Trying to keep a civil tone, but f**k it.

My computer crashed last night when working in windows. So now neither windows or OsX will boot. I've moved the harddrive to an external chassi, so I can use it as an external harddrive, and do all my work on the schools computers.

But still..

Impregnating piece of crap.

Well, it worked!

Atleast partially. The spool need better friction against the rope, and some bigger edges to prevent the rope from drifting off. I however, would like to claim the function-model a smashing success!

Took longer than it should, due to the workshops being filled with the freshmen and their introduction to the workshop-course, but thats ok. I'm not supposed to be here anyway, so who am I to complain?

I'm just a bit bummed that I didn't do it earlier. Better late than never, right?

And yeah, i had to butcher my old skateboard for one of it's wheels and lathe it down to a good diameter. I'm seriously considering using something similar for the final model. Love how the graphics are still there.

A lot more fun than constructing it in Solidworks..

Playing a bit with Bunkspeed to see what it looks like.

Still missing leg and some vital mechanics.

So presentationdates are still not set.. Need to synch this with every one whos going to attend, like supervisor, opponent, examiner, jury etcetc.. So now it looks like it could be later than September.

Still grinding the late nights in school, trying to get everything down in blueprints so I can start building, and just get it done. A lot of stuff needs to be solved, like how the legs move, attachments and so forth. If I do it properly, it could be possible to just pop in a motor and some electronics and then give it a go.. We'll see about that though.

Also, the proportions dont seem to be there yet. Have a full scale print of it on my wall, which looks nice and all, but with this 185cm virtual dummy, it doesnt look right.

The sitting surface has an average of aprox 40 CM above the ground, (tilted), which is pretty much what a normal chair is at. We'll see what i can do about it.

Some pictures with a real dummy.

My concept in progress. A winch without a captive spool, that is self tailing. Modified capstan winch if you will.

Click to enlarge the images.

My friends winch. Made entirely from a second hand gokart. Frame was chopped up and welded together again.

Commercial winch. One of few which are "mass produced"

People tend to build their frames out of almost anything. But the basic principle stays the same.

Home-made Electric winch.

Recycled winch from a mini-moto bike.

So why do they build these machines?

Fun on water without a boat.

Fun on snow without a slope.

worknworkn.. Boo

Some of the few good pics from the last time I went photographing with the winch-shredders.

Damn it's fun to photo them. Wish i had a fisheye and a water-resistent cam though.

Click to enlarge.

Went winchboarding with some friends today, which will be the focuspoint of my Diploma thesis.

Heres two images of some of the stuff we did today. I hope I can get access to some of the filming we did to further evaluate the possibilities of the activity.

Also, it was extremely fun to go out there and just take photos. It's so hard!

I need some practice with photo-retouching.. Bare with me :)

Henning hitting the kicker. (Click to enlarge)

Jonas hitting the soccergoal-railkicker. (Click to enlarge)

(all unedited images here)

Its been a while, let's leave it at that.

I've recently started working on my master thesis, that is due to be presented 1-2 of June.

It's pretty scary thinking about what I need to deliver until then, but I guess there is no try.

Do or Do not..

With my master thesis as excuse, I went to the ISPO tradeshow in munich, to get inspiration and do some research on my topic, but it was also a major treat for myself, since i've always wanted to go.

Very cool to see the huge fair (180.000 squate meters). I do believe that a lot of the companies are running on fumes, or really trying to cut costs. I base this on the observation that a lot of them just showed older stuff in a new package. I think the biggest companies were the ones that disappointed me the most.

On the other hand, it's fun to see the small companies with the crazy ideas and the fanatic people behind them. It's a shame that many of them just seem to be in it for the money, which gets pretty obvious when you see their stuff.

I want to do a post on my thesis project, which is about lead-users and their affect on action/extreme sports. I do have some good subjects to follow, which are some friends from old, currently occupied with winchboarding.

I'll leave you with this image of my computer, which lately has been working at really high temperatures, which makes me scared that it wont make it until my final pres. I'm seriously considering not getting a new Macbook pro, both because of the latest generations ugliness, and the fact that they cost a fortune.

So i started working on this competition regarding Bike sharing for Copenhagen.

Ive had a lot of problems motivating myself.

Hopefully i can post some stuff from the project this week. Until now ive only done research (barely) and im kinda questioning myself and what the hell I am doing.

On another note, I tried out a new program this week called Sketchbook pro 2010. Ive tried the predecessors, but they never really tickled my fancy.

