The next item of business is a member's debate on motion 7188, in the name of Alexander Stewart, on Boys Brigade Junior's 100th anniversary. The debate will be concluded without any questions being put. Can I ask those members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request-to-speak buttons now, please? I call on Alexander Stewart to open the debate. Mr Stewart, seven minutes, please. I'm delighted and grateful for the opportunity to open this member's debate this evening. This autumn, the Boys Brigade in Scotland is celebrating 100 years of the Boys Brigade Junior's section. From its formation in Glasgow on 4 October 1883 by Sir William Alexander Smith and up until 1917, the Boys Brigade was only catered for boys aged over 12. However, in September 1917, rebate councils set up the boy reserve to cater for boys aged between 8 and 11. The mission of the boy reserve was the advancement of Christ's kingdom among boys and the training of suitable recruits for the boys' brigade. In the early days, the boy reserves saw a notable increase in attendance at Sunday schools in the churches that had adopted at this section, and the number of companies operated by the reserve continued to grow. By 1918, there were almost 1,500 members of the reserve across the UK, with 59 sections being formed in the first session of 1917-1918 for the original, and there are 25 of those still remaining today. In 1926, the Boys Brigade reserve merged with the boys' life brigade to be known as the life boys. With this amalgamation, members increased from more than 30,000 in the early 1930s up to 70,000 in the 1950s. In 1966, the life boys became a full part of their brigade as the junior section, and the name, which was instead interpreted to be temporary, remains still today and holds true. Members of the juniors have been marking their milestone through 2017. By including taking part in junior hundred challenges, young people are encouraged to compete. 100 challenges include activities such as taking part in a world record attempt, learning from first aid skills, raising £100 for a local charity and trying a new sport. Many of those have been actively engaging across the country over the past few months. Members have also got the opportunity to be creative learning new skills, exploring and being adventurous, while at the same time striving to support their local communities. On-going celebrations have also involved looking back at the heritage of the juniors, showing and sharing some of the stories of the current celebrations and looking forward to the next 100 years. Primarily the Boys Brigade junior section provides a fun and safe learning environment for children between the ages of 8 and 11. The programme consists of five areas—body, mind, spirit, community and collaboration. Those all take place and ensure that they have the opportunity to learn and to grow. The programme enables the youngsters to take teamwork and responsibility that gives them the opportunity to grow and develop in their roles. Juniors also have the opportunity to go on camps and residential trips. Indeed, for some, that might be the first time that they are away from home for an evening. Throughout the time in the junior section, youngsters are able to gain badges and recognition for their participation in simple activities. That is a real form of motivation and gives a visual tangible record of their achievement, and many of them wear their badges with real pride. Membership of the Boys Brigade offers young people so much more to excel in new skills and talents, to explore, to deliver and to provide new opportunities that they can do with fun. As I said in my motion, the Boys Brigade is to be commended and congratulated in trying to gel this team approach, the participation in sport, activities, and it is crucial for children and young people's physical and mental thinking and tackling childhood obesity and also bridging the gap between the attainment. The Boys Brigade is a Christian youth organisation and it is committed to fun and safe learning environment. As a result, the majority of the members benefit from a church-based premises and share the use of equipment. That is why, in many cases, expenditure is kept low. As a result of that positive merge, the Boys Brigade junior section, we now have 1,400 with 5,010 members in Scotland. As a past battalion president of Perth and Kinross district and the current battalion president of Stirling and District Boys Brigade, I am proud—and I have witnessed many of those youngsters' opportunities to grow and to be proud and confident. As they excel, they become very capable young adults. Indeed, an example of that is a young member from the Boys Brigade company in the Stirling area, whose name is James and who joined the local group several years ago. Although now, in his late teens, his mother reflected to the directors of the Boys Brigade on how his time in the junior section had helped us on progress. Those are her own words by permission of the Boys Brigade. The junior section provided a well-balanced programme of activities, including trying different sports and drill and, of course, the introduction to camp and the first day away from home. In three years, James did not miss a single Boys Brigade meeting. There can be no better testament to the programme and the leaders than that. As a parent, I appreciated the Boys Brigade for providing so many varied opportunities in a safe and structured environment and its leaders who gave over their time and their talents, and they became real role models for the youngsters. In concluding, I am proud of the organisation and what it stands for. It has unlocked and continues to unlock the potential of youngsters, and I wish it continued success. I have much pleasure in speaking this evening and commend and congratulate all who have worked in the past, the present and who will continue in the future to ensure that the Boys Brigade goes from strength to strength. Open debate, speeches of four minutes, please. I call Fulton MacGregor, followed by Maurice Corry. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and thank you to Alexander Stewart for bringing this debate forward to the chamber. I myself went through the Boys Brigade as a Youngster, the 13th Coat Bridge, to be exact a company, unfortunately no longer in existence, and I went through all the sections and have many fond memories of my time in the junior section, which is what inspired me to put my name down to speak in today's debate. Members may also remember towards the end of last session that I hosted an exhibition here at the Parliament for the Boys Brigade in Scotland, and the motto for that week was, and I'll quote, the Boys Brigade is a challenging politicians from across the political spectrum to support its hashtag team players scot campaign, working together to recognise the vital role that youth organisations have in promoting a healthier world through sport and play opportunities for young people. That seems to be an ethos that has prevailed, as I can recall, more than 20 years ago, and that has been generous. It is getting involved in football, badminton and even chess, and while others, within the same company, are perhaps getting involved in music, running or other activities—a wide range of activities, as Mr Stewart mentioned. It is clear that organisations like the Boys Brigade and the Girls Brigade can help meet national outcomes in relation to health and education. Many children, if a junior section age will be facing challenges in their own homes, in situations in attending, can be a refuge for them and also give them another person to speak to about school or other issues. It would not be uncommon for an officer in the Boys Brigade or perhaps somebody in another organisation to take up an advocacy position for a young person and perhaps deal with a school issue. The babies and other voluntary organisations can carry out community work in a known confrontational way that is hard for local authority providers to do. They can and are involved with things such as youth offending, sectarian and hate issues. As I said earlier today, the Justice Committee discussed taking forward the members' bill on the repeal of the anti-social behaviour at football, acting even back to my time in being in a Boys Brigade in Coltbridge. Most people were either Celtic or rangers fans and some of the work that was done around that worked around healthy relationships from an early age. I am commenting on that. Officers within the BBs would talk to boys from an early age about what is a healthy relationship and a respectful relationship. Developing confidence, self-esteem and freedom of thought. One of the things that I remember from the junior section was being encouraged to think independently and always analysing information. It striked me years on, particularly during the referendum in 2014, as I kept in touch with a lot of people who had been to the Boys Brigade, either directly or through the new medium of Facebook, just how passionate people had been at the BBs. I will just say for talking sake that 50 per cent were yes and 50 per cent were no, but all were able to formulate a really good argument. I could not help but think at that point how much of being involved in the Boys Brigade had contributed to that. Even when I had the exhibition, it was clear that there were many members across all the different political parties who had a Boys Brigade background and a Girls Brigade background. I think that maybe the BBs have done something that is often difficult to do in the chamber and unite us all, so we must take our hats off to them for that. The next 100 years, I think that the BBs in the junior section are a modern organisation at law, as Mr Stewart said, a law that is rooted to church ethos membership, as far as I recall is not dependent on religion or ethnicity, and that was certainly the case when I was there. Perhaps it is only a personal interest, by no means am I saying this in a formal capacity in talking to the Boys Brigade, but maybe it is time to think about as we move forward, after 100 years, as it is time to look at a merge with the Girls Brigade or find other ways that we can include girls and boys in the Girls Brigade, so include over the two sections. That is a personal view more than anything else, but I again thank the member for bringing us forward and well done to the BBs in the junior sections as we move forward. I have certainly got a lot from it and I hope that everyone else can continue to do so. I thank you, Mr McGrill. I call Maurice Corry, as we fall back Ian Gray. I thank Alexander Stewart for bringing this forward, this motion forward for debate today, on a very important event in the life and time of the Boys Brigade's junior age group. I would also like to add my own congratulations to the Boys Brigade age group, which is reaching its 100th year anniversary. It is good to see some of the representatives here at the brigade today in the public gallery. I would like to thank you personally for all the work that you have put into it over the years. I know how valuable it is. Having been a member of the Territorial Army, I know how valuable the experience and the amount of time that people give and including parents to the organisations. For the past 100 years, as a motion notes, being a member of the Boys Brigade has offered children and young people, not just here in Scotland, but the right across the world, the