches off from this concept, showcasing a cartoon-like representation of the Wintervention concept. A cold penguin gains joy and warmth through the addition of a simple, reusable and accessible technology. The background is placeless, meaning to show that this situation can occur anywhere and at any time. After all, the students of Detroit Community High School commute in a wide variety of ways - there is seldom an even distribution. In turn, this sentiment is true for all the residents of Detroit. However, it can be irrefutably announced that being cold in the winter is seldom a joyful experience for anyone.

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Wintervention’s Marketing Strategy

I’d like to break down our marketing strategy into the 4P’s -- which are Product, Place, Price, and Promotion. To start with, we have a fantastic brand that will help our product appeal to a wide audience. Our product is unique in that we formulated a solution from a problem that touched many students at DCH. It is also unique in that it utilizes cheap materials and is rechargeable using a USB cord. This leads to price: our price point will be very low as well as reusable -- characteristics that separate us from heat pads that are thrown away after single usage. These one-time heating pads may be offered at a cheap price point as well, but the reusability of our product as well as its lower price point will help our product appeal to a wide audience. With respect to promotion, I would like to emphasize that we are locally sourced and built with the help of Detroit students. As mentioned in a previous post, viral marketing would definitely help our product be promoted further, and we could also utilize local media to help promote our product as well. The ideal starting, selling location of our product would be in DCH to other students at the school. We would then move into the nearby community with the help of word-of-mouth as well as in-the-field selling. If possible in the long-term, we should definitely utilize the help of the Internet by offering a simple e-commerce site where our heat pads can be purchased.

I’d like to emphasize that a main, marketing strategy that would be invaluable for us is to combat what winter currently means to Detroit citizens. We are -- essentially, a Winter Intervention. We cannot make winter disappear, so we want to have the upper hand against the winter and the cold. We want to appeal to the very core of the harshness of a Detroit winter and temper it with our solution.

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How might we offer a locally-sourced, cost-effective, and sustainable solution for the arduous winter commutes of Brightmoor students?

Wintervention Problem Statement

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Tasks, Roles, and Strengths

How might you build on the skills, strengths and aspirations you identified individually to improve your group’s project? Post these all to your group’s blog with clear defined roles and tasks for each.

Annie

- As an Economics major with an extensive background in Entrepreneurship, I have experience with finances, marketing, and other business-oriented skillsets. I aspire to make this project as sustainable as possible, and to do this, it would be useful to create some kind of business model to be utilized for future students at DCH (as well as other schools in the community).

- Role: I am the business-oriented creative in the team. I help with finances, marketing, idea-generation, and pitching.

- Tasks: My most immediate task will be to write, craft, and pitch our idea to a panel of local, influential figures from the Detroit community on Monday. Following, I will draft a business model canvas for our idea, in order to help make the product as sustainable as possible with the DCH students and nearby community.

Vasilisa

- Having a strong analytical and creative background, extending from an intensive study of art and architecture, assists in creating visual identities while possessing a strong understanding of physics and engineering principles. In order to ensure the elegance and adaptability of this project, it must possess a welcoming, yet intriguing, identity that helps propagate and ensure its future sustainability. Successful ergonomic design, packaging, and branding is essential to the project. 

- Role: I am the design-oriented creative in the team. I help with design, aesthetics, branding, idea-generation, and pitching. 

- Tasks: My current tasks include creating the brand and identity for the project – this entails logo, info, brand and UX design. When not working on identity, I help solidify the approach to the project and assist in idea-generation for future steps.

Kaylla

- With a background of fabrication and experience working in the engineering/community, my strengths lie in designing the physical product and prototypes for the project. I have extensive knowledge of mechanics, materials, and problem solving in situations with limited resources and critical thinking. A successful working design is vital to the solution, and in teaching skills.

 - Role: I build the physical product and prototypes for the issue solution. I explore all technological design options to optimize cost effectiveness and simplicity.

- Tasks: I am exploring different options for materials such as carbon tape, wire, or a chemical reaction. I am also building several prototypes to streamline the alpha design.

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Intended Audience & Marketing

When we first start building Wintervention, we will be working with older students, with ages ranging from 16-18. These students will be working extensively with their hands, and because of safety reasons, we want to be careful with how we teach these students how to build our product. However, in terms of who can use the product -- anybody! Of course, starting small is key, so we’d like to first market the product to the Brightmoor school community and anybody who has to commute to school on a daily basis (namely: everybody). After marketing throughout the school and nearby community, we can start partnering with other local businesses who would be willing to sell our product. The marketing aspect of our product can absolutely be sustainable with the help of the students at Brightmoor. These students can range anywhere from middle school to high school age, as the only requirement for building a successful marketing campaign is creativity and perseverance.

We intend for our product to be successful, because we did the research and saw the need for our product -- especially amongst students who have to take public transportation or walk to school every day. The winter is a miserable time in Detroit, and our goal is to help lessen the burden of the cold and snow that is inevitable. Our students will utilize their creative skills to help us help them, and we believe because we are so passionate about our project -- we will be able to keep the project sustainable and have it passed on to younger students as the older students graduate.

With respect to marketing, social media is a difficult platform to break into -- especially since it takes quite a while to gather a foundational following through any social media channel. We’d like to start with guerrilla marketing -- specifically, viral marketing. Our selling point will be the fact that our product is low-cost and produced by students in the Detroit community. We will look at how best we can promote the product through viral channels, so as to attract the attention of nearby news’ organizations and news’ channels. 

[vsemouch]

logos, 17/11/15

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Wintervention Logos

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How might we address the issue of transportation and safe passage, such as when students get released from their school in Brightmoor? 

Transportation (excluding the train system, naturally) is often one of the most vital and maintained industries within the United States. However, there’s little evidence to support this in Brightmoor - abandoned houses and dwindled funds prevent roadway upkeep. In the winter, there is little in terms of shelter from snow and wind. However, there are small but noticeable ways to help change, assist and ensure the longevity of the area. 

Beginning Activity: 

1) Draw out the route you take from school daily and briefly scrawl down notable landmarks, occurrences or objects that help you find your way. 

2) Following, on an overlaid piece of trace paper, draw anything that would make your trip to school easier -- whether it’s the way or path you get there.