Minor Project: Cooling the Heat, Healing the Mind

October 15, 2025

Minor Project: Cooling the Heat, Healing the Mind

24/09/25 - 31/12/25 / Week 1-Week 14
Brendan Fedya / 0376283
Minor Project / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media / Taylor's University
Cooling the Heat, Healing the Mind

Group Members

Weekly Progress

➼ Week 1

On the first week, we formed groups of 5-7 people but with restrictions — we could only put 2-3 people from the same specialization in one group, since the project will require a lot of specialized fields to work together. After we formed groups, we are asked to choose projects that we are going to work on.

Here are my groupmates:

➼ Week 2
After we formed groups, we are asked to choose projects that we are going to work on. In which we chose a project called Cooling the Heat, Healing the Mind (CHHM). Here are the details of the project:

Project Brief
Client: Clean Technology Impact Lab
Client’s name: Dr Praveena Nair Sivasankaran (Praveena.Nair@taylors.edu.my) Cooling the Heat, Healing the Mind (CHHM)

Project Summary:
The Cooling the Heat, Healing the Mind (CHHM) project addresses the growing challenge of heat stress and mental wellbeing among outdoor workers. Rising global temperatures, intensified by climate change, are creating unsafe working conditions and increasing psychological strain.

The SDG goals it aligns with:
SDG 3 (Good Health & Wellbeing)
SDG 6 (Clean Water & Sanitation)
SDG 7 (Affordable & Clean Energy)
SDG 8 (Decent Work & Economic Growth)
SDG 13 (Climate Action)

This project invites TDS students to integrate design with innovative solutions in order to come up with sustainable prototypes that could help tackle heat stress.

➼ Week 3

Week 3 was the consultation with our client. We spent the week coming up with questions to ask the interviewer. Consultation was focused on explaining the project brief, expectations for the coming assignment and a Q and A session. This week we were assigned our "Task 1 : Project Proposal" which requires us to come up with innovative ideas which will be presented to the client by week 6.

➼ Week 4

On week 4, we started working on the FigJam board for ideation, and mapping out our ideas. I proposed a retractable cooling parasol supported by an integrated application as well as social media campaigns to help market the product. I thought about this by considering the different specializations we have for our team, for example: Digital Animation students could help on doing 3d modelling for the product, then UI/UX on the app designs, user research, and user tests, while graphic design students could be responsible in creating promotional materials.

Figure 1.1 Proposing ideas, Week 4.

Main design ideas we came up with are :
1. Cooling Vest
2. Portable Cooling Patch
3. Cooling infrastructure on site
4. Smart insulated water bottles
5. Electrolyte Supplement
6. Health App
7. Cooling Hat/Sweatbands
8. Promotional material on instagram page
9. Infographic poster with SDG alignment
10.Blueprint style poster of our proposed innovation

We were then told that before doing ideation, we must create our user personas first hence we began coming up with relevant user personas that fit the criteria of the project.

Figure 1.2 Target profile suggestions, Week 4.

We eventually brought it down it 3 user personas : Outdoor workers, tour guides and students.

Figure 1.3 Chosen user personas, Week 4.

➼ Week 5

After we have understood the eligible targeted audience for our project, we started discussing further on 2 profiles for our research. Initially, we can up with security guards as one of our targeted profile, however, as we tried asking them for interviews, we ended up with 1 rejection and another was due to language barrier. After this, we tried approaching a grab delivery driver, but we got rejected again as he was busy working.

Thereafter, we consulted this to Miss Wong as we had a change of targeted audience then what we have told her previously. We told her the reason, and she approved, allowing us to continue working on our next step.

Here are targeted audience:

Figure 1.4 Finalized user personas, Week 5.

➼ Week 6

After all the consultation we did, week 6 was our first task submission where we had to submit a proposal of our project. to present an innovative concept that introduces unique solutions in relation to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, UNSDG / Client’s project for the intended target audience.

