Seeking advice for a hiking related thesis project

[HonorOFeagle]

Hi everyone,

I am a 4th year product design student at Kendall College in Grand Rapids, MI. At the our cirriculm we are told to design a product for our thesis project. I want to center my thesis around hiking. Essentually what I am trying to design is an information center for hiking trails. It will be connected to digital satellite, and it will allow hikers to access information related to hiking near or on the trail while they are on their hiking trip. I want it to include information about trail conditions, maps, weather, emergency contacts, and trail journals. I know that everyone (myself included) is leary of any kind of man-made interuption on the trails, so my goal is to make this device as minimal as possible in size and impact to its surrounding environment. I will also be studying the Appalachian Trail in depth to determine what type of places that a device like this would belong in. I do NOT intend this to be something that would go at EVERY shelter or trailhead you come across. It would most likely be implimented in places nearby trails or at major trail heads. I want to stress that this is just a proposed design, not something that will go into production in case you are wondering. Anyway, I am posting the link for the survey below:

http://www.freesurveysonline.com/fso...3&CheckID=3064

Just copy and paste the link and it will take you right to the survey. Please consider filling it out as it will only take a few minutes. Asking real consumers is something that we generally fail to do as designers. Most often we sit in the model shop and sit test our own physical mock ups and think "Well, it feels comfortable to me, so it must be okay for everyone else." Then we grab the shorter/taller/whatever person next to us and have them try it, and we say its good enough. I'd like to make sure that I go beyond that in my thesis. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Jason Lantagne

[Skyline]

I filled out your survey, and cringed at the possibility that I might actually come face to face at one of the contraptions you are obviously putting a lot of thought into.

Just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you must. The technology probably exists, or soon will, to make something like this happen but PLEASE spare us.

[chknfngrs]

I too filled one out and I feel the same way. Be schooled beforehand, not when you're trailside.

[HonorOFeagle]

I understand your reaction to the idea, but I'd like to explain to you why I feel it is useful and valid. I want to take a "shotgun blast" approach to covering information in the hope that almost everyone can find something useful to them. For example, under the Trail Maps function heading, I want to include the following features:

Topographical maps
Degree of trail difficulty
Location of nearest off trail water sources
Updates on trail conditions
Points of interest
Plant and Wildlife information

I want the quality of information presented to be great, and I want it to be updated as often as new information is available. It is true that you can find out an extensive amount of information about trails beforehand from books, but something published in Sep/October the previous year may not be as relevant in August of this year. I want to have trail condition updates posted as often as the information is available as well.

Picture a volunteer from a trail club reporting on Monday the conditions he saw on the trail on his hike over the weekend. He notices that the rain over the weekend has made a low lying area of the trail terribly muddy and hard to cross. He also sees that the wetland vegetation is clogging the trail. So, he emails a webmaster that works on the support website for the trail information center. The webmaster updates the site (and congruently the trail information posts) and right away you can find out this information.

I also want to stress that YOU may be completely prepared for your trip, but there are certainly people out there who will just simply drive up to a parking lot with a day pack on and grossly miscalculate what they are up against on the trail. You may not care about that and maybe even feel contempt for them being there, but they are still using the trails for the same reason you are. If I can set up something where one of these people can stand there for 5 minutes at the trail head and re-evalute what they are about to do, then the information has totally met its purpose. Think of the potential to save time and money for rescue crews if people put themselves at less risk by being informed.

I'd also like to list some functions that WOULD be useful to a hardcore hiker or a thru hiker:

-Month long weather projections and weather reports from the previous year at the same location.

-Digital Media Downloading: Stop buying 3 media cards for your digital camera, carry one and empty it periodically.

-Frequent updates to trail conditions.

-Degree of Trail Difficulty: By this I don't mean color the whole trail red to mean difficult, I'd like to make this an additional layer added to topography maps and make any drastic changes of trail section marked in different colors.

-Nearest water source. This sounds like it would be just a straight forward map symbol for a lake, but what I mean is charting distance from campsites to water sources, or hopefully, marking different "info points" on the map interface so people can click on a mid distance point and find out it will be a 500 yard hike down hill to water.

