Product Design 2

Product Design 2 was the logical continuation of Product Design 1, in which we designed barbecue grills. The theme we were given this time was “products on wheels”. This was obviously a very broad theme, which hints at the aim of the course: concept development. Our goal during this class was to design an innovative product that uses wheels.

I chose to redesign the creeper, or as I prefer to call it, work sled. This is the tool auto mechanics use to slide under cars and make repairs. The final result was designed to be comfortable, nimble and easy to use.

I decided to call my work sled Dexter (from dexterity) feeling it needed a strong personality and a name that communicated stability and precision in motion. The logo was developed in our course ID Graphics.

The first few weeks were dedicated to research. I found that most creeper users are home users because auto shops generally have car lifts.

I soon found out that most readily available creepers are very cheaply made, and often used just a few times before they are discarded.

I isolated three markets for creepers, from low to high end. My creeper was to situate itself at the medium-high end mark, aimed at car enthusiasts who are in need of a well-designed creeper and casual users who could be inspired by such a product to perform their own oil changes regularly.

The Dexter brand, developed around my work sled was to communicate several key attributes shown below.

The course encouraged us to explore many different ideas, here are some of the interesting ones I came up with, including a wearable creeper and a creeper with spherical wheels. Of course all these ideas were based on the research.

As the form was refined, I realized that my work sled started looking somewhat shark-like and tried to integrate this theme in my form development.

The final result was recreated using the CAD software Solidworks which we learned much about in our Solid Modelling course.

I decided to use plywood to create the basic shape of the creeper and explored many resource for fabrication.

Finally I created a mold using CNC-machined ribs. Thin sheets of plywood were then stacked, glued and vacuumed into shape. The final shape was then trimmed, sanded and veneered.

For the final version I created a metal frame that supported both the seat and the wheels, allowing all four to lock into place with one simple gesture. Lights were also integrated in order for users to see under their cars.

The leather pillow was stitched and printed using the Lumi Process, developed by myself and an Art Center classmate.

I embedded magnets under the veneer, giving these tool rests a very intuitive and almost magical functionality! The tools won’t fall off even when the creeper is placed vertically, but they are still easy to remove.

The frame was a complex piece of metal bending and certainly could be simplified in the future, using different materials. The aim was to communicate the new mechanics I had developed to make braking simple.

The following is the poster board that accompanied my final model. You can find a full-size PDF here.

Product Design 1

After my successful results with the insect-inspired family bench last term, I was excited to see what my third term would hold. Product Design 1 was a direct continuation of Design Process 2 with the focus being oriented more towards user research and the development of a functional product.

The project for my class was to create a portable barbecue grill for a specific target audience. I quickly identified “river fishing” as a general market and with a few weeks of research and interviews began to understand exactly what design criteria that implied.

The research phase started with a benchmarking of existing products and retail environments, allowing us to get a good understanding of the market.

After a few weeks we proposed three different directions. My research led me to investigate three river fishing grills based on different cooking methods. Ultimately I chose to design a barbecue based on the concept of plank cooking, a Native American method which uses a soaked plank of wood as a grilling surface. (PDF of the presentation)

By mid-term we had clearly defined our concept and began to develop mockups. I decided to base my grill on a new ethanol fuel which is currently marketed as the FlameDisk. (See the large format presentation here)

My design started to become clearer and tried to remain as compact as possible with replaceable ethanol cartridges that could be loaded from the side and a lid that fit inside the body for storage.

The whole unit was meant to be waterproof so that it could be carried through the water by fishermen.

Vents can deprive the fuel cartridge of oxygen allowing the user to save fuel.

The cedar plank is soaked in water using the lid as a basin. When in use the water evaporates to create delicious smoky flavors.

Our new SolidWorks skills became useful as we started to develop the final version of the design.

The next few weeks were dedicated to finalizing all the details and create the finished model.

My final presentation went fantastically well. I urge you to look at the PDF version of my presentation here.

Design Process 2 for Product Design

In the first two terms, the Industrial Design Foundations (or IDF) program at Art Center pools people who will eventually become product designers, transportation designers and entertainment designers. The courses I’ve described so far were shared between these three majors and allowed us to gain an essential grasp on fundamental techniques such as sketching and model-building.

Though all of us have gotten quite close, we were excited to split off for the first time, each following a particular Design Process 2 class aimed at teaching us a process specific to our discipline. This was also exciting because it was our first chance to truly test the skills we had been learning.

The project for us product designers was defined early in the term: to design seating made from a single sheet of 4’ by 8’ material, which should be assembled without the use of glue, screws or other fasteners.

We started the project with a few weeks of research to help us understand different methods of joinery, materials as well as general research on chairs. From there we decided to each investigate three themes. One of my themes was insects. The full process (with bigger nicer images) can be viewed in the PDF version of my process book (20.6MB). In the interest of keeping this reasonably short, though, I will describe how my final concept evolved.

The process started with a huge collection of insects which I found all over the web for inspiration. I found that Wikipedia has a great number of interesting pictures.

From these images I tried to come up with a variety of furniture.

After some ideation on paper, some fifth-scale mock-ups were made. These included some ideas from my other themes which you can discover in the process book linked above.

Some of the more interesting concepts were developed and pursued.

I returned to mocking-up the best ideas, this time at half-scale. These were made from corrugated cardboard which I laminated.

From these mock-ups we found that the ant-inspired bench was an interesting concept to pursue. Initially, the idea was to make an outdoor furniture piece which could be used either as a bench or a picnic table. Going back to my collection of insects I picked out the ants and gave them a closer look.

The structure of the bench evolved to gain more volume and better structure.

In this second half-scale mock-up I found that cross-shaped legs were far more stable and also added a more natural element.

I went back to my sketchbook to see how the concept could be refined. We also began to think about how an additional item could help better use the leftover material.

My first full-scale mock-up was made using the same laminated cardboard technique. Though it isn’t apparent in the pictures, this was a HUGE model. It had to be reduced in size, which also helped to cut down on material usage. Antennae and mandibles were added, functioning as bookends and a cup holder. Finally, the rear legs were made longer so as to better balance the weight of the bench.

The first full-scale mock-up had a problematic rear section (the abdomen). As a cantilevered platform it just wasn’t sturdy enough. I added two more legs, thereby quenching the complaint that ants have six legs.

The following week I sent my design to be cut out on a CNC router. This first plywood mock-up helped understand the tolerances required by the material and also gave us a chance to test the strength of the chair. The two new legs were also lengthened as they didn’t seem quite fitting in their first iteration.

Some scenario images of how this bench could be used were created. The “ant bench” became more of a family product which can be used both indoor and outdoor.

The design was finalized, adding a small aphid-like stool to better use the material.

This layout shows how the material is used. The CNC router requires some amount of spacing between the parts. Grooves were also milled out of the seats to strengthen the interlocking of the parts.

The final model was made from maple Europly which was then finished and dyed a dark brown.

Branding was added to the underside of the seats using the laser cutter.

The finalized graphic elements as well as the product shots were put together on a large poster which you can download in PDF format (2.2MB).