Evan S (S6), who is hoping to start his university studies in Design for Industry later this year, has spent his time in isolation designing a child friendly hand sanitiser station which will go into production this week.
Upon hearing that every public space is going to require hand sanitiser for the foreseeable future, Evan instantly thought about how he could design a less intimidating, child-friendly hand sanitiser station that could be used in public places such as schools, dentists and medical practices. This was when the idea for his POM (Peace of Mind) Bot was born.
When brainstorming the initial design of the POM Bot, Evan decided that one of the most important design features was the amount of hand sanitiser it could hold. He said that “If it was in the entrance to a playground, for example, it would be used a lot, so the design has to hold as much product as possible to save people having to constantly re-fill it.” Another design consideration was that he wanted it to hold a bin, so that children could use this for their dirty tissues rather than keeping them on their desks or dropping them on the floor.
With these features in mind and after a lot of thinking and sketching, Evan managed to come up with a gender-neutral robot shape. The final design can hold up to 10 litres of hand sanitiser, which equates to around 2500 dispenses. It also has a bin to enable the disposal of other items such as gloves, masks and tissues.
Evan was already familiar with the Edinburgh-based planters’ manufacturer, Livingreen Design, and the products they had been working on to help offices, hotels and retail shops adapt to the “new normal”, such as hand sanitiser stations. Therefore, he decided to create the 3D drawings and present the idea to the Directors of the company. The Directors of Livingreen Design loved the idea and have consequently added it to their Clean Team brand, meaning that the POM Bot can now be purchased through their website.
Well done Evan for coming up with such a creative and forward-thinking product solution that we hope will make public spaces feel less intimidating for young children.