- We were to conduct user research on our target audience from a human-centered perspective to understand their needs to form insights into their actual problem. The user research consists of interview, observation, or survey to further understand the problem space from the user’s perspective.

- Supported by empathy research with analysis reports on product or service functioning and effectiveness, technical advances and obstacles, aesthetics, and enjoyment of design.

- The needs you have identified via your target audience research must be met by the suggested solution. All of this data must be shown on a Figjam board (or any other team collaborative white board) and one or more slide presentations.

Required contents for project proposal:

1. Executive Summary
An overview or synopsis that explains the initiative and garners support. The "elevator pitch" is what it is. Explain to the customer why you are taking on this project, what the problem or difficulties are, how you plan to succeed, what success will look like, and how the UNSDGs will be handled.

2. Background
An overview of comparable initiatives in the market or globally. Set the scene and explain why it's time to start working on this project. Demonstrate to the client how previous projects did not live up to expectations.

3. Solving the Problem
Describe the issue you hope to resolve and the reasons you believe it's critical to do so.

4. Design Thinking Phases
High-level user research and empathy studies were carried out using supporting resources such surveys, interviews, and observations. For the user personas, each student conducts at least one interview with the intended user.
Every interview must include an audio recording (if desired), a consent form, and an audio transcription.

5. Resources (if any)
Tell your client what you need to succeed, which may include funds, supplies, personnel, and 4IR-related technology. 4IR Technologies: (5G mobile networks, 3D printing, 4D or 5D printing, cutting-edge materials etc.).

6. Budget & Timeline
Produce a schedule for all the deliverables, milestones that once achieved, will let you know that the project is on track.

During the interview part in our project, not all members got to interview 1 people due to the difference in schedules we all have. However, those who did not do the interview were given the task to transcribe the interviews that has been done.

I interviewed an architecture student, which is my friend back in Indonesia via an online meeting. I chose him as he usually complains about him needing to work on his projects outside directly under the sun, so I feel like he might be relevant as a target.

Here is our presentation slides for the proposal:

Click here to see proposal presentation slides!

➼ Week 7

In week 7, we took our user profiles that we made and the affinity diagrams based on the answers to our interview and started to prepare our user profiles, Point of View statements, How Might we statements based on the interviews that we did with the students and the vendors and finalizing our ideations as our product.

Our finalized ideations included:
1. A drink supplement that helps with hydration and provided electrolytes to users
2. An inner wear with built cooling pods to combat the heat
3. An app that's compatible with the inner wear for temperature tracking purposes

➼ Week 8

In week 8, we continued working on our slides and finalizing any loose ends to show on our 2nd client meeting as it was Self-directed Learning Week. After, we collected the data and came up with a few ideas for our ideation.

➼ Week 9

In this week, we voted on the three ideas we were going to proceed with for the ideation stage. Out of the five options, we decided to propose something wearable, something consumable and an app based ideation. After, we made a few sketches and put them into our presentation slides as well.

Figure 1.5 Deciding on ideas, Week 9.

At the same time, we focused on preparing our presentation slides as well doing mock-presentations to check on timing and flow for the actual day.

➼ Week 10

In Week 10, we presented our second-phase presentation and recieved feedback from Dr.Wong and Dr.Praveena on how we could better focus our ideas for the next phase; prototyping.

We were advised to focus primarily on our wearable ideation; the cooling shirt, and only proceed with the application if there is a need for it. We also took notes on the other groups ideas and how they presented their slides.

Here are our second presentation slides:

CLICK HERE!

Figure 1.6 Second presentation, Week 10.

➼ Week 11

This week's consultation mainly talked about the changes about our slides that we need to change. Dr. Wong gave us feedback on the slides and how it supposed to be fixed such as: adding student information, client information, mention the design thinking process, highlight the most important "How Might We"s and other minor changes to the presentation slides.

Figure 1.7 Feedback notes, Week 11.

