Jun 04, 2008

Filed under: All, Art, Innovation
Tags: Art, boat, Design, ship, shipping
Posted by: everybodycandesign
3 Comments

« go back to the future

Shipping electricity

Living here in Rotterdam, you can’t help be impressed with the size of the HUGE ships which transport containers around the globe, to and from the docks here. Indeed, something I really enjoy is sitting by the mouth of the river Maas at Hoek van Holland watching these monsters moving elegantly out to sea and off to other oceans.

Now, one of my pet hates is the horrible necessity of the “extension plug” which we end up buying to accommodate that new hard drive, or the scanner, sure you know the score. This little beauty is a great answer to that problem. The body of the extender is shaped like a ship, and when you add your devices’ power packs to the sockets, you add containers to the ships.

Hell, I’m even thinking about painting my scanner power pack in the colours of a Delta Lloyd, or Safmarine container… or if anyone wants to sponsor my printer plug I would paint it in the colours of their containers.

Once again this is a great example of someone re-thinking an everyday object which we take for granted and making it into something less ugly and something you can more easily live with on your desk. As before, if you want to tell us how you would re-think something, then let us know is the comment boxes, adding momentum to our “Everybody can design Innovation award” idea.

3 Comments for Shipping electricity

MrT | June 4, 2008 at 17:11

Mmmm….I can’t say that this ‘floats my boat’ guys. Pun intended!
Yeah sure it’s a novelty ship, and yeah, sure it’s gets pretend containers on it every time you plug something in, but it’s flawed, not only will it tip up when you attempt to put a plug in at each end and when it’s only half engaged, electrocute yourself in the process, but really, we should be finding a way to eradicate the growing need for plugs. How many adapters do we have when we go on vacation or business trip? The ipod adapter, the phone adapter, the laptop adapter, the camera adapter, the plug in external ipod speakers adapter, the adapter for each of these adapters for use overseas? Need I go on. This is a drop in the ocean (Pun to boats again) compared with what’s under our desks. So my brilliant solution is daisy chaining!, YES, 1 plug into the wall and a small socket on each piece of equipment so they can be ‘chained’ together. The USBs could also be included in the same cord, OR why don’t we invent wireless electricity altogether? ‘Mind the cable’ will be a thing of the past, however, the ‘invisible’ cable will be sure to burn your feet off from the ankle! I know it’s a bad solution but hey, I’m no inventor but at least I’m thinking. Keep the creative going guys.

everybodycandesign | June 5, 2008 at 17:39

I know what you mean, but this is a simple solution to the immediate problem of those ugly expander sockets.

I agree that we use too much electricity, and we should be doing much more to use much less, but until Phillips, Sony, Sanyo, Apple, Mitsubishi (amongst others) and every government in the World decides to act, and in turn, fund the retro-fitting of every electrical appliance that everyone owns then we’re kind of stuck with it as it is…

…UNLESS we all suddenly start stick our fingers into the wall sockets and taking a direct 240V hit. Surely that would force Health and Safety people and European community to start to ask for proposals to redesign the electrical systems across the continent – meaning my UK mac would plug into the Dutch electric without an adaptor. Could be your chance to make a change, youth!

Anyway, keep interacting

Rogier | June 6, 2008 at 09:30

As a true “Rotterdamer” i love this idea. Besides that… just want to say hi.

Greetz,
R.