This one on the other hand did!

heres something i did during the weekend. (click for larger version on all pics)

My brother got on the cover of the magazine Yachting world (and a couple of other guys). Second magazine cover this year. How will I compete with that?!

I found a pretty interesting open letter to design students, so I thought id share it with the rest of you.

My favourite quote is: "Your education will not end the day you graduate: on the contrary, what you're doing is learning how to learn, and how to think, and how to visualize the ideas that percolate in your brain."

You can find the rest of the letter on Design Observer, and here is the direct link to letter in question.

Enjoy!

Last wednesday, after being sick for two days, I went home to Sweden.

We had thursday and friday off, so I booked a fairly cheap ticket home to see my Isabelle :)

So after many annoying hours on flights and airports, she finally picked me up at Helsingborg Central station. Man was it ever great to get back..

I dont have too much to write about this weekend, mainly photos to show you :)

We did not do anything at all on Thursday, if I remember it correctly. We had rain and storms outside, so we stayed in the couch.

Friday me and Isa had a pretty similar day, except that we went for a run in the rain, and then had some nice soup at home, and watched forrest gump together. Very relaxing...

We were supposed to go to my home field in Varberg on Saturday to visit the second leg of the Three crowns cup (Swedish Paintball league). However, two minutes after we left and arrived at the gas-station, an older man told me that we had a flat tire, and to my surprise he was right. So no Varberg that day. We went back instead and went for a long walk along the coast.

Sunday was the day to drive to Varberg instead. It was nice to see a lot of friends again, and just watch some paintball in the shining sun. A fellow called Erik Svensson(Thanks for the pictures Erik), was there flying with a Helicopter and managed to get some photos of our home field. Looks pretty awesome from above as well :)

I got a bit of sun on my pale body, and some good laughs.

In the evening, when we came back, my father was standing on the balchony with his binoculars. He told me that the Volvo Ocean race boats would be passing by any second. This was the first time ever, so I could'nt have timed my visit back home better.

And finally, the first boat showed it's sails behind the peninsula, and to my excitement, it was the il Mostro! Puma Volvo Ocean race boat, oh joy!

I wish I was a pirate, arrr..

The pictures are taken with my new digicam through binoculars, so the quality is a bit sketchy.

It does look like they passed pretty close, but it was a couple of nautcal miles from us.

To give some referens, here is the normal view without cheat-zooms. (I miss the ocean way too much)

anyway, on monday afternoon I had to head back to Germany, and Isabelle was going to her parents in Vansbro, Dalarna. (far far up north)

Really sucked to leave her this time, since we had such a wonderful weekend. But all things have an ending, meh..

Back in the office, and my head is not working 100% properly, but ill try to get it straightened out tomorrow. And finally ive started running again. Its going pretty well, and the times are decreasing in a higher rate than expected. I will tell you more about how later. Until then you can have a look at www.posetech.com , it's pretty interesting, both from an ergonomical point of view and the fact that it seems to work better for me so far.

Yeah, so my parents and Isabelle arrived on wednesday to visit me for a couple of days.

They picked me up at work, so I could bring home some stuff, and then we headed off to the Puma Outletstore. Since I have some nice perks via work, we shopped quite a bit, atleast I did.. I have been in desperate need of new shorts and running gear. After this we went to the camping where some home made food (yaaaay) was prepared and devoured..

During the weekend we went to a few different museum, including Doku-Zentrum, which was a building that Hitler ordered to be built so that he and the NDSAP (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei, aka the nazis) could hold meetings, or atleast listen to his speaches.

The entire surrounding area was supposed to be rebuilt in to a huge complex that was part of the big propaganda machine.

It was never finished. The only thing that was finalized was the Zeppelin field which. The sad thing is that they goverment have let it fall to ruins.

How it used to look.

Today

Their architechture scares me a lot. It's very majestic though, but cold and frightening..

Other than that we went to a Toymuseum, German railway museum, Industrial Culture museum and a model building exhibition. I think the Railway museum was the most entertaining one. They had put a lot of work in to it, with loads of scale models and real trains etc etc.

We did also have time to go to a restaurant or two, drank some real german beer, eating wurst and enjoying the warm weather.

My commuter friend Nilovar just finished her bachelor thesis, and I made some shoe renderings for her, and she showed me the final essay. So you could say that I got published.. Anyway, was fun to do it, and it turned out pretty well. Oh yeah, the camera in the iphone sucks.