Before making the physical prototype, we bumped into some trouble picking the materials, as we weren't able to find the exact materials we needed. So after discussing with each other, we settled on bamboo mesh fabric as our material. Bamboo mesh is very similar to polyester mesh fabric. The main difference is that bamboo mesh is more lightweight and more cooling which are more beneficial for our project, but the downside is it is less durable comparatively.

➼ Week 12

During class, we showed Dr. Wong our prototyping progress. The actual shirt prototype was still in the process of creation. Additionally, we showed her our progress for our application that Me and Khansa started to design. She gave us feedback and told us to make some minor tweaks, like for the color palette chosen, and to make it look more simple.

We started doing application from sketches and wireframes of our ideas, and shared it between each other.

Figure 1.8 App sketches, Week 12.

And then we started prototyping using Figma.

Figure 1.9 App prototyping stage, Week 12.

After class, we discussed futher regarding our final prototype and what changes we were going to make. Afterwards, we divided the work us between the six of us. Edlin was in-charge of the actual physical shirt prototype while Feilycia and Subhana worked on the mascot and shirt design.

Figure 1.10 Shirt and mascot design, Week 12.

➼ Week 13

After finished with the designs, me and Khansa proceed in continuing the application interface while Erin worked on the advertising poster for our COOLTEEZ.

Figure 1.11 Application design process, Week 13.

Here's the poster:

Figure 1.12 Poster , Week 13.

➼ Week 14 (Christmas Holiday Week)

During this holiday week, we did not truly enjoy the holiday vibe that much. We focused on finding our testers to test our products. We managed to recruit four testers: one vendor and three students. I also went to a a vacation in Penang this week, hence I thought about finding users to test our app and approached a food vendor that is willing to be interviewed. As Penang experiences scorching heat throughout the year, we believed this individual would find the product useful.

Figure 1.13 Vendor app user test, Week 14.

In addition, Edlin and Khansa did the user testing and Subhana, Feilycia, Erin, and me transcribed the user testing audio. At the same time, we were working on improving and finalising our slides.

Figure 1.14 Students clothing user test, Week 14.

➼ Week 15

The day before our final client presentation, we had a group meeting where we rehersed our entire presentation flow.

On the actual day, our presentation went smoothly and we received good feedback from the client. We were advised to go for more of a B2B model rather than a B2C model. We were told that this was a feasible idea and we could work with business like CIMB for projects like PPR (Projek Perumahan Rakyat). We received compliments on our presentation style and flow as well.

And here are our final slides, alongside our FigJam link that we used throughout the 14 weeks for preparing the presentation — it was a good run overall!

- Click here for final presentation slides!

- Click here for FigJam link!

REFLECTION

I felt really excited when we were given the brief about this module, as we were told we would be facing real clients, like how it is supposed to be after we graduate and enter the working industry. But after finding out the project options given, to be honest, it dropped my expectations a little bit. All of our clients are also from Taylor’s, while I expected something outside, probably something known by the public.

But in reality, we are not always given the choice to choose, not even options like the ones I get right now, so I feel like I should be grateful and do my best in this project. I feel like it reflects who I truly am later if I perform in the working industry. When we make mistakes at this stage, it is still acceptable as long as we learn from them and make further changes. This is merely a stepping stone for all of us before stepping into the real design world out there, and that is why it is an opportunity that I should not miss.

One thing I regret is my time management skills, because of that, I am less proactive in the group when voicing my ideas. I feel like if I could help the group by providing more ideas, it would help a lot with the outcome.

My teammates are exceptional and consistently execute their tasks effectively, which allows me to focus on my own responsibilities with confidence. Honestly, I do not think I would have performed at this level if I were placed in a weaker team hence I am genuinely grateful to everyone for their hard work in making this project a success! This experience reinforces my belief that teamwork is a crucial factor in professional settings and a skill that must be developed throughout our learning journey.

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Brendan Fedya (0376283)