chance to excel in new skills or talents, to explore, discover new things and provide opportunities and above all to have fun. It is appropriate to celebrate the past 100 years of the junior section. More than 5,000 members of the Boys Brigade junior age group here in Scotland are doing what the organisation has been doing successfully for the past 100 years. That is by encouraging its members to try new things, to take up opportunities, to learn new skills and talents or not only benefit themselves but also the wider communities that they live in and also to become good citizens. The West Scotland region that I present is home to dozens of Boys Brigade companies with junior sections, all of which are doing great work. For example, in Helen's Renmae region, the Boys Brigade junior section offers a weekly programme of activities to eight to eleven-year-olds each Wednesday in addition to the local competitions and special events that they run. The member has not only come from the town itself but also from surrounding villages in the area. In the last year, youngsters have had the chance to experience several special events that have included visits to the fire and life boat stations as well as an excursion to the Denny Ship Tank Museum in Dumbarton. There is also the Vale of Leven Boys Brigade junior section, which meets weekly at Bondhill Church and is taking part in the junior's 100 challenge as part of their big birthday celebrations. They are encouraging their children to take part in the 100-year celebration by completing 100 different challenges. The members have so far looked back at Dunkirk as part of their programme and they have even got the chance to meet a World War 2 veteran who served in Dunkirk earlier this year. It is worth mentioning that, of course, as with all voluntary organisations, the Boys Brigade is only able to function correctly due to the massive support and help that it has provided by its 3,500 adult volunteers, as I said, some who are represented here tonight in the gallery. We are very, very grateful for the work and dedication that they give. It would be remiss not to mention the Vale of Leven Boys Brigade without mentioning one of the sections that volunteers, Mrs Mary Birch, who received the British Empire medal for her voluntary work with the Boys Brigade and working also with Mary's Meals and other community groups. The Boys Brigade as a whole is a great credit to Scotland and an institution that has served our young people so well over the years. Finally, I am sure that, along with the entire chamber tonight, we wish all the best to the brigade and also the junior section for the next 100 years of its existence. Let me add my congratulations to Mr Stewart for bringing forward this evening's debate. When it comes to the Boys Brigade, I fear that I am rather the black sheep of my family. My grandfather, father, all of my uncles, brothers-in-law, all of them were BB officers and, in fact, most of them were BB captains. I am afraid reached the rather lowly heights of Lance Corporal in my time as a boy. Throughout my youth, I was certainly a member of the Boys Brigade and that began with membership of the life boys. In fact, I think I, through those BB connections, sneaked in a year early, around seven, and joined the 21st Leith. Life Boys, based at Ebony's, are a united free church set right in the heart of Leith. My experience of the junior section goes back quite far through the 100 years, not quite back to the boy reserves pre-1926, which is probably just as well, because I did find some advice to leaders of the boy reserves in the very early days of the juniors. The advice goes like this, one minute late on parade should disqualify the boy from attending and no excuse, however good, should allow the boy to remain strictness. To the point of severity on this point makes the percentage of perfect attendance so much higher. Fortunately, even by the time that I had joined the life boys, a slightly more enlightened attitude to discipline had begun to prevail. My time, though, did span a couple of important historical changes in the century of history of the juniors. Firstly, while I was a life boy, we became the junior section. I remember that change. Looking back on the history, clearly there were some important organisational changes involved. For us, the main change was that we stopped wearing that slightly strange sailor's hat and began to wear a hat that, at the time, bore more than a passing resemblance to thunderbirds in all our minds. However, I was also part of the introduction of something that Mr Stewart referred to, which was the recognition of achievement in the juniors, not originally through badges but through coloured lanyards. That was an idea that was introduced by a particular leader in the juniors or in the life boys at the time, the legendary or perhaps notorious but certainly fearsome Ms Giblin of Leith Battalion. She introduced the idea of coloured lanyards to mark achievement and piloted them in the Leith Battalion, including the company that I was in. They then became generalised throughout the life boys and then transformed into the badges that they are used to mark achievements in different sectors. It is also worth noting that that important character in the history of the juniors was a woman. Looking back at the history too, it is clear that, very early on, indeed in the days of the boy reserves, it became clear that many of those coming forward as instructors were women. There was a certain reluctance to accept that, but they had to be accepted. They were accepted initially just as honorary instructors, but later became official lady instructors. It is worth noting the great contribution to the junior section that women leaders have done. In my own case, that means mentioning Ruth Johnson, who was the leader of my life boy and junior section, a company and a big influence on me as a young boy. In fact, I met Ruth Johnson most recently only a few weeks ago, and it is clear to me that she still exercises a certain authority over me, perhaps second only to my mother. It is also clear to me that she must have been an awful lot younger in those days than I had understood, because she is still, to a degree, going strong and has contributed throughout her life. I think that the junior hundred challenge is worth mentioning too, because it really does, I think, go with the grain and the tradition of the juniors. The challenges that are there go from the kind of sublime to the ridiculous, from learning a circus skill to meeting your MSP, and they also go from some of the activities that are like spending a night under canvas, which are traditional for the juniors, to very new ones about getting 100 Facebook likes. It has been, I think, a tremendous hundred years for the junior section. It has been an important part of my formation for good or ill, and I am sure that it will be for young men and now young women too for 100 years to come. You remind me how much I learn about individual members' backgrounds in those members' debates. I do not know if you were ever a life boy. We are about to find out, Mr McMillan. You are the last speaker in the open debate. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. No, I was not a life boy, but I was a member of the junior company of First Port Glasgow Boys Brigade. I congratulate Alexander Stewart on securing this first member's debate of this new parliamentary year. I do know to Alexander Stewart's declaration of interest that he makes. I wanted to speak on this because I was a member of the First Port Glasgow Boys Brigade. Like Fulton, sadly, that company is no longer in existence. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the junior section. It certainly was an opportunity to learn, as well as to run about, play and have some fun and burn off some energy. The Boys Brigade, whether it is the anchor boys, the junior section, the company section or the senior section, I am pleased to highlight the positivity that the boys brigade provides but also the opportunities that the boys brigade provides to all its members and also to all of our communities. Whether it is team building, whether it is sport, whether it is charity activity, helping people to become good citizens and many other activities, the boys brigade delivers in every single constituency in the country across the UK and also globally. The boys brigade has been a force for good and with the junior section now being 100 years old, I believe that this is a huge cause for celebration. I mentioned a few moments ago about the learning and charity. Members will know that they have probably heard it once or twice that I am the parliamentary piper and have the privilege of actually piping at many events. This summer alone, during the Pipathon 2017 charity event, the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo and yesterday piping at the opening ceremony of the new Queensford Crossing, which came in at £245 million under budget. However, I started learning the pipes in the first port Glasgow boys brigade junior section. We do not know that tune, perhaps, shall play at some time. I am sure I may. I started learning the pipes in the first port Glasgow junior section. Growing up in Port Glasgow, while a huge amount of industrial change was happening around me, I started out on this journey into piping and it was a good way to distract me from what was taking place within my community. However, the learning and education in the boys brigade were certainly useful and it also provides life skills forever. I dare say that all youth organisations will say that they provide the same as part of their offering and they do. However, I am happy to promote all the youth organisations that work within their communities and in their constituencies. One of the things that I have taken a huge amount of privilege in at being an MSP was in May of 2014, when I was asked to take the inspection of the second Gwyrwch boys brigade. It was the first time that I had ever taken an inspection. Obviously, I performed in them for many times before, but taking an inspection was generally a huge privilege and it was an honour to actually do it. A few months later, when I took part in a debate in the run-up to referendum, that was a bit more bruising, but the inspection was fabulous. Certainly, the charity work of the boys brigade is a mainstay. I do remember that in one of the events that I obtained a certificate in recognition of raising the price of some of £5 for a local organisation. With inflation, that has increased to £100, but I kept that certificate up until only a couple of years ago. I am delighted to wish the boys brigade junior section a very happy birthday. I am proud to have been a member of the junior section and I wish it every success for the next 100 years and beyond. The boys brigade motto of assured instead fast has lasted at the test of time, and it will go forward. Once again, I thank Alexander Stewart for securing this excellent and timely debate. I thank all members who have participated in what has been an interesting and positive debate. I feel that I should begin with a confession that, unlike the other speakers, I was not a member of the boys brigade. I came through the scouting movement in my youth. I know that it is just one of those things, Mr Gray. However, it is a privilege to be part of the boys brigade centenary celebrations, which are being highlighted this evening in the