I enjoy utilising design research methods to identify gaps in the market and pain points with user experiences to develop better solutions.
Final year project
Sentinel: Front door flood guard and connected monitoring system to provide resistance against property-level flooding.
Sentinel home flood guard deployed and un-deployed
The barrier is designed to minimise visual impact when out of use, with a grating sitting flush with the doorway and a system sliding up a pair of railings.
Sentinel home flood guard during flooding
The barrier deploys passively through flood water entering through the top grating and filling a series of non-return valves to create a stack of high-pressure water bricks from the bottom up. These push against the railings to seal the home from floodwater ingress. If the resident seeks to pre-empt flood events, the barrier can also be deployed using a pump, initiated from the indoor alarm and control system.
Sentinel alarm system
Indoors, Sentinel has an alarm and control system to monitor local flood alerts and warnings from the Environment Agency, and detect on-site flooding. The alarm provides visual and audible instructions to increase residents' understanding and resilience in dealing with flooding. Residents can turn the control dial to pre-emptively deploy the barrier with a pump, and also be instructed on un-deployment.
Sentinel alarm system electronics prototype
The alarm system was prototyped to interface the magnetic reed switch water sensor, colour-changing LEDs, an OLED screen, audio, and user controls in order to carry out user testing. Augmented reality prototyping supplemented this by providing users with a virtual aesthetic model.
Live Projects: AirLab portable blood testing drone
AirLab is a blood test delivery drone designed for the NHS’s at-home Monitor My Health service with an in-built centrifuge to expedite processing times and remove the requirement to manually post samples.
Tom James
Final year project
Sentinel: Front door flood guard and connected monitoring system to provide resistance against property-level flooding.
Awards
Loughborough University Scholarship for Academic Excellence (2019) for Part A studies.
Work Experience
I completed an Industrial Placement (6 months) at Deloitte in Enterprise, Technology and Performance Consulting, specialising in Technology, Strategy and Transformation. I am excited to be re-joining Deloitte this autumn as an Analyst.