(The designs are existing, ive only done the digital illustration, with material considerations)

I found some a nice picture from a Youthhostel we stayed in 2 weeks ago, when we played the XPSL, a german paintball league. The view was magnificent.

Ill put up some more pics from nürnberg when Isabelle have uploaded them to the server.. lots of nice stuff im sure.

My parents and Isabelle will be arriving in aproximately 10 minutes!

Yihaa!

As promised, here are some photos from my latest activities..

On our way to a paintballpractice, we stopped at a gas-station to pick up two more guys. It was just next to a huge Ferrari and Maserati reseller. They had like 20 cars standing outside their building, plus several more inside.. Pretty cool. Wish it hadn't been a Sunday, so I could have had a closer look...

http://www.iddqd.se/Bilder/nurnberg/paintstorm.jpg

(wiiiiiide picture)

The plase where we practiced during that day. Somewhere in mid/west germany. Surrounded by hills, 20-25 degrees. Loads of games, and just generally good times!

BEER in 1 litre seidels + One of the aussies. Damn this beer tasted good.

Pretty nice place where we went for practice last weekend, 30 minutes from Nürnberg in a small town called Schwabach.. Expensive though, 35 euros walkon and BYO fee + 5 euros for membership card. But they seem to keep it in well condition. Shame that there hardly were any people playing that day. Could have been a lot of fun.

Yeah, I know I post a lot of pics of paintball fields. Let's just call it documentation!

Yesterday after picking up a pair of shoes that I forgot at the hostel. We decided to go to the Volksfest, which is basically just a carnival kind of thing with shitty rides, food and beer. However, since we're in germany, the beer is pretty darn good(Hefeweiss!), and ofcourse it's served in 1 litre bier seidels.. Good times.

Anyway, me and Iain went there with an Australian couple, who were backpacking through Europe as part of their honeymoon. Awesome people, and we had a really good time. (I will post pics later).

They recomended an Aussie band called 'The Presets', and to my surprise, they had a really cool Homepage with some selected songs from their albums. (I think im a bit bias regarding this, but have a look and tell me what you think!)

http://www.thepresets.com

Wish I could code like that...

Bis später!

So I've finally started my internship last thursday! I got some help getting a workers permit and a bank account. The day after, I got a ride to work with another intern at Puma. It was a very friendly girl called Nilo who gave me the ride.

So just arriving to PUMAs HQ was awesome. A pretty modern building, with a nice reception where I had to wait for one of the girls at the HR department to bring me to their office.

I got some instructions about database systems, got to sign a gazillion papers, and then I was given the tour of the place. Things like this is really hard, because you get huge amounts of information about important things + beeing introduced to shitloads of people. Anyway, everyone was super nice, and polite, so I did not feel uncomfortable at all. A big mix of different nationalities, so almost all communication is held in English.

Walking around in the design office, was like going in to a big library, you just had to replace the books with sneakers, aka awesome! So I was shown to the room where my department was, which is the color&materials department. I was then first introduce to my new boss, Conny, who was the one who interviewed me. Then to the other intern and two of the senior designers.

I will try to get some pictures of our office, but I have to ask first if its ok.

And then, tadaaa, to my own desk and computer! An IT guy showed up and started setting the computer accounts up for me, and showing me even more of the systems they used. So after browsing through a couple of their catalogues, trying to get familiar with their collection, I was invited to join one of their meetings, where three of the design directors were inspecting shoes. It was really cool to see them in action, because they had a great eye for the details, which I hope I will develop soon.

I thought that getting up at 6 in the morning would be one of the biggest challenges, but it has been working out nicely all week. I hope its because i only work 8 hours a day instead of 12-18 hours a day as I do with schoolwork.

Friday was also fun, I got to do some colorwork updating, which was a bit confusing but educational. Mainly just worked on that all day, so Im not to effective yet, but I got the job done. There's a lot of administrational work around the tasks, and I think this will be the biggest challenge for me to master.

So now I've stayed at the Hostel since tuesday, and it has both it's perks and cons. I've met a lot of new people, which is really cool. Wednesday night, we went to a karaoke bar with one of the hostel employees, some guests, and a bunch of couchsurfers. Since I had my first day of work the day after, I took it pretty easy. Had two beers, watched some horrible singing, and then went home.