chamber by Mr Stewart. It is very clear that the sheer variety of activities carried out by the boys brigade over the 100 years has stood all the young people who have taken part in Goodstead throughout their lives, including those members who have participated this evening. I was interested to hear from my colleagues Fulton MacGregor and Stuart McMillan of their experiences and the mutual experience of both of the companies that they were part of no longer existing, although I am sure that that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that they were members of those companies. It reflects often the requirement for us to ensure that we have volunteers continuing to take part in order to ensure that those opportunities remain available for young people across Scotland's community. For many of the young people, being part of the boys brigade provides them with life lessons, which will not be forgotten and will stay with them into adulthood. The work of the boys brigade is an important part of the life of Scotland and also complements and contributes to our mission for Scotland as a Government. I will take up an intervention from Fulton MacGregor. Thanks to the minister for allowing an intervention. It dawned on me after I sat back down that I should have taken the opportunity to pay tribute to one of the officers that was in the junior section when I was there, Mr English from Coatbridge. I heard the sad news over the summer holidays that he had the summer recess that he had passed away, very sad news indeed, and the minister was talking about volunteers and the work that they do. It was a good opportunity to pay my respects and tributes here in the Scottish Parliament. I thank the minister for allowing me to do that. I am grateful that I was able to afford Fulton MacGregor that opportunity. He highlights the impact that volunteers who support young people across Scotland have on those young people as they move into adulthood. Many of those individuals are not forgotten in terms of the impact that they have had. We recognise and value the strong contribution that the Boys Brigade and the other uniformed organisations, youth work and the third sector more widely, make to promoting equity and improved life chances. Indeed, from the Scottish Government's children, young people and families early intervention fund, we have allocated £60,000 to Boys Brigade Scotland to support the work that they do across the communities of Scotland. At the heart of all that the Boys Brigade does is building confidence, capacity, resilience and skills, host recognising, capturing and celebrating young people's achievements, a point that Iain Gray highlighted. They are supporting thousands of young men to be the best they can be, which in turn will lead to Scotland continuing to flourish in the future. It is no secret that this Government wants to see the poverty-related attainment gap in Scotland close wherever, whenever and however it is measured, and we have a clear educational policy framework in place to give children young people every chance to succeed based on the foundations of getting it right for every child, curriculum for excellence and developing young workforce. While we know there are challenges, there can be challenges for children within the classroom, we recognise the challenges that some children face are rooted well outside the school gates, and therefore support for children and families from early years through to post-18 is crucial. That work does not start and end in the classroom. It continues in a young person's journey into further education and the workplace. The most effective work goes beyond the school gates and into the local community, the true breadth of education in Scotland. We recognise the role that youth work can play in relation to that, particularly highlighting the work of the Boys Brigade in this area. Engaging young people in areas in which the education sector can sometimes struggle to reach, offering a large chunk of the acknowledged 80 per cent of children young people's learning that takes place outside of school, and also engaging families and communities in a range of opportunities to support ambitions for young people. Through youth work opportunities, such as being a member of the Boys Brigade, children and young people can, for example, be introduced to science, technology, engineering and mass activities where they participate in fun, enjoyable practical experiences outside of the formal classroom setting and without, at first, realising that what they are doing relates directly to the subjects mentioned. Realising the breadth of opportunities that those experiences bring can encourage and inspire young people to take up further studies in science, technology, engineering or mass subjects, thus leading to a positive career path. For example, as you may know in the uniformed youth work organisations, Boys Brigade, Girls Brigade, Girl Guides and Scouts, members undertake a range of outdoor learning activities. I recognise that that helps to support team building and links in to the Government's aspiration to increase and improve outdoor learning experiences for young people across Scotland. I recognise the valuable role that the Boys Brigade plays in promoting and enhancing young people's confidence, capacity and resilience, which impacts on attainment and achievement. Youth work in particular can support young people at risk of disengaging from education, and we know that youth work changes lives, and there is increasing evidence telling us that. Youth work provides young people with a safe and nurturing environment where they can share their talents and skills, have fun and learn new things. Thanks to the talents and skills of thousands of youth workers across Scotland, including those working within the Boys Brigade companies, a great many of whom are volunteers, our young people can be supported and nurtured to be the best that they can be. Indeed, some of those volunteers are young people themselves. By helping their peers to be all they can be, they are giving back to their communities. Within the Boys Brigade, those volunteers can be young leaders, some of whom may be the only positive male role model in that particular young person's life. Those young leaders also ensure that the valuable work of the Boys Brigade continues into the next generation. I would like to give a personal thank you to everyone involved in the Boys Brigade, especially to those who give their time as volunteers. We need them to utilise their skills and expertise with children, young people, adults, families and communities to support this crucial work and help with our wider aspirations to improve outcomes for children and young people. We need them to utilise their skills and expertise with children, young people, adults and families and to engage them in activities that will increase confidence and self-esteem so that they can realise their full potential. We need them to utilise their skills and expertise with children, young people, adults, families and communities to recognise the difference that they can make to their lives through the work that they do with them. As a Government, we know that youth work changes lives to the better and can give young people the skills that they need and deserve to succeed in life. Scotland is fortunate to have a vibrant youth work sector that is engaging hundreds of thousands of young people in fun, challenging and progressive learning activities every week. The Boys Brigade is a crucial part of that youth work landscape. It matters to us that they continue to do the strong work that they do to support young people across the communities of Scotland. I congratulate everyone involved in the 100th anniversary of the Boys Brigade. I give my full support to the motion brought by Alexander Stewart. I wish the Boys Brigade all the very best for the next 100 years.


Today we're going to do a magnesium hydrochloric acid lab. It's about three things. It's about verifying the molar relationship between the magnesium and hydrochloric acid in terms of hydrogen gas produced. It is also about determining the volume of an ideal gas and determining the value of the of R, the gas constant. First step is we're going to take a magnesium strip and we're going to wipe it because we want to remove any finger oils that we may have before we mass it. Okay so first we will tear the rainboat and then we will weigh the first magnesium strip. Okay so now that we have massed the magnesium we can handle it with our fingers and we're going to essentially place the magnesium strip in a cage of copper wire so that during the reaction the magnesium strip stays in its place and it doesn't float up and gets caught on the side of the gas measuring tube. And now I put a hook in the copper wire and you will see why I do that at a moment. Okay so now we're going to pour our 10 mils of hydrochloric acid. Hydrochloric acid in this reaction with magnesium is the excess reagent so that way we ensure that all of the magnesium will react. Now it's not absolutely necessary that it that it is 10 mils, approximately 10 mils. We will pour the 10 mils in our gas measuring tube and then we will gently add this still water to our test tube, I mean our gas measuring tube and it will do it so gently because we do not want really the water to mix with the hydrochloric acid. We want the hydrochloric acid solution to remain at the bottom. Now we have to make sure that there is no air trapped in the tube so we put plenty of the still water in the tube then we insert the magnesium in its magnesium wire cage. Now you see why I have a hook so I can hang it there and now we'll add a little bit of water just to make sure that there's no air trapped in the tube when I once I turn over the tube. And now we turn over the tube and clamp the gas measuring tube that's clamped and I think I don't know if you can see but maybe you should see that the hydrochloric acid solution is flowing down it's got a different refraction than the that solution has a different refresh in the water. And then now the hydrochloric acid is beginning to react with the magnesium because you should be seeing some bubbles of gas being formed. Okay so I want to tap it a little bit to make sure that all the magnesium is reacted and all the bubbles of hydrogen gas have come up. After the reaction we're going to measure now the volume of hydrogen produced at atmospheric pressure current atmospheric pressure. In order to do that we have to take this tube being careful not to lose any liquid out of here and we place it in a bath of water and we're going to adjust the meniscus in the tube with the level of water here so that we ensure that the atmospheric pressure inside the test tube matches the atmospheric pressure outside. And now the two liquids are at the same level and you need to take this measurement as the volume of the hydrogen and water vapor gas inside the tube. Now this is the water temperature reading and now this is the room temperature. The atmospheric pressure for trial one is 745.9 millimeters of mercury. Now we're going to repeat the same experiment two more times. We will do two more trials. The atmospheric pressure for trial two was 746.3 millimeters of mercury and now we will proceed to trial three. So the atmospheric pressure for trial three is 755.5 millimeters of mercury. We have completed the lab now. Refer to the lab template provided and produce your lab report.


