Jacob-Jude Parsons
I have had a passion for design from a young age that has led me to where I am now having completed my degree in product design. I thrive on problem solving in fast passed innovative environments, with a particular liking for design involving mechanical engineering.
In my spare time, I love a wide variety of sports, including, swimming, cycling, skiing and shooting. These interests have led me to a position I am very proud of having represented the Great Britain shooting team in several international competitions with the future aim of becoming world champion.
Cadet Target Rifle
For my major project, I developed the third generation Cadet Target Rifle used by cadet forces all over the UK. This is a competition rifle designed specifically for target shooting used by the 3 national youth teams for international fixtures. The current rifle used by cadets is now 40 years old and can’t keep up with the modern era of competition rifles. The aim was to improve the user experience for cadets in the UK and provide them with a more competitive platform to compete with. The focus was on two main areas, the engineering of the rifle to improve accuracy mechanically and the ergonomics to improve accuracy through a better user interface, paying special attention to the specific ergonomics of young women in shooting who now make up 33% of all Cadets.
From my 8 years of competitive shooting, having won multiple international gold medals for GB and having used the cadet rifles extensively while at school I used my engineering knowledge to develop a new rifle from the ground up taking inspiration from cutting edge technology’s and working with Olympic athletes on my design journey to create what I believe is one off the most accurate rifles ever produced.
Kite
Kite was my Minor project while in my final year at university and was completed over nine weeks.
In short: How might I reimagine the idea of a timepiece to aid sailing for the user so they might use technology to improve performance. There are several dozen watches aimed at very specific sports, lifestyle and professional markets. Prime examples include diving, racing and flying. Each of these products have unique features that have the ability to assist the wearer in some way from rotating bezels, stopwatch, tides and multiple time zone etc. Kite uses a unique display on the watch face to indicate wind speed and direction recorded through a miniature sonic anemometer located in the crown. This information can then be used by sailors in either racing or cursing scenarios to help extract the most from their boat’s performance.
