DISTANT MOTION Brown-RISD pairing seeks a better cheap ride BY CRISTI LAQUER

A need for safer transportation that improves the users’ experience is the force behind eMotive, a collaboration between faculty members at Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design, which is designing a mode of transportation for use in developing countries.

Khipra Nichols, a faculty member in RISD’s industrial design department, identified this need on a trip to Cambodia in January 2002, when he was stunned to see entire families and unsafe cargo precariously loaded onto tiny motorbikes with polluting two-stroke engines. After witnessing accidents in Phnom Penh and Bali, Nichols recognized the need for major changes in transportation in the Third World.

Nichols approached Michael Lye, a fellow RISD professor who was using a grant from the university to research low-volume automotive manufacturing, to join him. After receiving a grant from RISD, the two researched design and prototyping methods to familiarize themselves with the process of creating a new mode of transportation. When Chris Bull, a senior research engineer at Brown, saw a poster advertising a speech by Nichols and Lye about their findings, he was also drawn to the project. Though the three designers come from varied backgrounds, their cooperation hinges on a shared and straightforward approach to design. As Nichols explains, "By identifying a problem, we’re saying, ‘There must be a better way than this.’ "

The Toria, eMotive’s first research prototype, falls somewhere in a gray area between being a motorbike, scooter, and car. It rides low to the ground, has a wide wheelbase for stability, and can safely hold several passengers and more cargo than a traditional motorbike. These design elements work toward solving the problems caused by the reliance on cheap scooters in many developing nations, but they are not enough in themselves. The Toria will have to be inexpensive to be useful. The design team also hopes that it can be maintained, modified, and possibly manufactured in Third World communities, so that the impact on local infrastructures, as well as the way individuals use it, will foster improvements.

Economic constraints, of course, impact the process of innovative design. A large car manufacturer, for instance, might not have the monetary incentive to research a problem like the one that eMotive seeks to solve. Creative academics like Bull, Lye, and Nichols are encouraged to expand traditional methods of research and design, without facing the bottom line of a large company. Yet freedom from a financially driven design process also means less funding in this case. The team currently operates with grant money while continuing to teach and work on other projects. Bull says, amidst nods from his colleagues, "I think we’re all interested enough in it that if the money were there, it could be our main project."

The trio is still very early in the design process, and many aspects of the vehicle’s design remain to be decided, but the eMotive team sees its project more as a means of encouraging change than an end in itself. As Nichols says, "The ideal would be that, in some form or another, it would impact the way things are being done."