So Apple just announced their new product lineups in their annual fall event and in this video I wanted to share with you guys what I'm most excited for specifically the Apple watch and the AirPods Pro I'm gonna leave that iPhone 14 and 14 pro for the other youtubers because I don't know if it's enough of a Upgrade for me to spend more money if you guys are interested in me doing a review Let me know in the comments below But right now we're gonna dive straight into the series 8. This was the one I was not the most impressed with it didn't seem like it was that big of a step from the Apple Watch series 7 But the new features were pretty interesting the first one being the temperature sensor now The temperature sensors got to be under the device as well as under the display It's got to be tracking your body temperature changes overnight every five seconds Now the next big update that they announced with the Apple Watch series 8 is the crash detection feature This is their new motion sensors including a three-axis gyroscope as well as a high G force Accelerometer which measures up to around 256 G's that will help detect large impacts. What happens is when it detects a crash It will contact your emergency services your emergency contacts and share your location They also now have a new low power mode because the series 8 has a standard battery life Which to me is already still kind of trash compared to the competition out there But the new low power mode gives you around 36 hours So it keeps the core functions, but disables everything else like the automatic workout detection or the always-on display It also introduced more band styles including the new Nike and Hermes bands, which I don't know who's buying those Hermes bands those things cost I don't even know like too expensive for me I just stick with my regular loop bands or the Nike bands the cost will start at 399 and you could pre-order device now and get it by September 16th And if you do so you end up getting three months free of fitness plus which is a pretty good deal Then they also updated the Apple watch s e basically to replace the series 3 the series 3 is now discontinued But what they did is they kept the core benefits it being swim proof you have the emergency SOS You have the crash detection and the cost is around $249 with it releasing on September 16th now the big announcement the Apple watch ultra was not the only one Who thought the name was gonna be pro like ultra when they said Apple watch ultra when ultra come from I've never heard ultra in an Apple lineup everything about this watch is targeted to that hard core Athlete it looks like they're almost like taking a shot at Garmin if this man shoots me. I want you to kill him And I want you to go clear my browser history It now has a titanium casing to really be durable enough to handle like the harshest conditions And the titanium casing actually goes around the sapphire glass to protect the edges It also is now larger at 49 millimeters and the screen is two times brighter at 2,000 nits And what's really interesting is they now added a new orange action button and this action button can start workouts It can activate a siren which is around 86 decibels which can be heard around 600 feet away It also comes with a larger digital crown with a larger side button Which basically makes it a little bit more accessible if you're wearing gloves and they also added a second speaker to Increase the sound by two times as well. Now what I'm extremely excited about is that 36 hours of battery life finally more than 24 hours double the battery life without even any type of lower power mode They even said in the future, they're gonna have battery optimization to make it go up to 60 hours I'm very interested in seeing if that really reaches that 60 hours. I doubt it, but we'll see they also updated the water resistance to W100 which is basically good for snorkeling diving any type of water sports They also now have a new GPS which is L1 and L5 and what I actually thought was actually really cool Was the new compass app where you can basically set wave finder markers so you don't get lost So you can almost like retract your steps back to the waypoint that you had said earlier But the big hitter is the fact that this watch is 799 and I've pre-ordered it But I'm very interested because like out of all the Apple watches that they announced This was the one that was just very different and what I say I'm like an endurance athlete or like a mountain climber No, but I still think it is a really cool watch to try out as well as the fact if you just want better battery life Right in a more rugged device. Oh, and I also forgot to mention They came out with three new bands have the Alpine loop Which has like a G hook for people doing those like altitude explorations like climbing They have the ocean band with a more tubular design Which is better for going over like a wetsuit when you're diving and then lastly they have the trail loop Which is for endurance athletes, which is supposed to be their thinnest band ever and supposed to be very flexible Now the next update involved the new AirPods Pro They now have this H2 chip which is supposed to basically give you an improved audio experience And this even includes a personalized spatial audio where you can use the true-death camera on your iPhone to Analyze your ear where they give you a personalized spatial audio experience Which is supposed to make it just a little bit more immersive But the two things that I'm really looking forward to is the active noise cancellation Now they said that the noise cancellation is supposed to be doubled the amount Compared to the original gen one with advanced computation and the placement of the microphones This will be very interesting to try out on the New York subways or when I'm at the gym to really see if I am Not hearing anybody else around me now They also updated the transparency mode with what they called the adaptive transparency mode where it basically reduces the volume of harsh Environmental noise they use construction as an example So really you're only listening to the things that matter most so kind of like you know an airport Intercom or talking to somebody next to you now what I'm excited most about around these headphones is the fact that the Stim now has touch control So before you could just pause the play music rewind fast forward But now you can actually use a swiping feature up and down to control the volume which I have been So so so much waiting for because I just didn't understand how you couldn't control the volume on most of these headphones Unless you had to like deactivate one of the features So before it was either active noise cancellation or the volume But now you can do both on just one earbud They also increased the battery life of the new AirPods Pro where it can now get around six hours of listening time And now up to 30 hours of total listening time with the charging case and speaking of the case They definitely made a few changes to it including a speaker where it basically will give you a sound notification when you're charging it Or if you're trying to look for it, which is I think is really cool because at first it was just the headphones But now can actually do the case as well. They also added a loop area where somebody can attach a lanyard I guess if you wanted to keep it on your person at all times And what's cool is you can actually charge it with your Apple Watch charger or any type of key charger that you have available Now both of these come off the new OS's that were announced earlier this summer I really think that Apple is starting to make some strides in the fitness space. Like I said, I have the Apple Watch Ultra Coming I would make sure to do an in-depth review. I might even think about comparing it to the Galaxy Watch Pro Perhaps so I'm very interested to see how the Apple Watch Ultra and the AirPods Pro Help me with my health and fitness goals and let me know in the comments below if you have any questions Or what you would like me to test out. I hope you guys have an amazing day as always be healthy Stay happy and embrace the hype


Hi everyone, Joe for Jasper's casebreaks.com coming at you with a five box break of 2020-2021 upper deck Trilogy hockey That's the second half of the inner case that we popped open that that we did last night So all card ship one spot gets you two teams and there's a combo right there Big thanks to these folks for getting into it Let's double it up like Sir mix a lot. There's a combo right there. So it'll be 30 spots on each list We're gonna roll it randomize each list four and a five nine times one two three four five six seven eight and Ninth and final time after nine we got David down to David four and a five nine times for the teams one two three four five six seven eight And ninth and final time after nine we've got the Arizona coyotes down to Buffalo All right David with the coyotes Steve Burch with the Islanders John with the Preds in the stars Steve with the abs and the sharks Even K with the Panthers see birch with the lightning Stephen K with the red wings Jeremy with the cap Stephen K with the blues Ben with the Maple Leaf Steve with the Bruins Nick with the Hurricanes Ben with the wild Ryan with the Flyers Karen with the flames Scott with the ducks jets combo Steve with the Canadians Ryan with the Rangers Peter with the Knights Kip Kip hooray with the Ottawa Senators Nick with the Oilers Penguins for Peter Scott with the Columbus Blue Jack It's even K with New Jersey Evels Kip He got my Kings Karen with the Blackhawks Jeremy with the Canucks and David with the Buffalo Sabres All right, let's get all this on one page Size a little bit bigger there alphabetized by team Any trades? Remember here the the box is right here. No, not even a whisper of a trade trade window going once trade window going twice TWC trade window close. Let's print and rip Kettle Marta with a double. I got him on my fantasy team. Nice. So there's hamstring. Hopefully back on track Pack didn't want to open got a Connor Ingram rookie renditions relic for Nashville that'll be for John McGee. I Love these cards right the signature pucks are really cool Martin Nacus signature pucks for the Carolina Hurricanes that'll be for for Nick Morgan Gecki and We've got a gauge 20 35 out of 65 autograph for the Vegas Golden Knights. I think we're playing the Wild right now. They were down 2-0 to the Wild when I Last checked Vegas that'll be for Peter Aang. These designs are really cool. I really like these just high Smith For the New Jersey doubles Next box box two of five. We got rookie renditions pier all over Joseph for the penguins Peter with a piece of the penguins Jersey and more signature pucks. That's Ryan suitor For the Minnesota Wild that'll be for Ben Smith turned off for the previous break. There is you can see all the All the cards right here. It's Lucas Carlson for Chicago Norris to 999 next box. All right, we got Joel Kiva Ranta, so I'm gonna go with Dallas Stars. That'll be for John McGee, and we've got a nice autograph here It's Mark Andre Fleury For the Vegas Golden Knights That will be for Peter. There's Steven Lorenz Martin Cout to 999. Come on Joe Kelly Garbage Sean, how are you Sean Kiefer bellows to 499 Islander Steve Birch Bowen Byron to 499 Where's the project of eerie PA the eerie PA who otters? I'm not from I have my knowledge of hockey is Very weak, so I have no idea. Are you talking about Conor McDavid? He's not from eerie PA. Is he? Don't Kelly has to be by far one of the worst signings of the Dodgers had in recent memory They've hit pretty well on a lot of other signings, but This one was this has been especially bad Yes, he was rex just he just walked in there's a Lexie Lafreniere 999 for the Rangers Ryan Donovan there he is again, and there's Quinn Hughes There's Thomas Harley for the stars Let's see. This is rookie renditions Lexie Lafreniere Nice and a Quinn Hughes rally for Vancouver. That'll be for Jeremy Yes, I don't know it's on the schedule There's Nikita Kutra off I Think flawless origins basketball A couple other things Tampa Bay Lightning that'll be for Steve Birch And it gave the Lardi autograph to 399. That's for kip kip hooray one of the young up-and-coming Stars hopefully a star for the Kings 327 Out of 399 nice autograph on the co-patar as well. All right final box David Rodriguez, you were born in eerie floppy defense from the Dodgers Conor McDavid a big partier All right last box. There's Lucas Carlson to 999 We am fowdy to 999 Payton Krebs to 299 Ryan suitor for the Minnesota wild See if we can have that hockey game queued up No, I had TNT on See what channel it is Nights wild wild at nights Golden nights in Minnesota gold nights are in Minnesota. Oh Nights are up 3-2 now. What did that happen now? It's in the third period and there's Dylan Cousins buffalo to 199 That'll be for David Rodriguez There's Igor Zamula to 999 and Patrick Kane for the Blackhawks closes things out. There you go. That was 2020 2021 upper-deck trilogy hockey five box Random team break number two. They'll be more in the store.  Jasper's case breaks calm I'll see you next time for the next break


