National Day 2008 will be particularly special for Temasek Design School(TDS) student Sean Tan. Currently a third year Interactive Media Design (IMD) student, Sean was one of five students from Temasek that took part in this DesignSingapore-NDP 2008 initiative. His team designed the AIR Glove, an interactive “hand”, included in the NDP 2008 Funpack.

For NDP 2008, DesignSingapore brought together 24 students from five designs schools for a two-day workshop led by members from four of the top local design firms – BMW Designworks ASIA, Design Exchange, Philips Design and PSB Corporation. After this intense and stimulating “brainstorming” session, the students presented 20 concept designs. Of these, seven went on to be fabricated into prototypes. This stage was led the Product Designers at Philips Design. Out of the seven, the AIR Glove, developed by Sean’s team, made it to final production.

“The most challenging aspect of the whole project was probably conceptualizing it, and the initial drawings,” says Sean. “The prototyping process – making it more ergonomic - taught us how to compromise, especially as we had to see it through the entire process from design to manufacturing”.

“Conceptually, we looked into how people expressed joy – by shouting, whistling, or clapping hands, and we eventually chose to focus on clapping hands for the AIR glove”, Sean recalls. “It’s a simple gesture, it creates a loud and rhythmic sound - even introverts clap. We wanted as much participation as possible”.

Sean says that it is because TDS’s IMD curriculum takes a broader perspective of “interaction”, not just the interface with a computer, that he is prepared for projects such as this. “It’s not just a milestone for me, it’s one for the IMD programme as well – “interactive media” is definitely much more than computers and screens”.

Sean Tan’s team consisted of students from Ngee Ann Polytechnic, National University of Singapore and Nanyang Polytechnic.