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For children with respiratory conditions things are looking up, thanks to this lightweight,
award-winning innovation from ShanShan ***. Roam is a lightweight oxygen cylinder that
was developed for her major project in industrial design at UNSW.
"I came up with this idea when I saw a child in a park using an oxygen cylinder. One of
these cylinders is pretty heavy. I thought 'Hey, Why not? I'm an industrial designer.
Why is a product like this out on the market? I need to fix this problem. And that's what
I did.'" Conventional cylinders such as this ah, last
usually between 20 to 30 minutes and are usually quite heavy. My design reduces this weight
by about 45 percent and as well lasts between two to three hours. The current nasal mask
is actually uncomfortable and a lot of its pretty obtrusive to how they move around and
how they eat. So what I did was I redesigned the nasal component and turned it into a hybrid
between a nasal mask, which is those plastic prongs, and the oxygen mask. It's much more
comfortable for a child to use, it's much more durable and it contains digitised interface
which is so much easier because if you have a child, you know, playing around with knobs.
Well this thing's specifically locked to a patient and how the patient is supposed to
use it. And it's just much more comfortable. It's all about humanising a product at the
end of the day. And that's what I did with Roam.
Roam has gone on to win the prestigious James Dyson and Red Dot Design awards and is currently
in the process of seeking commercialising partners.
'So in one word to sum it up, it's exciting. Very exciting for me as an industrial designer
because I can see something that I've grown, babied, all the way to, eh, a proper, one
day, a proper product. So now I get to work with expert who are specialised in their field
and I get to learn off them. Because Roam is a medical product it will take about five
to 10 years to develop. There is a lot of standards and regulations that you've got
to go through. Hopefully one you'll see Roam out on the streets, roaming around as they
say."