[নোঙর 2016] Design Innovation of School Uniform using Shark Skin : Jeba Tasnia

Introduction
Bringing around umbrellas is such a hassle as books get thicker and heavier, but not bringing one in a tropical country like Singapore is not a very fantastic idea. Uniforms like ours, possessing light colours, make unwanted stains glaringly obvious, wounding our pride and putting our hygiene to question. And a labcoat, an article of clothing that is crucial in lab experiments but is easily forgotten, posing an inconvenience for students and teachers as the student has to hunt down one, leading to wastage of time. But the solution to all these problems lies in revolutionising our very uniform using sharkskin.

Sharkskin has gained widespread media attention back in the 2008 Olympics when Michael Phelps got the gold medal for every single event he participated in. In those events he utilised Speedo’s most recent technology, the sharkskin swimsuit. Sharkskin is able to carry out a wide variety of functions which enables the shark to be the most deadly predator to swim the seven seas.

Background
Sharkskin is composed of an array of tiny, hard, tooth-like structures better known as placoid scales. These structures are shaped like curved, grooved teeth and make the skin a very tough armor with a texture like sandpaper. They have the same structure as a tooth, consisting of an outer layer of enamel, dentine and a central pulp cavity. But as it grows larger instead of its scales increasing in size like the bony fishes, they remain the same but grow more numerous on the shark’s body.

Properties and Functions
Unlike smooth surfaces, the sharkskin is posed with lesser drag despite it being relatively rough due to the overlapping placoid scales. This is due to its unique structure where they create tiny vortices that reduce medium resistance, which makes swimming more efficient, as well as quieter compared to bony fishes. Thus these scales give them hydrodynamic advantages as they reduce turbulence when swimming, hence water seamlessly passes over the scales with minimal adhesion which is greatly utilised by many boat manufacturing companies to reduce fuel consumption of their products.
It is not just in the water that sharkskin biomimicry has been utilised; hospitals are copying the layered surface idea as well. Sharklet Technologies has created a surface that controls the growth of harmful bacteria. This surface has been put into hospitals everywhere to prevent dangerous bacteria from reaching patients. The surface copies sharkskin, because layered scale-like patterns prevent organisms from being able to adhere to the surface, providing an unstable surface that organisms are unable to remain on. In studies, this technology has inhibited the growth of E. coli by 80 percent over control surfaces and has also demonstrated effectiveness against Staphylococcus aureus, MRSA, VRE and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Hence, hospitals are now utilising this to not allow harmful bacteria from landing on or latching onto walls of the hospital, improving the general health of the patients.

Diagram of Proposed product

Explanation of illustration
1)  This is the illustration of our school uniform for girls. White blouse, a tie and a skirt. However, we have altered the current skorts into skirts. This is due to the inconvenience cited by our current female students that the cloth layer on top of the shorts and the shorts tend to fold inwards, rolling upwards touching the thighs making movement uncomfortable as girls have to be constantly conscious about their skorts. So to reduce potential inconvenience, we have included the idea of separating the skort into two separate compartment- the outer skirt and the inner short (diagram4). The outer skirt has been added with pleats so as to allow free movement especially up and down the stairs. By having this design for the uniform, the outer skirt can have the placoid while the shorts inside can be made of materials such as cotton or polyster.
2)   Another innovation of our school uniform is the addition of a ‘secret’ hoodie onto our uniforms. When unused, the hoodie is simply an extra flap or a design hanging from the shoulder line, on the back of our school uniform. However, in the case of rain, the extra flap of cloth can serve as a hoodie- what an efficient uniform! As the sides of the ‘cloth’ is a double layer, lined with elastic spring on the edges, we can simply pull the ‘cloth’ over and pull the strings on both ends to have handy hoodie to protect ourselves from the rain!
3)  The Diagram A illustrates the dorsal view of the placoid scales. As seen in the Diagram B (lateral side of a single dentricle), it has a broad basal plate, narrow stalk, a broad and rigid sculpted crown. In the uniforms presented above, the model of the cusps which as miniscule compared to the real placoids are pointing downward (in the direction of gravity).  Thus, in the case of spillage or dirt attachment, the substances could be drained downwards towards the direction of gravity, not embedding onto the surface of the uniform.

Features of Innovation
We aim to make clothing for students, even the general public, such that it will ease our daily lifestyle. For students working in laboratories or art facilities, clothes are very easily dirtied without extra protection like a labcoat or apron. Using the new material however, protection is no longer needed as the material is incredibly hard to stain due to its hydrophobicity. All stains only hold on due to friction and can be easily cleaned with water as they interact with the water molecules better than the sharkskin. Kitchen work is similarly much easier as food stains can all be removed at one go with a single rinse. Working in dusty or muddy environments is no longer as troublesome as before as no filth is permanent. The intrinsic drag reduction of the material also relieves of air resistance and decreases the effort required to run, making rushing between places more energy-efficient as less force is dissipated in the process. This is analogous to a layer of air surrounding golf balls due to their dimples, thus causing them to sail through the air far more effectively.

Limitation
The inability to let air or water through the sharkskin makes it stuffy inside the clothes disallowing skin to come into adequate contact with fresh air. This inevitably causes sweat as the body attempts to lower its temperature with evaporative cooling. However, the impermeability of the material prevents effective evaporation and keeps the body hot and sweaty. This can become uncomfortable very quickly. More work must be done to provide a proper solution to this but possible attempts include providing a movement-based ventilation system to constantly replace the trapped air, or using a mechanised conductor system to direct heat from the body to the surroundings similar to refrigeration techniques. Either way, the entropy drop must be accompanied by a large loss of usable energy likely as heat, possible becoming problematic in tropical climates.

Evaluation and Conclusion
Our design of school uniform can bring convenience to students and prevent wastage of resources. By applying our design, students can wear school uniform to attend lab sessions because it prevents baterial infection and chemical stain. Labcoats are no longer necessary to be worn and the inconvenience of bringing labcoats to school or borrowing labcoats cab from others can be eliminated. Our school uniform can prevent to get decolourized and stained by outdoor activities as well. Other than school uniform, this innovation can be applied to PE shirt or even clothes for public. PE shirt can become tight fit and flexible, and it can also reduce the drag, to enable students move more freely and faster.  Kitchen work will be less troublesome as the food stains can be cleaned easily by water. However, our design may cause ineffective evaporation and make the body hot. More work is needed to be done on this to provide an effective ventilation system and thus make the clothes more comfortable.

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Jeba Tasnia is a student of Secondary 2 at Unity Secondary School. She is the daughter of Baten (18)

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