Buoyant

With rising concerns, health organizations and governments warn for the danger of a less active and healthy population. Municipalities have stated their goal to create more opportunities towards physical activity in public areas, so that everybody is able to be active and healthy. Buoyant fulfills this goal by facilitating a playful match and game raft in recreational swimming lakes. The raft base with goal and slide encourages friendly competition and collaboration. This base has multiple upgrades like the basketball ring, athletics bar, volleyball net and boulder wall turning the water surface into a match court. Lift up your aquatic game with Buoyant!

This solo project explores the possibilities to stimulate vitality and active lifestyles amongst the public with “Motivating Environments”. The project focussed on opportunities to facilitate the ability towards active playfulness in lake areas. I was able to gather insights from lake visitors regarding their values and needs towards a playful day of leisure at the lake. Next to that, I talked with municipalities owning and administrating lake areas who stated their goal to stimulate vitality but noticed various constraints doing so, like safety and budget. I was pleased to be able to have many external contacts to gather opinions and statistics which stimulated my skills in Business & Entrepreneurship, especially regarding partner relationships. Moreover, the analysis of user values and prospective business models including brand promotion design.

Although I was familiar with Adobe programs, I learned new techniques to incorporate my own design concept into the graphics and overall style. The prototypes for the midterm concept Drup and final concept Buoyant were of rather large scale. I learned new Solidworks features and techniques, making various 3D models, such as the midterm prototype “Drup”. Additionally, I made a second midterm prototype to simulate the interactive technology from the “Drup” concept. This was made from a combination of cardboard models and Arduino electronics.

The underlaying principle of the Buoyant concept was in line with my Professional Identity: facilitating designs to connect with others in a playful environment. This was shown in the various sports and games included in Buoyant raft, were players are introduced to discover competition and collaboration.