-Email connection: Admit it; as much as you hate the idea of answering email during a trip, you KNOW it is a useful tool to stay in touch with people.

-Trail Journals: Set aside your skepticism for a moment about the idea of typing something into the information center and think about this; Word of mouth is a great source of information. Through a digital trail journal you could read people's impressions of trails, experiences, and joy for being out in the woods. A trail information book won't tell you that it saw 3 moose drinking from the lake at your campsite, and it won't tell you that the bugs only come out after dark either. I remember spending HOURS reading what people had written on the shelters at Isle Royale National Park, and I'd like to take that experience and put it in a format that you could download onto a palm pilot and take with you to read throughout your whole trip.

Lastly I want to say that YOU CAN NOT IGNORE TECHNOLOGY. Instead of fighting it as much as possible, recognize that at times it can aide you and not interfere with your life or the activity you are doing. If you do agree with me that the features I pointed out above could be useful to you on a thru hike, then you may also be willing to admit that if you found one of these at a trailhead (in the parking lot, not smack in the middle of trail) then you may be able to completely ignore going into a town to find any of this information if you really needed to find it out. In the end I realize that some people will always just stick to their ways and the belief that all you could ever need is a weather radio, but what I want to do is help EVERYONE. I've already received a few suggestions to make this just a portable device, but the fact is if I did that then it would cost 500 plus dollars and hardly anyone should have access to it. The beauty about hiking is it's an activity that is FREE and can be used by anyone, and I want to enhance the experience everyone.



-Jason

[Lilred]

Maybe it's just me, but I think too much information can lessen the hiking experience. Do I really want to know about every trail condition and blow down I might encounter? Do I really want to know about every scenic overlook before I get there? I don't think so. The unexpectedness of the hike seems to me to be a big part of why I'm out there. I want to test myself and see how well I can handle what nature has to hand me.

I don't think I'd care for this kind of technology on the trail. Heck, I'm not even crazy about the frequency of shelters.

And the idea that hiking is 'free' is far from accurate and quite naive.

[MadAussieInLondon]

if someone isnt prepared, should they be out there? do you go on a week long hike with NO perparation? pamphlets at trailheads == litter at trailheads.

[asmtroop3]

Originally posted by HonorOFeagle
I want to say that YOU CAN NOT IGNORE TECHNOLOGY. Instead of fighting it as much as possible, recognize that at times it can aide you and not interfere with your life or the activity you are doing.

Why do you think most of us go to the woods?
We are all here because our ancestors survived out there and we will as well.

I cannot even really stand the current technology in the woods
(privy & shelters)

I go to escape this machine I am bound to all day.
Ignore Technology? yep thanks, I will.

[smokymtnsteve]

Aldous Huxley (author of Brave New world")said...

Life is SHORT and Information ENDLESS...

Edward Abbey (author of "the monkey wrench gang")
said

"when you come upon evidence left by the rat men, engineering and survey markers, remove these things..protect the wilderness"

seems like this idea would be something Mr Abbey would remove, with or without "permission" and Ed Abbey is right!

[MOWGLI]

Originally posted by HonorOFeagle

Picture a volunteer from a trail club reporting on Monday the conditions he saw on the trail on his hike over the weekend.

Picture a day where there are no trail volunteers. That day is coming if new & younger folks are not attracted to the idea of building & maintaining trail. Look at the demographics of the trail building & maintaining community. Most folks (not all) are in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. The AT is only one trail, albeit, an interesting and important trail. Many other trail clubs are struggling to attract volunteers. Especially in the Southeast. They can't compete with video games and the like. In the meantime, obesity has fast become America's #1 health problem.

IMO, trails would be much better served by working to build the volunteer base to support them.

If you spend a lot of time hiking trails, I hope that you are a member of a trail club, and give back by building or maintaining trail from time to time. If you're interested in doing that, and would like to know what trail clubs really need help, drop me an email at [email protected].

[Ankle Bone]

I took the survey and can only say "ditto" to Skyline and other's comments. This sounds like what the AT would become if it was purchased by Disney. Thanks, but no thanks.

[Dharma]

I've already received a few suggestions to make this just a portable device, but the fact is if I did that then it would cost 500 plus dollars and hardly anyone should have access to it.