Another funny story. There was a girl who had been in the hostel since I arrived and slept 2 meters from me (Its a room with 12 beds), she seemed to be a nice person, so we started talking a little on thursday evening. I asked her what she was doing in Nürnberg, and she told me she was doing an internship. Then I asked where, and she said it was at Puma, which is kind of crazy. Apparantly, she had started her 6 month internship on wednesday, and was staying at the hostel while she was looking for an apartment, just like me. She had also taken the train to Herzogenaurach every day, which costs about 13 euros (one way ticket), and takes about 1-2 hours. So I hooked her up with nilo, and now she is in our commuting group! It's a small world I guess.

Friday evening, two Aussies showed up and we started talking. Both were really friendly, so after sitting around the table chatting, we decided to go have something to eat, which then lead to us trying to find a nightclub. An american joined our small group, and we had quite a good time, just walking around nürnberg, trying to find a decent place. Since I was going to play paintball on saturday, i called it a night pretty early and went back to the hostel.

After watching some cartoons, suddenly two big guys come in to the room, carrying a third guy who is crying. It was three american soldiers, and one of them was insanely drunk. Don't know what had happened, but they put him in a bed, where he was crying until he fell a sleep. Weird experience for sure.

5.30 am, a guy called Sebastian, who I got in contact with prior to going to Germania, picked me up, and we were off to play some paintball at an American recreational base. The german gun laws are very strict concerning paintball, so most outdoor paintballfields are in the US military bases. They had a HUGE firing range for real weapons. They had a large and thick concrete wall behind them, and behind those, there were two pretty mediocre paintball fields.

Anyway, the guys were fun to hang around, although there was so many of them so I did stay a little on the side of things. I got to know a guy from a German pro team called Frankfurt Syndicate, and we got to chat a bit. Also a really nice guy, so I hope I get the chance to get know him a bit better too.

Networking networking networking. :)

I played pretty much like crap all day, due to a lot of different reasons, but I'm sure ill be back in my old game as soon as i get to adjust to their type of gameplay.

When we were done with paintballing for the day, everyone started walking around and looking at the people who was in the firing range. It was so insane to see all the different types of weapons they were using. I would probobly not have been surprised if there was someone shooting with a flamethrower.

The other guys found a man, who had 4 handguns and one machinegun in his small sportsbag. A person with that kind of stuff is creepy by default.. No matter how nice they seem! He let the others shoot with everything he had which was pretty scary. I watched them shooting with a mp5 and a desert Eagle etc. And he then showed me a black powder gun, real old school stuff. I always feel pretty uncomfortable around real weapons, and the fact that these gun made 150 times more noise than I expected did not improve that sensation..

Also, an american soldier who plays with the team i practiced with (Ohio United), went in and borrowed a m4a1, and a SIG handgun, to blast off a a couple of rounds with. I was offered to try, but politely declined..

Anyway, I managed to get some photos of some of the guns.

Anyway, after three hours of driving back, I got to see the teams home field, which looked really nice. Might go there during Easter and play + have a BBQ with those Ohio guys.

Formula BMW at the gas station :D

So our teams new guns did arrive today! Was awesome to see them for real, a weird sensation to hold something that you have slaved over during late nights.

They turned out pretty nice, but theres always room for improvement. Next year will be even better!

We will try them on for size on sunday, looking forward to some outdoor paintball. Enjoy!

Loads of eclipse stuff there!

:D

My new sword!

Im home!

Yes finally ive come home from Austria. It’s been a really overwhelming experience all in all, and now it’s time to go to the next challenge. So right now I just have my aim on getting a internship somewhere. Tried a lot of places with out any luck though.

Anyway, I did not really do anything constructive before leaving graz. Took care of some business with the local authorities, unregistering and stuff like that. Meet some friends before going home, and just taking it generally easy. I did also go for a weekend in Vienna, to party some with a friend who live theres. We went to an outlet center outside of vienna, which had almost everything, even a burton outlet (yay!). However, i did not really find anything for myself, until Phil forced me to buy something. A pair of new nike shoes, and a hoodie and handbag for Isabelle. Last night before leaving, me and a couple of buddies went out eating, and of course had some beer. We actually wound up in a club ive been to before, but never remembered what it was called or knew where it was. It was a 30th birthday party for David's roommates friend. It was a fun time, naturally!

