5/29/2023 0 Comments Tear gas mask![]() ![]() With the original design, users would have to use their hands to hold the mask against their faces, which initially seemed like a reasonable requirement. One simple but powerful addition was a change to the way the mask is held in place. With encouragement from faculty, the four students jumped back into improving their design. Mask team and urged them to keep refining their project for possible entry into the IDEA awards. Mask was designed to protect people from abuses by authority, not to help break down stereotypes or protect stigmatized groups.īut even though the project didn’t address the competition’s theme, Sharma and several other industrial design faculty members saw great potential in the students’ design. "Instead it focused on creating a safety shield for helping people in an emergency situation.”Įssentially, the T.E.A.R. ![]() “Their project did not really address the issue of inclusivity," said Akshay Sharma, associate professor and chair of the industrial design program. Mask didn't even warrant them a position in the competition’s top 10. The theme for the 2020 competition was inclusivity through design, and the students prepared their entry as an answer to the ongoing protests and injustices in Hong Kong. Mask for submission into the industrial design program’s annual spring design competition. ![]() The students first began working on the T.E.A.R. Mask is now the third Hokie-led project to join their ranks. To their acclaim, Virginia Tech and its design students have received two IDEA awards in the past: LaXmi, a financial literacy education system that promotes micro-financing in India, and immune, a cell-phone based information management tool that supports immunization programs. Among the previous winners are the original Apple iPhone, the Tesla Model S, the Oculus Rift, and countless other projects that have quite literally changed the world. To say that winning an IDEA award is a noteworthy accomplishment for students would be a massive understatement. The IDEA awards draw thousands of applicants every year from all over the world in categories ranging from commercial and industrial products to digital interaction, consumer technology, and sports and recreation. Mask was recently recognized by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) with a 2020 Industrial Design Excellence Award (IDEA), one of the discipline’s highest honors. The result of almost a year’s worth of design iteration and prototype refinement, the T.E.A.R. Its design is compact enough fit in a pocket or purse, with a simple approach to use that can be deployed quickly and safely. Mask is a pocket-sized anti-tear gas respirator that protects the eyes, nose, and mouth from the harmful effects of tear gas, which may include chemical burns, blindness, asphyxiation, and even death. Using the protests in Hong Kong as a design challenge, industrial design students Alex Munro and Claudia Hasenfang, along with recent industrial design alumni Cole Powell and Ian Annis, created the Temporary Eye and Respiratory (T.E.A.R.) Mask. Halfway across the world, these events prompted a group of students in the Virginia Tech School of Architecture + Design to take action. When widespread pro-democracy protests broke out in Hong Kong over the summer of 2019, tear gas became a favorite deterrent of Hong Kong police forces, with some agencies estimating that more than 2,000 canisters were being fired into crowds every day. Sometimes those riots are not riots at all, but peaceful gatherings and protests. While the use of tear gas has long been banned in warfare (thanks to the 1925 Geneva Protocol), law enforcement agencies around the globe are still permitted to use this chemical weapon and others like it for riot control.
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