Shaltanis wins Gold with Moove

The Moove razor is a concept wind-up power shaving device designed by David Shaltanis as a senior thesis student. For his concept and design Shaltanis was honored with many awards including an Industrial Design Society of America IDEA Gold award and the International Housewares Association second place award for which he earned a $2000 cash prize. The IHA also contributed $500 to the VTID program.

Inspired by the wind up shavers used by some astronauts from the Apollo Space Program in the 1960s, Moove seeks to adapt this technology for potential sustainable benefit. Today, electrical consumption in the USA has risen sharply over the past 20 years largely in the miscellaneous electronics sector.  Moove proposes an example of a practical daily-use product that could be manualized or “de-electrified.” Many others exist: power toothbrushes, small kitchen appliances and more. Moove also dispenses with a rechargeable lithium battery. Today, an increasing number of products have rechargeable batteries that fail after only a few years. Many can’t be replaced, leaving the product useless and resulting in disposal. Further environmental effects result from the toxicity of these batteries. As a whole, the Moove project hopes to raise awareness and promote conversation about consumer electronics in order to promote design that lasts long-term over rampant disposability.

Professors Brook Kennedy and Bill Green have a shared interest in reintroducing durable design and useful past technologies to an otherwise energy hungry and disposable design culture. Kennedy is writing a forthcoming book on the topic.

https://www.idsa.org/awards/idea/student-designs/moove