I was supposed to wake up at seven o’clock to clear out the last stuff in my room and get our room inspected. I came home at five in the morning and wanted to stay awake in an attempt to not miss the train since it was leaving at nine.. Mission failed. I woke up by the cleaning lady wondering what I was still doing there. threw my stuff out, and ran down to get a hold of the doorman. I had to run to the station to catch the train, with two really heavy bags, which nearly killed me, being hungover together with some kind of fly/cold. One of the worst 5 hour train rides i’ve ever had. I did not have any reservation, so I had to be ready to move every time someone who did have a reservation wanted their seat. I also sat next to six Russians who managed to drink one bottle of vodka, and a bottle of fernet in short period they were on the train.

It was such a relief to finally meet my parents at the station and then going to rent a snowboard and buying the ski-passes. I thought i would be able to get something decent to ride during the week, but hell no. The bindings werent fixed properly and stuff fell off by just looking at it. My feet hurt like hell and the board just sucked generally. After trying this gear for two days, I gave up and invested in a new board, bindings and boots.

Since my stuff at home is almost a decade old, I think this was pretty justified...

I also gave away my helmet to my little sister who does’nt have one herself, and couldn’t find one which fitted properly. So voila, now I have a new helmet too..

We had a great week. On Tuesday we got 60-80 cm of fresh snow during the night accompanied by sun! It was so relaxing just being outside each day and doing something physical and not having to worry about school, but nothing lasts forever. We drove home at half past four on saturday morning, and was home at eight in the evening. Isabelle was already there, and had prepared food for the starving masses. It was a great ending to a great vacation!

What awaits now? Well, tomorrow me and Isa will be going to Lund, and I will continue my hunt for internship by updating my portfolio with the saw-project, and phone-harassing some design firms. I’ll also prepare my last homework for Graz so that chapter can be put in to the history books.

Here’s a panorama picture from the highest point of Pass thurn.. Enjoy, because I did!

Thanks to everybody down in Austria, I’ll miss you guys!

So the weekend was pretty ok. Got a bit sicker but got some work on the portfolio, but far from enough.

Friday evening David, Sebastian and Stoney took me downtown for some Swedischer glögg. Super sweet drinking glögg while snow was turning the city all white (and cold).

(Me, David and Sebastian)

Other than that, nothing really special has happened during the weekend. Got a bit depressed by all the work that has to be done, and today, we got even more work until next wednesday. No rest for the Swedes. Only thought that fuels me right now is that im going home in two weeks, to see Isabelle and my family. Can't wait!

So what awaits me until tuesday?

- Develope my Saw project even more and build some kind of sketch model before tuesday.

- Do 8 A3's of colorshape renderings until wednesday.

- 7 Different ideas for a glass beverage holder family before tuesday.

- Do a lot more portfoliowork before tuesday so that I can get some pointers by the teacher in charge of the saw project course

- Find places for my internship

- Finish and send in our final draft for the packaging design by friday. Including final touches to the working sketchmodel of the beer keg.

Welcome to our office. We took over a major part of the studio a week ago, and we ain't letting go!

Yippie.

My neck hurts as hell, I need a real screen to work on instead of a laptopscreen 15 hours a day.

Bon voyage!

This last week has been crazy. I do not think I have been in school this much, ever! Approximately 3-4 hours of sleep each night, and the rest of the 24 in school. Saturday evening I thought that this week would suck and that I would probably die in the process.

Let me start from the beginning, or atleast where we left off the last time, which is almost two weeks ago.

Last Wednesday our project course took a different direction. We went to the Landesmuseum Joanneum (I think) where we meet the intendent of the place. The only thing we knew prior to this was that it the "workshop/mini project" would consist of atleast some historical artefact and a exhibition surface. She started talking in German of course, sooo 1.5 hours later I was none the wiser. She showed us the wagon, which turned out to be just about 50% of a wagon. No wheels, no undercarriage, nothing except the upper part where you sit.

Well, after a while, it turned out that we were supposed to design an exhibition room and undercarriage for this thing..

We found a box with some dead guys. :D

The rooms measurements were already set, so the important thing was to show the wagon, and give a hint of what it is missing without stealing focus from the wagon. It was a group assignment, so me and Erik decided to team up, and later another guy (Thomas) from the class joined ranks. First presentation of our two concepts for the room was set one week forward. We had some small discussions and then me and Thomas started doing some mood-boards at home, whilst Erik was modelling the wagon in 3D. No biggie.

Thursday, I went practising some paintball, did not go well at all. My gun did not work so I had to borrow another that almost cut my fingers open. Oh well, it's always fun to hang out with those guys at least!

