So, social design. Making something safer. We live n a very safe and coddled society. We all want to live to 100 but we also want to be able to smoke and eat fried chicken. Life has risk, life is risk. for instance, we are all aware of  how dangerous cars are and how easy it is to walk in front of one or nod off and slide into the other lane. The obvious way to improve road safety is to have everyone only use public transport. . . But that sure as hell isn't going to happen.

For this project I started by observing everything and anything that would give me some direction. I thought about changing gas heater bars and how hot they are to the touch. I thought about jean zip flys and how they needlessly endanger the scrotum but I was unable to find a problem that I wanted to tackle. Then I thought about (as I have for my last project) earthquakes and the paranoia that has come along with them. As most people within the city are aware, there has been a series of large(ish) earthquakes along the cook strait fault. Whilst they seem to have tapered off there is always the risk of another one. I have discussed the issue with many people and there is a very rational paranoia about the next big one.
 We cant be sure if there will be one or if there is how big it will be but one thing most people are sure of is  that they don't feel safe living in cramped wellington spaces with many objects stacked high , just waiting for a shake of a large enough magnitude to cause them to tumble onto some unlucky victims head.  Wellington is a cramped city. There aren't enough desks or doorways for us all to crouch under. An earthquake triggered shield that covers a large enough area and protects people from debris is something that there is a need for in this crowded, earthquake ridden hellhole we call wellington.

Building upon this idea I thought about how much of an over reaction there has been to the last earthquakes, the biggest and most ironic overreaction being the mass evacuation of the city which caused rather large traffic problems. The largest ones we have had in wellington have been relatively minor. But the next big one might not be. No one can really say. But a device that measures earthquakes (seismograph) and advises on the correct response would help in knowing if we should just ride it out or scurry under our desks (or earthquake activated shield) woulod take away the paranoia that I and so many others feel everytime there is a gust of wind large enough to shake the house.
I decided to combine the two. The alarm device will most likely be a arduino controlled accelerometer and some other fancy dealys and the shield will be umbrella or reverse umbrella inspired so it can be tucked away safetly and then when there is a quake . . BAM instant debris shelter.