In the past few decades, supermarkets and online grocery alternatives have been chipping away at the revenue of small local stores. This trend has only accelerated during the corona pandemic of 2020. Right now, the online grocery sector is the fastest-growing e-commerce sector in the world. At the same time, there is a trend in shorter food chains. The past few years have been particularly good for small alternatives of locally produced food. Companies like Boerschappen' and 'Support Your Locals' have been growing explosively in 2020. These companies try to sell products directly from the farmers to the customers.
Local Heroes (LH) is a start-up located in Amsterdam that intends to exploit this growing market of locally produced food to the advantage of local speciality stores. By providing small stores with an online platform to sell their products they want to make them more resistant to the growing online supermarkets. And by including initiatives of shorter food chains they try to keep the customers close to where the food comes from. To achieve this goal, LH uses an app and a mobile distribution centre (DC). This DC is located on the outskirt of a local daily food market. Customer order food from various vendors located in the neighbourhood via the app. LH then collects all the products at the DC and distributes them to the customer. The DC also functions as a pick-up point for people in the neighbourhood. LH wants to expand its business to other markets in Amsterdam, and possibly the Netherlands. For this to happen they need a DC which they can put anywhere to start operations. This graduation project describes the design process of this mobile DC. Firstly, the analysis of the current DC is described. From this research came several focus areas regarding product flow, customer contact and ergonomics. By incorporating the wishes of the employees and by working at the DC myself improvements were made to the existing DC. Thanks to close relations with the production company (InnovaN) it was possible to build and test ideas in the real world. This ensured a well thought out design was possible for the final product. The final product is the result of an evolutionary design approach. By learning about the pros and cons of certain ideas in real-world operations, designs were altered and improved. The final design improves product flow within the operations and increases efficiency by removing unnecessary steps in the process. The entire DC has also been decreased in size to increase the placement options for LH. These design choices ensure LH can continue to grow to other markets. Enabling them to help local speciality stores in their struggle against online competitors.

In the aftermath of a disaster, Humanitarian Aid Organizations must operate in highly uncertain and complex contexts in order to provide the lifesaving aid to the people in need. However, the systems currently available to them are limiting the aid logistics, leaving victims cut off. Affordable options are not well suited for the devastated infrastructure and the ones that are, come with a high cost. Wings For Aid is solving this problem. It uses a swarm of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) fly to the locations in need, unhindered by the ground conditions. Without landing, the aid is dropped in cost-effective and sustainable cargo boxes. After the cargo arrives safely on the ground, relief workers distribute the goods to the people in need. During this thesis, a future ground operation is constructed. In this, all the UAVs are prepared for the next mission as quickly as possible. The final design provides a novel solution to load the UAV with the required cargo box configuration. It consists of both the required functional product systems as well as the integrated process. A product usability evaluation using several prototypes, proved the system to be promising.

Arthur C. Clarke said: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” and cutting edge Virtual Reality (VR) certainly is quite the illusion. VR opens to us a near infinite set of worlds and possibilities. Comprehensive, Immersive, Virtual Environments (IVEs) will change the way we shop, explore, love and live. They’ll close the gap between our digital imaginations and our physical limitations. The barrier to this vision is that right now, IVEs don’t feel real. We may have breathtaking, high resolution displays, and compelling comprehensive spatial audio, but when we reach out and touch the digital world of an IVE, we’re left holding nothing. In this thesis, I propose a solution to this challenge, redesigning one of the most common VR ecosystems -- Oculus -- to contain cutting edge vibrotactile effects and actuators. The following pages lay out a narrative for a product -- the Oculus inTouch controller -- that balances performance, comfort, immersion and realism; yet remains accessible, flexible, and compelling. More than a product, I introduce an approach -- Interaction Centric Design -- to take haptics from the intangible world of psychophysics, and the nuanced and intricate world of the engineer, placing it within the grasp of the designer. I define a new theory -- Haptic Cuing -- predicated on guiding user behavior through the careful selection of haptic signal to avoid producing haptic noise. Over these next pages, I outline my journey into and through the world of haptics. I explain my process, my theory, and my path to designing what I hope is a foundational piece of haptic interfaces to come.