Alright, so today we have another Patreon request because even though I literally just doubled the price of it I had like 12 people all requested at the same time, so oh Man, it's gonna be a bit difficult to get there, but this one is called One for the Road by Jeremy M. Moore and While it's more of a novella than a real full-length book it is It does a pretty good job at what it sets out to do This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long. Like I said, this is not a very long story I got through it in about in two hours, actually a little bit less than two hours, I think, spread out over two days and It feels like a short film in a lot of ways Like it's basically just focused on this one character in this one location and it focuses on him going over a couple of Relatively simple ideas and themes. In fact, I'd go so far as to say they're very simple ideas and themes Basically, this guy named Miguel has died Like he wakes up in the desert and he has no idea where he is or what's going on Then he goes into this house nearby and there's like, yeah, you're you're dead, man this is the afterlife and he at first does not know how to deal with that because he's like, oh, man how's my how's my wife gonna live without me what what's gonna happen next and Pretty much the whole rest of the story is just him one exploring the afterlife and seeing what it's like and to Figuring out how he can move on how he can decide. Okay, you know what? I miss being alive, but this is just what happens and this is where I'm at now So let's see how I can enjoy that the character of Miguel is, you know, pretty simple because while I do feel for him and I do sympathize with his Wanting to come back to life and I do understand why he'd be a bit freaked out to be in the situation. I It never comes across all that strongly. He's more of a Vessel through which these ideas are explored and by ideas and themes I mean like okay, this is what the afterlife might be like But also like this is how you can move on not only from dying and understanding that your old life is over but also just from pretty much any tragedy or anything that forces you to change your lifestyle like I think From that perspective it is kind of interesting but you would really need like an entire full-length book to go into a lot of detail about that and like I said, this is Novela, this is short-length, but honestly it probably should have been shorter because what I noticed from Literally the first page is that there is a lot of description like a lot a lot a lot a lot of description given about everything and while that's not inherently bad on its own the fact that Everything in the book is described that way is Not great. That's in fact.  Okay. This is important Let's focus on this and if you just breeze over something and it's not that important then Well, yeah, they know it's not that important like for example if someone says I walked outside I saw a man. I said, excuse me. Which way is Blank the man said, oh, it's over that way. I went that way like you can do that because It really doesn't matter what the man looked like or how he said what he said Or even specific directions to the place you're trying to go None of that is important. So you don't need to focus on it. Whereas if the man Uh, I don't know if he got somehow swept up in the adventure with the main character Then it would probably do to Give some description on what he looks like give some description on how he acts make him act a little bit unusual maybe and This book one for the road really doesn't do that like everyone feels equally important Even though from a storytelling standpoint, they're really not and By putting so much emphasis on everything Nothing is really that important then really there's only a few bits that you needed to focus on that much in here and Well, like I said at the beginning this feels kind of like a short film And it should have felt more like a short film because that's exactly what uh At least I think that's what it was going for and by just breezing over some of that stuff it It would have helped it go by faster and it would have allowed me to focus more on the Dreamlike quality of the afterlife and focus more on like michel individually as opposed to his surroundings So overall while I am not really the biggest fan of the this type of I don't know if genre is really the word for it But it's clearly trying to be a little more dreamlike and trippy and unusual than most of the stuff I read and Yeah, I wouldn't normally Go out and grab this I wouldn't say oh that sounds interesting But that said I think it succeeds very well at what it's trying to do You know what it's trying to do doesn't appeal all that much to me personally But it succeeds extremely well So if you are someone who's looking for something shorter something a little cozier, which has some Need ideas and themes in there, but really nothing that you have to think that hard about Then I I guess check this one out You know if if it's a waste of your time at least it's not a giant waste of your time A special thanks to everyone who watched this far and an even Special or thanks to all of my patrons including the ten dollar and up guys Aposavalanan, Olivia Rayan, Ava Tumor, Brandon S. Pilcher, Brother Santotis, Christopher Quinten, Mbis, Pfizer, Jeremy, Joel, Carcat Kitsune, Kevin Zhang, Liza Rudikova, Madison Lewis Bennett, Mel Austin, Microphone, Sad Martigan, Tobacco Crow, Tom Beanie, and Vaivictus man that That list is getting long, but I could not do this without you guys You are seriously the best and thanks again for watching if you want to get your name on here then Consider donating to my page. We also have other perks that you can have access to And if you don't want to do that then simply rating the video commenting on it Subscribing to my channel all that stuff. I'm supposed to say at the end here. That is a huge help. Anyways, uh Bye


Well daddy this song is for you and it's actually written from your perspective but there's a little message from mama at the end as well. I hope you like it. Sometimes in the shadows I catch a glimpse of you or in the morning I see your eyes at blue but I can't hold it long enough to keep you here with the west day where I stay the other side I bet that you'd be smiling and you'd sweetly say to me you'd say it's long but my keep pressing on because I'm not gone because I'll be waiting


Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Darnell Jamal. I'm an education associate for transformation level programming here at Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. We are so extremely to welcome you to the Q&A session on entering the 2021 National High School Design Competition. This is the sixth year of the competition. It's always a wonderful opportunity designed to solve real-world challenges. An enormous thanks to Shelby and Frederick Gaines for helping to make this year's competition possible. This year's theme is what would you design to create a healthier world? We're seeing designers respond to this very challenge today and I'm so pleased to have Ellen Lupton, a senior curator of contemporary design here at Cooper Hewitt and Rachel Smith, designer and founder of Design to Combat COVID-19 who will share more about the topic and answer all of your questions. If you haven't already, also check out the resources on our website CooperHewitt.org forward slash design competition to see more examples of how designers are responding. I actually want to start off today by sharing the designs of our 2020 winners. So if you give me one quick second I'm going to share my screen actually. I'm going to share my computer screen and as I scroll down if you actually go to the our homepage for the design competition you'll be sent to the about the competition main web landing page which afterwards you'll be able to scroll down to the bottom right and you'll see our list of past winners and also last year's design challenge. So I'm going to scroll and once you scroll down a little bit towards the right you'll be able to see all of the projects that were the finalists. Here we have uh yes and so I want to share today the designs of our 2020 winners and the finalists just to get your gears grinding a bit um and the 2020 challenge just to bring your attention to was what would you design to help more of us feel included and like this year they were asked to submit a design sketch and respond to a few questions. Remember you won't be judged on the quality of your sketch and there is no right or wrong answers or wrong way to respond to the questions. We're looking for your innovation ideas to design a healthier world for all. So here we have Priya and Anika who were the winners of last year's competition for their story project a project that allows users to create characters that look like them that will be inserted into diverse selection of storybooks. Next we have we have Skye who I'm sorry we have Skye who designed an accessible hygiene product dispenser particularly catering to the transgender community and lastly but not least we have we have Nyra in Nyra and Yara who presented their no-face app which was meant or is meant to tackle discrimination in hiring practices. We receive so many inspiring ideas and you can explore more from previous years online like I said if you go back to that about the competition for this year 2021 web landing page and you scroll down to the right you'll be able to see all the past winners as well and you'll be able to research their presentations and also I believe we recorded them and you can also go to YouTube and find previous competition presentations so you can see how they actually enacted their presentations in the process that they went through but we can't wait to see what you all submit this year and with that said I'm going to stop sharing my screen and with that said I want to welcome again Ellen and Rachel and you'll hear a little more about their about them and their work and then we'll jump into some questions and also feel free to use the chat throughout the presentation and share any questions in the Q&A box so first Ellen over to you. Thank you Tarnel that's fantastic I am really excited to be here I am a curator here at Cooper Hewitt let's get this nice and big for you. So I organize exhibitions and I write books about design and some of my things are in collaboration with doctors and healthcare professionals because one of our interests here at the museum is design for health so I worked with Dr. Bon Koo on publishing this book called health design thinking and I'm going to show you just a few examples from the book to give you a sense of the kinds of things that designers are doing out there in the world to make things better so these designers in in Britain asked why is it that there's so much violence in emergency departments and this is a real issue that people get very upset they get agitated they get tired of waiting and they get angry at the nurses and the doctors about waiting and so the design team decided that if they could just create better signs inside the emergency room that would explain to people what the process was and where they were in the process then people would have a better experience be happier and be less angry and I think this is such an inspiring idea because it's very low cost it's something that any hospital can create and it really speaks to the experience of people in the hospital and it's example of what designers call empathy which is putting themselves in the position of someone who's very vulnerable maybe they're injured or sick and they're afraid that the nurse has forgotten that they're there and they have these great terrible feelings of anxiety and so these very simple signs really help people to to feel better and to feel safe in the hospital a question that hospitals and doctors are asking right now is how do we deliver COVID-19 testing and vaccines to vulnerable communities and so one of the solutions for that is to bring testing and vaccination to people where they live instead of expecting them to to get on the bus or the subway and go a great distance and find a pharmacy or a hospital that has the service that they need so these architects in New York have created a system that uses school buses to drive into neighborhoods and offer people services another big problem in healthcare is waste so think about how many masks you've thrown away or how many rubber gloves you've seen your parents throw away this is a huge