ABOUT ME

Winning a school DT prize inspired me to follow my inspiration for design and select Product Design as one of my 8 GCSEs, that also included Computer Science and Combined Science, as well as assisting in the DT department open evenings. My continuing fascination led to choosing Product Design and Textiles as two of my three A Level subjects, as well as studying Spanish as an opportunity to communicate with a broader audience. I centred my Textiles A Level coursework around the reuse of found materials to create new products and artworks without wastage and environmental detriment. 

One of my core strengths is rapid physical prototyping. I enjoy demonstrating and refining ideas through 3D model making. I expanded on this skill during my first major ‘plan to prototype project’. This was a CAD designed multi-purpose storage unit that I created in GCSE Product Design. My A Level course work is focussing on an affordable small animal carrier specifically designed to relieve the stress and suffering when transporting a sickly pet.

I am particularly fascinated by the inclusive and iterative design processes and am looking forward to delving deeper into this through this course. The opportunity to gain a more profound understanding of the technological aspects of product design and to develop commercially viable products that can be used to help those in need is something that I am excited about.

I developed my communication skills during my NCS program, where I worked with others doing 30 hours of volunteer work to refurbish a local primary school’s playground equipment. This was a technical challenge as we needed to redesign the surrounding flower bed and campfire area, however, as a creative individual I was able to help produce new designs to be painted onto the boxes of flower beds and a playground gazebo, NCS also improved my organisational and time management skills as I worked in a team, helping to organise people into different roles to ensure that we met multiple goals by a certain time. Outside of school, I remain motivated and dedicated to my studies and use online tutorials to teach myself how to use 2D Design. My free time is spent working on commissions for cosplay props. Putting time into the creative process makes me feel accomplished, so I always aim to make a product I can be proud of.

I have contributed to my community volunteering at Heathfield Ecology Centre, where one of my responsibilities was helping to layout and run stalls at the summer charity fair. This included elements of project management, dealing with visiting members of the public, and some manual labour when helping out with grounds maintenance. I subsequently volunteered at the Warlingham Community Library, where the teamwork required expanded my social skills and helped build my confidence. Last summer, I had work experience at an independent gaming shop, which has led to an ongoing paid part-time role as a retail assistant. This has further developed my community, teamwork and organisational skills, in addition to problem solving when the inventory system failed. I enjoy technical challenges and problem-solving and I am always looking out for ways to adapt new technologies to existing problems. I’m hoping that, by studying Product Design at university, I will be able to develop products that can be used to help those in need.