A process that started with creating a standard test for viewing the cleaning performance of ultrasonic cleaners on dentures came to a result as the Sonic 1, an ultrasonic denture cleaner for the company Dental Robotics. Cleaning performance, use(r scenario), and aesthetics were essential pillars in the process. Oral hygiene is essential for people’s overall health. Poor oral care is a significant concern among the elderly, especially in nursing homes as older people struggle to take good care of their teeth because they sometimes do not know how, and on the other hand, they are not capable anymore. Proper oral care is necessary for people with their teeth, but also for people with a denture, what a large number of people have in nursing homes. With dentures, infections can quickly occur. Food can be easily trapped between the teeth and will rot as the person does not feel this himself. The current way of cleaning a denture is time consuming, dirty, and it is often forgotten. The starting point of the project will be ultrasonic cleaning, as this technique shows promising features. Testing In order to perform all the test in the same way, a standard test is created. Because dentures with ‘real’ dirt, dentures which are used by people, are not all the time available, fake dirt needed to be found to imitate real dirt. With the created standard test, multiple tests were performed to determine per parameter if changing it improves the cleaning performance a lot. Cleaning agent: a cleaning agent (soap or a denture cleanser) makes sure the denture is better cleaned however, the improvement is not very large. Cleaning a denture alone of upper and lower together: there is no significant difference because at some places it cleaned better and at some places less. Time: a longer cleaning period than five minutes does fit. It is certainly a recommendation to clean longer than five minutes, probably even longer than thirty minutes.
Temperature: The advice concerning cleaning temperature is that a higher temperature than twenty-five degrees is definitely preferable. A temperature between fifty and seventy degrees would be optimal, taking into account that the water also heats up during the process. Orientation: The conclusion from the orientation tests is that the side facing the piezo is cleaned the best and therefore it might be convenient to use multiple piezo’s in one cleaner in order to not have to turn the denture around. Distance: The advice for the parameter of distance to piezo is that it should be as short as possible, as the vibrations are there the strongest. The water is damping the vibrations when the object is placed further away from the source. Final design When the Sonic 1 is turned on, an heating element at the bottom of the tank, heats the water up to fifty degrees Celsius. The sensor keeps on measuring during the cleaning process; if the temperature rises above seventy degrees, the piezo’s are switched off for a certain period of time in order to let the temperature degrease until fifty degrees again. Then the cleaning process is started again. The cleaning process is taking up half an hour, with the piezo’s switching every 1.5 minute. During the whole cleaning process the denture is soaking in the water, which makes the filth looser and easier to remove. When the first piezo removes certain filth, the filth layer below has time to soak and can be easier removed when the first piezo is back on. After the cleaning cycle, the basket is moved upwards out of the water in order for the dentures to dry. At the same time, the motor is also pressing the lid open so air can come in.
Unique selling point of the product As the denture cleaner is specific designed for the nurses of a nursing homes, it has some unique selling points over all other ultrasonic cleaners and other ways of cleaning dentures: The denture cleaner is easy in use as it is possible to pick the cleaner up from the charger by the handle, walk to the sink and fill the product. With disposing the water it is similar. Other ultrasonic cleaners are lacking a spout and/or have the cord attached which makes is harder to walk towards a sink. The denture cleaner is cleaning all sides of the denture as there are more piezo’s in the product.

Cooking is ubiquitous in all cultures as it is a fundamental necessity of existence. We are all sustained by food that has been transformed by heat. Cooking food helps in the digestion of nutrients while killing harmful bacteria and viruses. This basic principle of cooking food is the same over the world. However the difference lies within the execution of the cooking process. In the Netherlands we are accustomed to cooking inside in a kitchen on a gas or electric stove. When the weather conditions permits, families gather outside to grill food on a barbecue. This is completely different when looking at other parts of the world. In many African countries it is still the women’s job to provide food for the family. Depending on their living conditions, most women cook outside on portable wood or charcoal stoves. This use of traditional stoves causes a significant amount of air pollution due to the incomplete combustion of fuel. Evenings and inclement weather will cause the cooking/stove to be brought inside, further increasing health risks.

For many cookstove companies this was one of the main drivers behind the design of improved cookstoves. Despite their efforts to improve the current situation, on the long term the users often resumed to use the traditional stoves (World Health Organization, 2014). It was seen that the focus has been too much on the reduction of the polluting emissions and fuel consumption. Reaching the targets has become more important that the needs and habits of the users of these stoves. The identification and understanding of these needs is an essential step in the adaptation process.

Prakti, a cookstove company in the Southern part of India has been successfully implementing a good understanding of the context into the design of their cookstoves. Majority of Prakti’s existing stoves are wood based as this fuel is predominant in the countries (India, Nepal and Bangladesh) Prakti distributes most of its stoves. At the start of this master thesis Prakti expressed the desire to fit the a newly developed technology in a new product for the African market. When taking into account the recent and continuing urbanization in African cities, a new improved charcoal stove was a fair addition to the existing product portfolio. Prakti had developed a new combustion technology based on charcoal that should result in a reduction of emissions (indoor air pollution) and a reduction of the fuel consumption.
At the beginning of the project Uganda and Ghana were chosen as the target countries. Making use of the Context Variation by Design approach an elaborated research was done. Over the course of two months desktop research was done about Uganda and an in-depth field research was done in Ghana to understand the needs. For both countries the cooking habits, rituals and the cooking power (to cook the most common dishes) were identified. These insights were compared and the similarities and differences between the countries were pinpointed. These were used as the main input for the design criteria.

The design process was initiated in Delft by incorporating rituals and habits for the direction of the cookstove development. This was finished before going to Prakti in India. At Prakti’s laboratory the emphasis was on the optimization of the combustion technology to suit the identified power needs and CO emissions. Upon returning from India the optimization of Prakti’s technique (the interior of the stove) was integrated with the exterior design of the selected concept. This prototype was made in Prakti’s workshop. During the construction of the concept improvements were identified to be able to make a solid final design.

The final product is Prakti’s newest charcoal stove: the CharcHole. This charcoal stove is specially designed to suit the needs of women living in urban and peri-urban Uganda and Ghana while exerting less harmful CO and saving on charcoal. The stove accommodates the pans these women use, refuelling is done from the top of the stove and ash removal can easily be done whilst cooking. When the gas extension is purchased, the women can also tailor the stove to fit their fuel preferences during the year.

The design is not ready to be implemented as of yet. A number of recommendations are made to ensure a successful product, of which the most important ones are to test the stove with the intended users in Uganda and Ghana. Secondly the CO emissions need to be reduced by improving Prakti’s technology through more experiments. Lastly the proposed gas extension should be evaluated with the users to confirm the demand for this extension.