Friday was set up for some major partying. David who had his birthday the same week invited me to join them in some celebrations and I was up for it. We went to a Irish pub where I met some of his old teammates, friends and siblings. When I arrived I got something that I have never tried before, Jell-o Shots! I came, I tried, I failed. Everyone was shooting these like the Mexican Staring-frog of southern Srilanka, so Im starting to think that my tongue has a major defect, or that Austrians just crossbred with amphibians some time during evolution. (probably the last)

Then we went on to a Drum'n'base club called Postgarage. Not my kind of music, but it was pretty nice being in a place that wasn't packed with people. Michael (Stoney) persuaded me to try the Caprinhia, which consists of ice, lime, and sugar basically. I haven't had hard liquor for quite a while and was chugging them down in the same rate as I drink a beer... Minor strategic flaw. Still had fun, did not spend to much money during the evening, however I lost my Closet-card. So when we were supposed to go home I couldn't get my jacket or sweater.

Disclaimer; I think we can all agree that making decisions whilst drunk is never a good idea, and with that being said I will continue.

I walked home 04.00 in the morning in just my t-shirt. This place was in a part of Graz I have never been in before, so after walking for a while, I stopped and realised that I did not know where the heck I was. Fortunately I had been walking with the river Mur on my right side the entire way, so after some relocating I finally realised where I was... 50 meters from my bus-stop. I refer to my previous disclaimer.

I came home, fell asleep and woke up 12 hours later, with the headache from hell. This of course meant that I should sleep some more, which is approximately 4 more hours, then I had to get up and make 'Varma mackor'. It is like a hybrid between pizza and a normal toast. Then I talked a bit to my family and friends and went back to bed for another couple of hours. Between eleven and twelve in the evening, I had to get up and start doing some schoolwork, because David had called me earlier and asked if I could play a tournament on Sunday. It was the first winter leg of the Austrian paintball league, 5-man format.

After a couple of hours of trying to find images for our moodboards, I decided to get some sleep, because David would pick me up at eight in the morning.

He came, and we drove to a gas station to get some breakfast and batteries.

Since my gun wasn't working the last time I practised, I just sat down directly and switched batteries in it, and it just started right up and shoot like a freaking dream again, Halleluja! So that was the last time I put a Varta battery in anything.

The team today was; Me, David, Sebastian, Martina and Reinhardt

There were only 5 teams, so we would pay triple round-robin, which is a little bit..meh. But I guess it was the best solution. Anyway, I played really well, from the very first game! I think I shot 4 out of 5 in that game. Good times gooood times! The games during the day passed by in the same style, and I was on fire! We lost 3, drawed 1 and won 8 games and had a bodycount of 23-24 in half-time. The second team under us had won as many games, but had something like 11 in bodycount. This was the team we would have to play against in the last game, which turned out to be the deciding one if we would win or place second.

This is where the fire died, and transformed in to a giant pile of elephant dung. A minute in to this game, one of their players (Mario from vienna united) got in to the 50 snake, and we had to get rid of him to win. Since no one of the other did it, I made a run for it, from the centre temple on the 25 line. I went for the stab where I had seen him last, and thought he still would be. Jumped over the snake, shooting at his last spot. Remember, Fire morphing to Poo? To my surprise he wasn't there anymore. He had moved back 1-2 metres, curled up into a small small object which I couldn't see until mid air over the snake-beam. He was directly under me. After some manoeuvres I managed not to stomp his head, which in return meant that I would crashland and not manage to move my gun over and shoot him. He looked surprised seeing me rolling around on the turf next to him as I was to see him there... and then he shot me. The rest of the team did not really manage to pull anything off and we lost the game, resulting in a 2nd place overall.

What really pissed me off afterwards is that if I had decided to just run on the inside of the snake and shoot him he wouldn't have had a chance. But while running I decided to try to jump the snake, shoot him and then take their snake and survive.

Oh yeah, and the obvious humiliation of rolling around the floor and not accomplish anything did not taste to sweet either. Walking around listening to people talking about the incident in German and having a good laugh sucked. So this pretty much totally killed a good day for me.

On top of this, I now had to go to school directly after the tournament to start doing some work on the exhibition project. Hooray.

Erik came home from Salzburg where he had visited some of his classmates during the weekend. Working there until 3-4 in the morning, and then have to walk home knowing that you have to get up 4 hours later to go to class. (The trams (spårvagnarna) stop at 23.57)

Up at 9 am to go to Solidworks class, which was pretty fun, except for some minor interruptions. I'm getting better and better, but well see how much effort I will put into learning this program on my own.

