P4 Modelmaking

This is the fun part. Also one that takes a lot of stupid time (like waiting for my paint to dry). Anyway, I spent night and day for a week and a half on my model, and finished it early with time to spare. I don't think my classmates headed to the shop until the beginning of the last four days before deadline.
It's so exciting to see the product form before your eyes. Well, even though it's only a looks-like close to working prototype model. And, I'm super glad I am buddies with the lab technician and got my cnc model out quick, in good quality, and discounted!

Planning... (note the frustration in the corner)

All interior components need to fit. And it needs to make sense for the person installing and fixing parts.

Blob options.

And I thought it would be cool to make a video! (So I did)

Dorian from Carmen Liu on Vimeo.



Oh! and know a cool tip on to make your chrome finish extra shiny? Spray a layer of varathane/clear coat over your initial layer of whatever, be it primer, or first layer of chrome. and then spray your final coat. It will come out SUPER GLOSSY. It's beautiful, you can almost see your face in it. (not really, but the shiny coat was cool nonetheless) You can bet I wanted to coat everything in chrome after that.

P3 Design brief and testing

With a more clear view of the concept, we had to write our own design brief covering our goals and constraints. And then it was dinner parties, testing of light quality with different materials, foam mock up models for size, proportion, fitting parts in, etc. and learning how to sauter and make a circuit and light up an LED. I know sautering isn’t difficult, but I’ve burnt a hole through one of my chipboards already...Somehow. Don’t ask me how.

Apparently, to get this project to work exactly the way I imagine it to, I need an arduino, or an engineering student from the other side of the building. Well, I’ve always wanted to learn to play with an arduino, so this might be fun, only I don’t have much time...

I also came across these LED candlelight kits that flicker in 3 different modes. How perfect!

P2.2 concepts

Pick a concept and run with it.

I chose the interactive lighting one because I felt that I had the most flexibility with it. There were so many possibilities with the interaction, and features, and it was different from other projects I’ve done, and it seemed fun. Plus, I’ve never done anything interaction experience-y.
So, just some details to figure out.. I know what it’s supposed to do, generally, but how? And what is the experience going to be like?

P2 Concepts

Here, we start with initial concepts, inklings of ideas that are further pushed into development if they are interesting. We had to have 12 pages of concepts in one week. Most people ignored the challenge thinking the prof wasn’t going to check. I did them, tiny little doodles each, I’m glad because the TA eventually came around to check.
With lighting as the theme, I wanted something that was playful, interactive perhaps, and could a story. Anyway, after a whole bunch of lame ideas, these were the final few.

influences: family dinner, Philips wake-up light.

Interactive ambient lighting experience

Childrens night lights to help them feel secure and sleep at night

wind powered ourdoor light. Light variations by the strength of wind 

I chickened out on the presentation, and didn't do the work by hand. I figured it would be cleaner on the computer, but this wasn't what I imagined either. It's a bit too stagnant,a little cold. My roomate reprimanded me and said for all that time I spent working it out and drawing and tracing and digitizing, I could have spent on doing it decently by hand. Perhaps...

But! As I am undeniably shy and self conscious about my sketching ability, my prof actually complimented me (!) saying that my way of drawing was totally okay although very different from other students in the class (who do great drawing if you saw it) because it is simple and still understandable and therefore still efficient. I don’t know if he was just being in a good mood, but that was uplifting. Even best-class-sketcher said he loves the way I draw, says it’s very me. Way to make my day.

P1 research: Design a small mobile low voltage light

There are 8 topics: Major retail, Industrial products and trades, Innovation, Ethical opportunities, Battery technology, Bulbs, Alternative energy, and Construction and mechanical construction. My group was placed in the Innovation category.

So, what breeds innovation?
Here, looking at what's already been done, people pushing boundaries and the potential with new materials and technologies, there's so many exciting possibilities for concept development! One possible objective was making a light that was dark sky friendly. Something that won't create light pollution and be too harsh, but it would be enough to be usable and at the same time not just for dim ambient purposes.

I also really enjoyed discovering the Solskin, designed by Hrafnkell Birgisson. It involves an old icelandic folk tale as the inspiration for the product. I love stories!

Is this process effective?

We are such visual learners, we learn first with our eyes and making mental patterns, and second we learn with our hands. Sometimes, it's the other way around. Anyway, as simple as it may seem to categorize information who are we to judge what belong where. Sometimes we disagree, but in the end, the product still ends up somewhere on the board under some category. Which are our core values? What are the constraints we want to keep and which ones can we be flexible with? Is this helping us build better connections? This map got wiped out and redone at least four times. I'm not sure if we agreed on every iteration, but maybe it was the process of experimenting with different categories and rearranging them to understand them in other contexts were we able to make the clutter more understandable for us and others.

 

2 day project

 

This was a dinky two day project that I think was a secret diagnostic test of our CAD and rendering skills. There isn't really much to it, we wanted facets and discovered how stupidly complex it was to create a faceted ring on solidworks. Luckily chamfers worked just as well visually...!

Ottawa Neighbourhood Services silent auction

Our first class coming back from the break was a two day project. The task was to go to Ottawa Neighbourhood Services (like a Goodwill/value village/salvation army) and spend no more than $5. Then we were to turn it into something else, or make it better and then silent auction it off for a charity. I made a toy piano, which I fell in love with and then auctioned it off to myself. During the final crunch of the toy piano making, I was in a rush (obviously) and glued the legs on backwards! I didn't notice until my friend who had been helping me put the whole thing together yelled at me for ruining the final touch lol.

tube bending!

For mass production class, we learned about tube bending. Our project was to design a half scale bicycle rack. This was fun because we had a non standard curve which meant that we had to devise a different way to bend the tube without using the standard 2" radius tube bender things. Some students even bent their metal tubes around the architecture pillars.

Anyway my partner and I chose to design a leaf bicycle rack that sprouts from the ground. Soooo eco-themed!

bending a metal tube is easy peasy