Internship
After my first year at Industrial Design I already felt that the study missed the link towards regular day to day work. The products and concepts with which you would end up after a course or a project were barely working prototypes most of the time with an exception here and there. These results couldn’t be appropriate and wanted in the outside world and therefore I was curious how Industrial Designers work in a regular context and what is expected of them.
Because of this reason I wanted to do an Internship. Next to this I wanted to work with a company that has sustainability as a core. I was intrigued in how a company could bring sustainability to their users since sustainability is more expensive than an option which doesn’t hold this value. After searching I ended up at E-Waste Arcades: A company that creates products which are appealing due to fun elements in visuals, rewards and surprises to get people to recycle. Therefore their slogan: “Let’s make recycling fun!”
The main task I gained from the company was to see if the Google AIY Vision kit was an interesting detection method for the various products. It uses AI (Artificial Intelligence) to find objects in a live camera feed and thereby judging if the waste has been thrown in the proper bin or not. Afterwards, I focussed on further developing one of the company’s products, the Trash Hole, in terms of marketing and technology.
It taught the atmosphere that runs in a start-up and company. It took some acclimatisation, but in the end, I got used to the rhythm. The approach is more focussed on the results than the process, which would be the other way around at the university. I wanted to know if sustainability is the direction that would be more than an interest but a passion, something I want to direct my life towards. The core of E-Waste Arcades made me able to discover this field from a business perspective and it showed me that a lot has been done, but so more can be achieved, if tackled and approached correctly. I can however now confirm that the start-up industry is too lonesome and uncertain for me. I need a team around myself to keep me motivated and enthusiastic. I didn’t think a start-up was meant for me but confirming this by seeing it from up close makes me able to confirm this.
Firstly, I learned to approach possible stakeholders and how to work with them to look for possibilities through marketing research. Secondly, I learned to keep the price of a product in mind throughout the development and the price discussions. I learned to develop a product into a state of fully developed prototype where it works nearly perfectly on its own because of the Trash Hole. However, what all task have in common is that I learned to be more assertive and step towards my company coach whenever I wanted to take different steps than already taken. If I hadn’t done so, the only product I would have come up with would be the object detection tool and some technical tests they wanted me to do. This is a big step for my identity which will help me throughout my life to do and learn what I want to achieve.