problem and so some designers are specifically concerned with how can we waste less material in creating things like masks or the scrubs that nurses and doctors wear in the hospital so this wonderful designer Danielle Eisner has created a whole system for sewing clothes with zero waste and so she's designed a whole pattern system for how you cut things like sleeves and pant legs and the pockets and all the parts of the garment so that none of the fabric gets thrown away and she's applied this to designing scrubs which are needed by by healthcare workers and other frontline workers so I hope you'll be inspired by a few of these ideas and just to see the incredible creativity that the designers are bringing to the field of design and health wonderful it's so inspiring and you know just not to waste any you know not a second of time we're going to move right into Rachel's presentation presentation before we move into the Q&A session thanks so much I am so excited to be here you know it was in high school when I actually started first meeting designers and had mentors and that's really when the light bulb went off for me so I'm super honored to be here and tell you a little bit more about myself let me go ahead and share my screen perfect so hey everyone I'm Rachel I'm the founder of Design to Combat COVID-19 I'm currently a product designer at Sillow previously I've been with Nordstrom in the Home Depot so through the organization I founded I've been able to get an organization of people to help deliver over a hundred thousand pieces of personal protective equipment oh let me see if I can let's see here um can can you see like the little bar that has like mute and stop video on that is that there or should I move it okay I'm assuming no we can't see okay perfect it's like blocking so I wanted to make sure thank you we've been able to create infographic posters for hospitals and more if you want to know more about us you can go to design to combatcovid19.com we've gained over 7000 global volunteers created infographics for hospitals assisted small businesses with marketing needs have helped those displaced by layoffs with resume mentorship guidance and more these are some doctors that received donated PPE from our organizations so how did we form overnight and what is Design to Combat COVID-19 well we're a community of creatives using whatever skills we have to address the devastating effects of the pandemic we're real creatives making real impact who are not here to ask permission but rather to fix broken systems so I remember sitting on my couch March 15th 2020 scrolling through the coronavirus news and seeing the effects it was having globally in communities it was absolutely devastating without a second thought I purchased a domain set up a website all in one night this overwhelming urge to help hit me I thought to myself I'm somebody who uses design to solve for problems so what could I do to help to solve for this I knew I couldn't be the only person feeling this way so what did I do I got on Twitter I sent some tweets out into the universe and overnight we had 100 folks join our community within a week over a thousand and that's when I knew we were on to something bigger than what I had originally anticipated we've had folks joined globally from Indonesia UK Canada Africa and more all stepping up to help create design solutions for those affected by the pandemic this group has been able to create PPE distribution models delivering over 100 000 pieces of PPE personal protective equipment to healthcare workers worldwide we've also created infographic posters for hospitals in Canada assisted small businesses with marketing needs have helped those with resume and mentorship guidance and so much more additionally we've partnered with other organizations such as fight pandemics and rebuild black businesses connecting them with our extensive global network to help those who have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic so I'm going to go ahead and just show you some of the products and organizations that we incubated just a small snippet of what we've been able to create in terms of impact so one of our volunteers said she's a Guatemalan designer based out of Mexico City she actually teamed up with another organization called COVID response advisors to create a testing program to help safely reopen schools child care and other essential organizations and this is just one of an example of the designs that she was able to create and you can see her website there down below another product we incubated is safe healthy kind which was created by two of our volunteers an ICU physician and a software engineer this is a community created for healthcare workers to turn to each other for comfort and guidance through support chat forms having real in raw conversations to support each other another organization we incubated was the refugees care community our volunteer Rainey in Australia teamed up with the Distribute Aid volunteer in Norway to provide web page designs to support women in these refugee camps to help fund make and distribute a hundred thousand masks to people in need around the world however the biggest moment that sticks out to me was the formation and rapid growth of the second organization I co-founded masks for docs which incubated out of design to combat COVID-19 tech CEO Chad Loder came into our space asking about problem solving for the PPE shortage we initially started thinking about posters or web campaigns raising awareness around donating excess PPE to medical workers however it evolved into so much more we ended up building our own grassroots supply chain network to provide PPE from local communities to hospitals being a designer we had to think of the various ways we were able to send people to the site we had two main routes folks who wanted to donate and folks who wanted to help this is just a small example of some user flows we built overnight to help guide folks through the master docs ecosystem listening to our volunteers needs and getting the feedback from our users really helped us to determine how we were able to launch the 2.0 version of our site master docs gained over 5,000 volunteers and over 100 global chapters delivering PPE to the state these organizations as mentioned has delivered over a hundred thousand pieces of medical equipment to folks globally you know the biggest thing that I've learned from this experience is that you're never alone there's a community of folks out there who are willing to step up and are just as passionate as you are about making a difference even if it's virtually another big takeaway for me is being okay with ambiguity and pivoting your plan to solve for things that pop up in the moment that sometimes originally what you planned it may not work and sometimes you just have to go out with what works in the moment if it means getting people what they need if you want to find out more about design to combat COVID-19 our work and our impact you've been able to create you can check us out at design to combat COVID-19 or you can follow either of the twitters design to combat COVID-19 or mine over Rachel Smith to keep up with our progress and updates and that's it that's absolutely amazing I mean both of your presentations really spoke to this idea of empathy and this idea of connectivity that really has been challenged you know during this COVID era and really how designers are grappling with that I mean both Rachel as a designer yourself and Ellen of course being adjacent to designers and curating obviously exhibitions that exude these very interval aspects to our day-to-day so I commend both of you for the work that you've done and with that said you know I want to just jump right into different questions and I welcome everyone out there who's participating with us to link your questions upload your questions to the Q&A box it's on the bottom of your screen you'll see a little Q&A and then once you upload I'll be able to read it off but until they come in I like to kind of ask some of my own because myself I'm a fashion historian so this is like very much opposite angle from how I approach you know in general my entire educative outlet but so I'm going to be asking questions that may come off as rudimentary but I hope that you know they do allude to some great conversation but the first one I had was what are some of the foundational principles both of you work by before even thinking about taking on a design project or for you Ellen that you've seen other designers have within their their work like what are those kind of foundational principles that you have or see great well a really important question to ask right away is who is this product for and that means thinking about the human beings who are going to interact with your product and then you have to ask who is excluded by your product and that's just as important and that was really the whole theme of last year's competition right how to create a more inclusive world through design and that's something that we'll be looking at when Cooper Hewitt reviews all your amazing proposals it's like is this inclusive does it bring people together or does it keep some people on the sideline yes 100% to that for me you know being a designer I'm also a user experience designer meaning you know I design for folks experiences research is absolutely key in things that I like to do when I'm designing or thinking about a product or anything I want to create really as Ellen mentioned who's going to be using this are there gaps within the audience of people who are be going to be using this but also what's existing out in the world you know with design a combat COVID-19 we were working so rapidly that we didn't realize for instance back in April if you were to Google COVID testing locations they're really it was so hard to find anything in our group we tried to create one of the first sites it was called covid testing sites calm but what we didn't realize is there were so many other folks ramping up doing the same thing and if we just kind of like stopped took a moment and said okay are there other folks that are doing this like can we connect to them can we do the research see what's already out there we probably could have banned together and and worked more quickly so it's doing the research it's seeing what's already existing but also saying you know how can you improve the thing if it is existing or how can you make it better oh go ahead don't stop me oh I was just sure if Ellen wanted you want to say something I mean I guess it's like one of those things where you know both of you are pointing to this idea of like audience make sure there is audience driven that it's it's it's usable because I do feel like sometimes we do live in this bubble right like that some of us are used to certain privileges and in certain access to how things work and not realizing that there are communities that don't have that and within that I think that those are very important points that I hope that whoever's interested in you know submitting to this year's competition which I will definitely get into towards the end of the talk you know about submission and the process and a little bit into that but again we also I also want to direct all of you to out there to go to the website to kupaheward.org forward slash design competition to get the specific details on the the process but also what our intentions are this year you know the pandemics racial pandemics the health pandemics all the different pandemics that we're really enduring and that have been here throughout you know all of our existences are something that we're trying to truly tackle and we really want to see and feel inspired by the projects submitted and speaking of that when you begin thinking about different projects you know or seeing designers think about different projects you know you both talked about the importance of identifying the user audience but I guess like how do both of you take on that that aspect of the project like when you look at audiences are you is there a system that you kind of in that in order to find that audience or do you look at past work you know and say well this didn't necessarily fill what we wanted to and then we kind of take it from there and in order to tackle those or filling the void in terms of the audiences that you want to obtain that's a really great question ideally designers collaborate with the very people who are impacted by their work that may not be possible you're working at home you're in high school right that's a big a big ask but let's say you interview your grandmother or a neighbor about your idea and ask them for their feedback you know maybe they find it too high tech or it would be hard to understand or maybe they love it and have a great suggestion for making it more streamlined so working working