Ah, nature's revenge.

Ditto what Skyline said. I know I don't have to use such a device, but the object of the trail (for newbies) would be to make them stop depending on knowing what's going to happen all the time. That's the mysticism of long distance hiking... the unknown lies at your feet everyday. It's magical.

[chknfngrs]

bad joo joo

[Saluki Dave]

After 19 years as an enigneer and four patents, I would imagine I'm just about as comfortable with technology as most folks you're likely to meet. I also suspect my politics diverge from the vast majority of those here on whiteblaze.

That said, I have to agree with the posts above. Technology has its place. I'm sure we all appreciate what it has done to advance the human condition in fields such as medicine, but some places technology just doesn't belong. The wilderness is just that; wild. I don't have a hangup over cell phones or radios (so long as you don't slow down and drive in my lane :>), but it seems to me that a trail head "info board" would transform an outdoor experience into a ride on "It's a Small World." Also, people who neglect to prepare before walking into the woods aren't likely to be able to properly process or act upon the information they receive when they're on the verge.

It's a great idea, from a technology point of view, and might make for a helluva thesis, but I really don't think there is a market. There just ain't no cure fer stupid.

[chknfngrs]

no place like the wild
get away from the clutter
please tech somewhere else

[Youngblood]

It is not unusual for us to resist technology, I know that I have. But it is also not unusual for us to change how we feel about it after we have been exposed to it and become more comfortable with it. Think about PC's, cell phones, GPS, weather radios, remote control door locks, power windows, remote control TV's, etc. I think I diss'ed some of those as not needed when I first heard of them, but now it is hard to remember what it was like before we had them.

Maybe you ought to give the guy a break, I mean he is student trying to come up with something neat for his thesis -- nothing more, nothing less. (However, I seem to recall that the idea for FedExpress was thought of by a student for his thesis whose professor thought it was totally unrealistic and gave him a fairly low grade for his concept.) Give him a chance, someday you may be bragging how you helped him shape his ideas.

Youngblood

[smokymtnsteve]

it not a problem with technology, technology can be great..we need it..it;s how we use technology..or how we allow technolgy to use us...

[max patch]

But I will give credit to the student for developing a creative solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

No need to bash the guy; his ideas are more creative than some baaad dissertations I've read.

[TedB]

There is this device called the internet which more than capable of providing all the information you want, and is convently accessable in trail towns along the way. There are even portable devices which connect to it, if god forbid, you can't last a day without checking the latest weather forecast.

Part of what makes the AT such a special place is that it allows you to get away from all of that for a time. A more useful device would be something that can jam cellphone signals, ideally destroying the offending phone in the process. (See even I agree there is a place for technology along the trail.)

[Dharma]

Youngblood, MaxPatch: I hear what you're saying. I think he should go on with his project too.

HonorOFeagle you might want to add something to your project that reflects on what changes this device will make on the human aspect of the trail. It will prolly be speculative, but you may get ideas from these responses.

Every time we put a new piece of technology in our lives it has an impact on us. From my own geeky observations it seems our minds just get busier and busier as we add technology. Cell phones seem to have taken up a bunch of dead space where people had to deal with nothing going on in the brain or just plain boredom.

If this technology that you propose is handheld... it will probably lead to more busy-bodies littering the trail with an insane amount of thinking -- never really touching the natural world that the user is in.

If it is something like a kiosk at a trailhead, the effects will be different for the hiking community.

One thing you didn't mention is how is this paid for? Advertising? Is some box going to be selling me stuff as I walk by? (sorta like Shell gas pumps these days?)

[SGT Rock]

Here is my idea:

Reduction of pack weight by combining technologies:

1. PDA - replace journal and pen

2. Digital camera - replace normal camera an film

3. Topo software and info - replace trail guide and maps

All that stuff together weighs about a pound. Make a PDA that can do that and weighs less than 6 ouncs, is waterproof, and can play MP3s, and maybe I'll buy that. Oh - and it needs a solar recharger or the ability to use AA Lithium or rechargable batteries.

It would also be nice if you could transmit the data over any telephone line so that you could send it from anywhere.

I don't want another big dang information booth at the trailhead and I don't want people IMing me in the woods.