Rapid Design through Virtual and Physical Prototyping
Spring 2000
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What I have done: |
What I have learned: |
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The design games helped to learn everyone’s name in the class, and get to know them on a bit more personal level before progressing to group work. I found this to be extremely helpful when choosing partners; finding people I could work with and knowing whom I would clash with. |
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From the Toy Dissection, I became much more aware of exactly how toys operate and are designed. As a child, I often took my own toys apart to see the exact same thing, and can proudly say I usually got them back together. This was the same exercise, only we had to report on what we learned, and we actually thought about what we learned, rather than simply taking something apart and seeing what was inside. This exercise also prepped us for our own toy designs, which I discuss below. |
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Newspaper Structures - Design and Build Exercise Building The Other Team’s Structure (Yeah. I know. I want actual pictures too. For some reason, the photos won’t load
correctly. I will do it over spring
break) |
The Newspaper Construction activity was our first taste of group work and our first hint at what we would be doing and should be learning in this class. To correctly complete this exercise, we had to not only have a functional design, but also have concise enough instructions to give the other team a clue of what we were trying to build. For me, this was a huge point of frustration, as after we finally decided on a suitable design, writing up instructions that were clear enough was rushed due to time constraints. When actually building the other group’s structure, we found that they had the same problems with direction writing as we had, and not only that, building the structure was very difficult due to the materials used and possibly a poor design. The tape problems were also frustrating, but not traumatic as not getting a structure to stand, even with improvements. |
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(Do we even have pictures?) |
This class activity had a lot to do with the creative process and how brainstorming should work. We came up with many really BAD ideas, but finally settled on the “best of the worst” and presented that. Honestly, I don’t think we did that bad, presenting “The Ultimate Zip Shirt,” a shirt, which was basically a tank top, and could be accessorized with short or long sleeves, a collar, and even buttons. We learned communication |
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(Insert Picture here) |
The exercise for the cardboard cube was mainly assigned to give us experience in dealing with and cutting cardboard for the Garfield Assignment, as discussed below. We got a lesson in paying close attention to details, and precision cutting. |
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Egg
Drop Activity |
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Playing With Food |
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Exercises
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What I have done: |
What I have learned: |
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Exercise 1 - Role Mole |
The Role Mole exercise, although a tad juvenile, was a good demonstration of just how many different ways one can solve the same problem. It was also the pivotal point in the class for yours truly. In a conversation with my father bashing the quick turn-around time for this project, he proceeded to inform me of how business really works. He said that the salesmen for the plant would often bid and sell products that they didn’t currently produce. The engineers would then work something up and my father, as purchasing manager would find the parts needed to make it work. He said usually they had a week to get a solution designed and prototyped so that they had time to get parts, manufacture, and ship it out. He spoke very highly of the goals for this class and stated that he wished the people he worked with had had classes like this at their respective colleges. |
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Exercise 2 - Garfield (Picture here) |
The
Garfield exercise showed me that a simple cardboard structure could hold a
lot of weight if designed properly.
If I remember correctly, I came in second or third for least
square inches, and had a design that held.
It required a lot more thought than originally expected to meet all
the requirements of holding cans securely in all directions, not failing,
using the least cardboard, and being attractive. In all aspects, I believe I excelled, although I my cardboard
use was a little higher than one that did not fail, but only slightly. I learned a lot about the strength of
cardboard, what kind of joints work and what kind don’t, and lastly, that
almost anything can be accomplished if you think hard enough. |
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What I have done: |
What I have learned: |
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Project 1
- Toy Concepts III
Rubberized
Chinese Handcuffs |
The toy concepts project required us to design three toy ideas, present one idea in class, and make web pages for our designs. In doing this, we got practice on making both presentations and web pages, which I had been a little rusty on. As far as the toy concepts went, they showed a lot of creativity on our part, and also showed what kinds of toys we ourselves enjoyed and played with as children.
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Project 2 - Manufactured Assembly (Link to our report. I can’t find this. Hmm) (Link or picture of our part. Working on that) (Link or picture of final assembly) |
For the manufactured assembly, we were assigned to first research a manufacturing process, and then make presentations on our process. As a class, we chose which parts could be made through what methods, and assigned people to actually make those parts. Some of the processes, like Cyber Cut, is at UC Berkley, so the turn around time would be too long, and a method more readily available was used. We were than supposed to bring all the parts together to make a final assembly of a machine. Unfortunately, the people designing the base had problems with their process, so it has yet to be made. Although in class today, Angie spoke with Mike, and I think they are going to get on going. Anyway, we instead used a base from section A, and except for one of the standoffs not fitting correctly due to section A’s redesign, it worked rather well. I had to research Cyber Cut, and learned a lot about that process, as well as Fused Deposition, as this was the method we were supposed to use to create our part. We also learned how to utilize IronCAD, a very useful CAD program for the design of manufactured parts. In addition to these skills, we learned to deal with the various people on campus who can get things made for us, or who will at least work with us to get the pieces we need made. After we finally figured out what we needed to do, getting the files to the proper people was of little consequence, and our parts were ready to go on time. |
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Project 3 - Engineering Outreach Activity |
So far, our project is full of holes, but we are working to get a presentation. We finally decided on doing a demonstration on sound waves transmitted through light via the aid of a coffee can as an amplifier, a balloon as a membrane, and some sort of light as a source, reflected off a mirror on the balloon membrane. We were also going to help the kids to make their own devices, and instruct them to take them home and play their own music through them. So far we have met several roadblocks, as the mirrors that we were planning on using could be sharp, so foil might have to be used instead. Then we were informed that laser light, which produces the best results for this type of experiment, was dangerous for kids, as they might look directly into it. I suppose these are all valid arguments for the children’s safety, and I would not want to be at the ugly end of a lawsuit. However I am lamenting the days of grade school when we turned pieces of broken stained glass into colorful mosaics by pressing them into wet plaster of paris. Ah, progress. |
Last Updated: March 22, 2001