Then we had German and a Graphic Design class, and at 6 p.m. when all the classes were done, we had to get to work with the exhibition project again now that the presentation was only 2 days away. Staying to 4-5 in this morning again.

We realised that we would have our graphic design workshop this week with the 7th semester students. Fortunately for them, this was the only thing they had in terms of classes this week. This was not the case for us, so we would have to run around all week just trying to get everything to run as smoothly as possible, and to miss as little as possible from all the classes.

Tuesday morning at 9 am, we met the workshop teacher, and she started informing us about the project that would last until Friday. She had found a company that needed a packaging for their new self-cooling beer keg. Then she told us that it would be a Competition. Three of the concepts of the 12 students would receive 1000 euros, and then one would have the chance to get their package produced, of course meaning mo moneyz!

Me and Erik decided to collaborate on this project too, since we had shitloads of stuff to do anyway, it was the logical solution, even though it would mean that we would have to split the prize if we won. The big problem was that we had to leave this class after the information and some random talking about packages and such with the teacher and go work on the exhibition presentation.

In the meantime the 3rd semesters had a double-class of Professional English which I also attend, but the teacher Eva Dringel-Tech, who is really understanding told me that it wouldn't be a problem at all. (This English class is really nice, because it's a lot about expanding your vocabulary with words that are useful in the field of Industrial Design. Plus that it's always playful and very light-hearted, so it doesn't really feel like a class at all)

After a lot of hard work with the presentation, we all went home at 6 in the morning. The presentation was set to 10 am, but me and Erik had to go to packaging design class at 9 because a representative from the company was showing up to answers questions and tell us about their product. It was super interesting, because of the technique they use, which is really clever. Im sorry to say that I can't reveal any details about it. the only thing i can say is that it is a beer keg that chills the beer with a 100% natural process, without a fridge or any chemicals at all.

Presentation time!

After 2 hours me and Erik joined the class and dropped in when another group was showing really nice rendering of their concept.

A really astonishing detail about this project, is that the Teachers have requested 3D renderings from all groups. The thing is, that these students have not had ANY classes in 3D rendering, and still they manage to produce really really beautiful renderings. It says a lot about the school in general and the dedication that these students posses.

This is where it gets good.

Our group have been working a lot on this project. However, about 70-80% of this work has been ideation and discussion about our two concepts. We have really discussed all ideas to death.. In return, we have have gone through a lot of ideas and dismissed them after a while, but we also tried to save the fragments of each idea that we like and want to keep working with. In the end that meant that most of the other students projects were ideas we had already discussed, kept the good stuff, and moved on from.

In the end we had 2 concepts that are pretty similar, but still differs meant. Contradictive right?

Let me try to explain.

Our first idea is to create a room, where the first thing you see is exactly what you can see on the picture above. Just the wagon, Nothing else. A big golden shiny piece of history, almost a religious experience/alter and everything else around it is dark. However, we want to plant some subtle clues around the room, that your eyes will catch up on when they get a bit tired of the just watching the wagon. When they do, we want the to start exploring the room, and put the pieces together which are supposed to explain the backstory of the wagon. The clues get stronger as further you get in to the room and when you are on the other side you see 2 wheels and a small representation of the undercarriage. The room would be sculpted so that the "terrain" would give you the opportunity to look at the wagon from different angles, which in return would enhance the perception of exploring things.

The essence of the project is that you are presented with a room that will transform into another room with the help of your curiosity.

We have had some problems with the constructional plan and will most likely have to change most of it before next Wednesday, along with the difficulty of getting the mood across in our renderings. This is the project that we have to put the most effort in to prior to presentation.

The second concept is also a room that changes when you are in it. The difference is that you do not control this yourself at all. When you come in to this room, you are presented with the wagon, and nothing else (again). A almost sterile room that makes the wagon resemble a piece of art. Suddenly, the room drastically changes, and all focus from the wagon is removed. There will appear projections of images, that are supposed to almost pull you back in time, to when the wagon was used and highly respected for other reasons than being old.

Off

On

We got a lot of good reactions to our concepts and both the teachers expressed the positivity! This was so important, because it just gave us a lot more energy to pull up our sleeves and dig in to the packaging design project.