with people is really important and we all just have to find the best way to do that given your resources yeah absolutely um talking to folks i think is absolutely important um understanding their experiences and documenting that right like maybe you know google has free surveys that you can send out so maybe you can get like a little email list and send it out to folks and say hey can i get your feedback on something that way you actually have you know a data point to reference saying okay it shows that you know six people enjoyed this experience you know four people and did have questions about this like where can i improve i think that's really important but also you know darnell you kind of touched on this a bit but it's also you know going outside of what you know so thinking about designing for other folks think about people who may not necessarily have your day to day experience an example i can bring to you all is you know spotify i'm pretty sure everyone's fairly familiar with this platform they actually have you know the app that you use but in other countries that may not have such a strong wi-fi connection they actually have a light version of the app which you know living i live in the los angeles area i have a pretty good wi-fi connection i've never had to think about that but are there opportunities or gaps where you can reach out to different folks who may have a different experience in you example being the spotify example um some people have a completely different app experience because they don't have a strong wi-fi signal so i think reaching out to folks documenting their experiences and just asking them and recording that information will definitely give you insight to whatever it is that you're trying to build or create amazing and and i think that it's it's it's like what you're saying well both of you said are just very just integral to like design fields across because i think that you know i feel like some disciplines get a little bit more you know bs than the other it's like it goes across it's for everyone um and in that is it possible to create design that everyone is satisfied with because i think that that's where like we're trying to not i guess no one's perfect and nothing is perfect but are there examples in both of your work or in other people's work that you've admired that you've seen like a very successful approach to kind of really um to really creating design that that that helps a larger mass amount of the population rather than a specific aspect of the population so an interesting example darnel is uh redesigning hospital gowns so a designer and a team set about to do this and they were very concerned about the needs of the patient to feel more dignity to feel more privacy to feel less exposed you know this is a already a very vulnerable situation being in the hospital but then they realized that they also had to account for the needs of the nurses so the gown had to it had to be easy to um access iv ports it had to be easy to take the gown on and off of somebody who might have difficulty moving their own body so when you start to think about a product is not having just one user but that it actually affects multiple people and i was intrigued by your reference darnel the fashion history because actually there's a lot of fashion related to health care and a lot of very practical issues in fashion around waste around accessibility around um body fit right be able to fit multiple bodies and not just an ideal body around expression of gender and imposing certain gender expressions on people so really every part of design is related to users um and i think that's a really fascinating way to to look at the objects and products that you buy and interact with is is who's using this and who isn't who's excluded did you all see the i mean maybe it's old news i just saw it this week but nike just came out with the um the shoe where you're just able to slip your shoe in without actually having to tie the laces that's incredible i mean imagine folks who aren't able to bend over or tie their shoes they can just slip it in and go that is an incredible opportunity and you know it's reaching out to folks who may have not been able to have that before it's it's amazing to see um yes you know i think we need to understand about different needs we need to be inclusive in our design meaning that we're considering a wide range of abilities and disabilities that we must consider for equitable use um again it requires empathy so it's thinking outside of yourself and your own experiences and really chatting with folks to understand their needs think about websites and if you if you're a website um designer you know there are some people who are blind who have to go on the site and then use a screen reader if you don't set up you know the site in a way where they're able to access information you know that you're not you're not being able to talk to them so these are things that you have to be thinking about moving forward is um you know equitable use for folks definitely right and i think you both hit on to something that even is related to the questions of you there are a few audience questions two of them are very much related to if the project submissions have to be related to COVID-19 and even though that that is what is on everyone's mind no like the the the task is how can we design to create a healthy world and that relates to so many different levels and even to both of your points you know from you know having accessibility to to to see a keyboard or to to to see a website or to even like weight or like health like there's a lot of different like avenues that we can go through in terms of how to design a product for whatever our needs are or whatever our wants are to to get to that healthier world so it doesn't have to be COVID related it doesn't have to be specific to the time well i mean obviously everything is specific to the time that we live in but it doesn't have to be specific to these kind of large large looming issues that are going on even though obviously you know that's what's on on a lot of our minds and i'm actually going to kind of skip around and there is a question here we have from Joe you know he teaches at sportswood high school at king university in new jersey and at king university in new in new jersey and his question is in the guidance for his high school students that he's going to be working with on this project for well submitting for the competition um and then it says how far into blue sky do we recommend we go and if we are discussing as a group any available technologies versus tech we wish existed how far of a swing should we go so i think that this question in general is about i think it's touching on how what ways do you all see educators roles in encouraging their students to really participate like how extreme like like what's the enthusiasm or what are like tips that you will all suggest and i know rachel specifically i know that we discussed you know prior to about your mentoring experience that like being a mentee and and being mentored and so i think that both of you can really kind of speak to this being that you both have been in the education space it's a great question um i think it i think a successful entry can use technology that doesn't exist anymore but it shouldn't just be a fantasy it's not the fairy godmother coming and turning a pumpkin into a carriage but we could think about for example ar or br becoming more accessible to people right and that's something just a few years out um and right now nobody's walking around with goggles or google glass but in five years they could and so i think if you want to develop something that relies on a future oriented technology just make sure it's addressing real problems and that it's addressing it in a way that speaks to real people just the way we've been talking about design's function yeah one thing that i've really noticed especially being a designer and i'm sure everyone else has felt this in the past year is what we knew before has gone completely out the window we've had to shift pivot things are all online now use the grocery stores different i don't know about you all but even when i'm well i don't know how many of you can drive it when i'm at the gas station and i'm pressing the buttons i don't even want to use my finger anymore i mean it's just the tiny things right and i think as a designer that's a really great or for students or for educators a really great opportunity to think to think about areas in your life now that have been affected that have what i call duct tape on it so an opportunity to fix something that may like be a little bit broken or that was that used to work before that maybe is not working in the environment that we live now i think there is just immense opportunity to think about the things that affect you in everyday life because of the changes we've had to make and really running with those ideas and thinking okay this is something that i know is not working so well how can i go ahead and maybe improve on this or think about it a bit more um you know if not now to kind of come up with new ideas and new opportunities than when we're all just figuring how does we go right so i would kind of think at least in my experience maybe something look around your life for something that has changed that you can improve yes this is about designing a healthier world i know mental health has been a huge impactful thing that's been happening for folks for me personally i you know um i have to take a walk midday sometimes just to get away from a screen so what what are some things that you recognize in your own life that you can go ahead and and speak to and maybe you know explore a bit more um that's just my two cents but yeah there's a lot of great opportunity it's great because you know one of my questions was also in inspiration like where do you where do you seek inspiration and you know i guess there's a lot there's a lot going on in our world right like there's a point too that is it's tough to kind of not move your your head away from right be a basis of your own inspiration but even in like a very fun quirky sense you know where do you find inspiration for things that not necessarily are are you know that we need you know but things that that you know amplify that that sense of joy where do you where have you seen you know designers take that inspiration ellen and where have you seen where have you taken that inspiration for yourself rachel i get inspiration from museums yeah libraries and netflix i recommend the netflix series called abstract which is all about great designers in every field solving problems for people amazing i love reading science fiction i love the writer tavia butler who writes about what could go wrong in the future and about the incredible heroic people kind of forging a new world in the future so there's so much inspiration in art and literature and and movies that a lot of it's free you know your your library you can check out ebooks for free you can get movies streaming for free there's just so much so much to be inspired by for me inspiration i would say pre-pandemic it was definitely traveling um last year wait no at the end of 2019 i'm like i don't know what year it is anymore it's just been like the whole long stream of time the end of 2019 my husband and i we we had the opportunity to go to japan and the one thing that i saw with every single train station and this is true you can google it every train station has a different song a tune that they play when the train arrives and the person who wrote those tunes for each train station encapsulated the personality of the train station i mean i've been on a million trains here in the us and i've never heard its own individual personality tone for when it arrived to me going outside of my normal experience especially when traveling really inspired me because it made me think wow this is such a different experience this culture embraces things so much differently than how i normally had grown up um in this day and age honestly ellen brought up a good point there's so many free resources online and also there's so many amazing networks online too i've met incredible designers i mean i'm not kidding from norway to australia as i mentioned two of our volunteers were able to join forces um fed who's guatemalan living in mexico city we've been working together to create projects as well just seeing how these different designers work and think virtually within their own cultures around the world has brought me so much inspiration because yes i'm familiar with the tools that i have and yes i know the access points that i have but how are other people thinking and how are other people working there are so many amazing design communities online that i definitely encourage you to check out because