(OK, I just wrote a lot more which disappeared because of this crappy blog-interface so here's the shorter version)

Me and Erik went home, with out minds set to start working later the same evening, but first we wanted to get some rest. I slept for 2-3 hours + some random internet browsing. Then at 10-11 p.m. we started brainstorming.

It seems like we have found a really nice ideation process the latest couple of weeks, which is working very well.

It is hard to explain, but when one of us tell the other one a thought or an idea, it ignites and inspires the other one. This just keeps going back and forth, and suddenly we sit there with a couple of really cool or solid ideas.

So we decided to get some sleep and discuss our ideas with the teacher the following morning. This was also a very important, because both of us got about 8 hours of sleep, and we didn't stress to school, which made a lot of difference the night to come.

After some discussions with her, we went back and restarted our own process. Since we still did not know what to present the day to come, we went to eat, hoping to get some more energy and being able to make some final decisions. After we had eaten, we began discussing the project at the dinnertable, just restarting our minds.

Erik started sketching on some napkins in a true Design-Cliché manner, and I pulled out my pen and papers. After 3 hours, leaving just us and the staff in the restaurant, we went back to school to get cracking and start doing our final decisions. We began to build one paper-sketchmodel each, which ended of in the scrapping of both those concepts. The third one we tried just got more interesting the further we got with it, proving to be a really cool concept in the end. So after more than six hours of cutting, gluing pasting and a lot of goofing around, we had a nice concept and began to assemble the presentation material. At 6 am we decided that we were done and went hope, filled with anticipation and a astonishing amount of energy.

( Erik working on the sketches for the presentation, and me working with model, whilst we both watch family guy. Actually a really pleasant evening. )

We got about 4 hours of sleep and went back to school to print our presentation. I HATE NETWORK PRINTERS. May they burn forever in hell. We ran around campus for 1.5 hours to get our presentation printed, but we only managed to get 3 out of 9 papers printed. This is so freaking ridiculous..

Anyway, it turned out that we would only present our product to the teacher and the company representative so there was no problem to show it directly on my laptop.

The reactions of them were really hard to interpret, and we did not get any real feedback, just questions about how it works. This is not at all the way we are used to being treated in a presentation, but it is a valuable lesson.

However I have a couple of opinions about the workshop. We did not get any real information until Wednesday morning, and suddenly on Thursday morning, we get a paper with the brief, filled with information that is really crucial to get in the very first moments of the project.. This pissed me off a bit, but I guess it is the same for everybody. It just feels like the project could be a lot better if you get clear directions from the very beginning.

Also, on Friday just when we came to the presentation, they let everybody know that we have until the 13th of December to finish it instead, so today will just be a little check up for them. They suddenly thought that 4 days was way to few days, and decided to change it. In my book, that is not okay for some that is actually a competition. But, they make the rules so all we can do is oblige.

It is really straining, because when you set your mind to do something in a decided amount of time and you go all in with the energy and resources you have. It is like if you run a marathon, and at the finishline the officials tell you that they moved the real finishline 10 kilometres down the road.

There is something really special about presenting a project. When you're done, you get closure. You know that you are done with this and that you do not need to sit until 4 in the morning staring at the same thing until your eyes bleed.

Their decision took this feeling of closure away for me, and that is such an important feeling for me. Thanks..

Afterwards we went to 3 golden kuglen to get some food and celebrate that this week was almost over. I had a steirer salat with pumpkin seeds, pumpkin oil, chicken and salad. Then we went to the Apple store to look at and finger the new Macbook pros, since Erik is thinking about getting one instead of his Dell Laptop. We passed by the Art-store and I also found a Postbox where I could post a card to my sometime-to-be Mother-in-Law who has a birthday next week. We picked up a couple of beers and went home, and suddenly, the skies opened up. It was totally poooouring down but we didn't mind that much, except that we both confirmed that our shoes aren't waterproof..

We got home, I slept for 4 hours, Erik fiddled with a rendering program and went for a Jog.

Woke up, got some food, beer and chips.

I also got a call by a guy who wanted to buy my paintball gun. So I am now officially without one now. We’ll see how I can solve this. Hopefully it wont pose as big problem. Anyway, tomorrow at 8, David will pick me up and we will go have a team practice against some local team. That will be a nice distraction, to bad all my gear is drenched with rain out on the balcony. Oh well, nothing a little bit of tea can’t cure.

Sorry that I couldn’t update more frequently and instead drop this bomb-post on who ever is reading. But I guess it doesn’t affect too many atleast.