those connections uh they'll last a lifetime and there's so many cool people out there that you should just be chatting with and getting their insights from so yeah that's where that's where i find inspiration chatting with other folks yeah i love that i mean it it's interesting that you say because feel like you could pull it anywhere and ellen you brought up abstract you know scott gattage that's his that's his baby and he was one he won the national design award last year for communication design so definitely abstract has you know the full plethora of of a lot going on but um switching gears back to the competition specifically you both in your presentations talked a lot about you know empathy you talked about how design connects to uh really kind of like the psychological process of like feeling those feelings that people are are enduring and i'm curious to know you know and this is not you know this is in no way to bring down any design or anything like that but i i think it would be realistic to kind of put in perspective unsuccessful projects and why that was unsuccessful um because at the end of the day i feel like some of the greatest successes come out of failure and you know from your perspectives you know what are design projects that you know you've seen or were a part of that um that may have had an intention to reach out to you know creating a healthier world creating a more inclusive world or kind of these kind of big broad foundational principles and they didn't miss they didn't make the mark well a big example is last spring in new york city uh the government built emergency hospitals in uh sports stadiums in the civic center they brought the ship military ship called the comfort yes and these facilities had thousands of beds were thousands of patients and they were basically not used and this is because the hospitals had never figured out a way to actually transfer patients to those facilities and this is a huge waste of money and meanwhile there were certain hot spots throughout new york city like in the borough of queens where the hospitals were overflowing with patients and had no way to share them with other hospitals that had space terrible failure but it prompted new york city hospital systems to actually get together and create a system for communicating with each other so that if one hospital ran out of beds they could actually know where to send their patients so failure but then dealing with it and creating a new system designing a new system yeah i think as i mentioned earlier uh this pandemic just really revealed a lot of opportunity to fix broken systems uh one of those being as you can recall at the beginning of last year you know we had a mask shortage supply changed to simply were not able to keep up with the demand of folks who needed masks um you know so that's one of the reasons why our organization got up and started running masks for docs and we literally were asking people do you have a mask in your earthquake kit do you have it in your art supply can you give it to this local hospital because the supply chains they they just weren't able to keep up with this huge spike in demand overnight and not only was there a spike but then you had people you know price gouging a lot of shady things were happening um you know but i think we can learn from those experiences and say okay if something were to happen if we needed something in a large amount of quantity like how can we fix that so didn't work out so well but i think a lot of people stepped up to the plant not only our organization there are lots of PPE distribution organizations that basically are people like you and me who just stepped up and said we want to help like let's do this thing and they were able to come up overnight and really help make a difference yes we've been able to catch up yes you can go to your local hardware store or even a cbs and get a mask um but you know nine ten months ago i mean we didn't even have toilet paper so we were you know just kind of colon with it as we could um yeah there's there's opportunities for it um but it's been an experience definitely and then looking at that you know as the you know those who decide to submit their projects are you know we have specific guidelines but once they get past that first step and you know they're looking at all these kind of big picture things that are happening and they're narrowing down how they're going to enact it what's what tips can you both give those students who are in that process because this can be a bit overwhelming and I feel like this year is probably more overwhelming than recent because you know we're at home most of the most of everybody and you know all we have time to do is think we're out in public you know we can we have no choice but to kind of narrow things down automatically because we have a lot of things on our minds but now we have all this time to kind of like think about these processes and it can get overwhelming but what tips do you both can you both provide well I think Darnell your point is to take a big topic and find something specific so let's take a topic like vaccination there are many design challenges around vaccination one is building public trust in the science and that's a communication challenge and within that challenge there are different audiences there are communities who have historically felt misused by the medical system there are healthcare workers who are a very specific audience where there's a high percentage of vaccine deniers among healthcare workers so so even within just communicating the vaccine there's sub challenges or you might address something like how do you bring vaccination sites into communities right through mobile systems through using schools as as vaccination sites you know all kinds of solutions for that so the idea of taking a big problem and then finding something specific is a really good strategy for a design competition I'm glad you brought up the vaccination example Ellen because I see it happening I mean I hear stories of folks who are saying you know oh our freezer is broken who wants a shot like that shouldn't be happening there should be a better plan for that that aside tips to give it can be overwhelming thinking about all of the things that are happening in this day and age don't try to solve for all the things really try to narrow down and also be okay with ambiguity meaning be okay with the unknown right maybe you don't have all the answers right now maybe you know there's a big question mark in your head with this thing that you want to run with but what I would encourage you to do is speak to those people that will be using your product or using your design get feedback because when you start getting feedback from folks it's going to start those question marks are going to start disappearing a bit more and you're going to say ah okay they have this experience what can I learn from that so be okay with the unknowns in the beginning and also users needs change as well maybe at the beginning of your project you thought okay they need this experience to happen but towards the end you're like oh it's changing a bit it's okay to pivot learn from how you're learn from the research that you're getting from your users be okay with some question marks and just get feedback that's that's what I would encourage you to do but don't try to solve for all the things they can be overwhelming definitely you know have a focus point and then go from there and that's interesting and that brought me brings you to the next question you know when you who do you go to to prototype out your project like do you like and I'm curious to know like even like do you go to your family members I know Ellen obviously we both work at Cooper Hewlett there's like when it comes to the curatorial process there's a lot of committees there's a whole nine there's a lot of people that's in your business so that that we do know but if there's anyone I know if I'm involved in the curatorial education initiative I go to my mom you know that like because she is like very far removed from all of this what I do so I'm like does this make sense so I'm curious to know who do you both go to to try to prototype your ideas from like just a very foundational standpoint yeah I mean I think it's it's a really great opportunity to talk to as I mentioned before people who are not like you so maybe somebody who's older maybe who is someone who's younger maybe someone who doesn't identify as much as you do go to a neighbor go to a friend get as many a spectrum of as many folks as possible because you're going to get lots of different perspectives that's what I would encourage you to do and you'll get a lot of insights and gems that maybe you didn't even realize just by talking to these folks it's great yeah and you can also do role playing you know you can try to literally put yourself in the perspective of someone who doesn't have a phone for example and how would they access a particular service if they had to borrow someone else's phone or if they had to go walk to the place or if they had to use their landline you know I remember that so you know sometimes just imagining somebody else's circumstance can get you part of the way to understanding the issues and I just think that you know that those ways that you've both suggested are just amazing ways to just kind of just help the process grow and help the design and even do things that you may not even have thought of you know because other people's minds work differently sometimes you get like tunnel vision it was like this is what it is and then you ask somebody like well I don't I don't use it in that way this is not what I do so it definitely revolutionizes how products are created and how the design develops but with that said I know there was another question in Q&A this this this program will is recorded it's going to be on stream it's streaming now through YouTube so you will always be able to have it as a reference and for those who are educators that joined us that this is you know perfect to pass on you know to your students and we have you know plethora of resources here at Cooper Hewitt that we welcome you to to to look at but I'm just wrapping up this is really much all the time that we had for today but before we go you know I want I'm very excited to announce that Rachel will be our lead mentor for mentor weekend you know for those who are get to the advance of that that stage in the competition you know finalists will have the opportunity to work with Rachel and others to develop their designs in the next stage of the competition um so I just want to thank you thank you all out there for joining us and thank you Alan and Rachel for spending some time with us today really illuminating a nice path for everyone's journey and again this is on YouTube so it's permanent it's here forever and we look forward to being inspired by your designs for those who just had to submit you know again visit www.cooperhewitt.org forward slash design competition for details on how to enter and don't forget the entry deadline is the end of this month um on February 22nd um so definitely get on it time to get started if you haven't um you know the the the different requirements are actually not as strenuous as it comes across so you can definitely submit something and definitely look at the past winners and the past finalists to get that inspiration and beyond the competition we we hope that you'll continue to be inspired by design and explore all that we have to offer digitally while the museum is still closed for the moment but we're crossing our fingers that that will turn around soon including enriching design activities on the Smithsonian Learning Lab virtual field trips for kindergarten to 12th grade and much much more thank you all so much again and thank you again to our speakers um and have a blessed day thank y'all so much thank you Darnell that was really fun thank you i'm excited to see what everyone comes up with i am too


This is the day in the life as a produced student with two internships My agency is opening a new office. So I headed that way a beautiful Indiana morning I got into the office and I immediately checked emails made sure all the scheduling was right and then created some social media posts for the following week. I looked at some prospective clients and then headed off to Starbucks Crumble cookie was right next door. So I definitely had to grab some for the office.  I had a pretty quick workout because I had a dinner to go to tonight. I Was able to meet a lot of important people got to catch up with a few co-workers. I Headed home to start my second job I'm a marketing intern for life at Purdue. I looked at some statistics for engagement edited a few posts and Went through and responded to multiple comments a long day, but I love what I do