Over the past few days, I have been working on developing the skeleton suit design and finalising a prototype design: Overall the tests have worked well and I feel that with a little more development, the design could be a real eye opener for motorists who see cyclists wearing the jacket.
Today we had a session with Clara Watkins for developing our design ideas further and working on a PDS. I am already about half way through my PDS so I talked to Clara mainly about developing the skeleton suit to be more than it is at the moment. To be honest, it feels half finished and like something that should be a system, but isn’t. Clara suggested that I think of a greater system which incorporates a marketing campaign and a slogan. This seems like quite an undertaking, but I think if I work on it, I can get something that really works!
Today I met with Bethan to talk about where I am at on my project. I explained to Beth how my prototypes had fared in each test and where the design had gone. I explained how I have decided to work with the Skeleton suit design instead now. Bethan suggested how the Skeleton suit would be best if it worked as a system with the other designs I have created. She pointed out that I need to evaluate the purpose of each of my devices and see which would best fit that purpose together as a system. After what Bethan has said, I have looked at all of the devices and I feel I have realised that the best combination could come from partnering the Skeleton Suit and the Distance Sensor, as design which I will now start to develop…
Today hasn’t been exactly excellent. Unfortunately, all the lasers that I was using in my laser prototypes have broken and are unavailable to buy again. Since this design is no longer feasible within the time frame I have left, I have decided to turn around the project and focus on the skeleton suit design. I have given more thought as to how the design might work, remembering a technology called electroluminescent wire aka EL Wire, a lighting technology similar in a way to flexible neon lighting. I am going to try to develop this further and see where it takes me…
Today I decided to further develop the laser bubble prototype design, by 3D printing a prototype to attach to the bike. I have previously tested the prototype, but due to the makeshift creation of the original prototype, the laser emitters being used were almost broken. The prototype was printed using ABS which will hopefully prove to be a strong structure, which should keep the lasers from damage. The prototype easily twists and locks into the holder which can easily be attached to the bike on any tubular surface.
Over the past two days I have manufactured a new prototype for my 180 degree light design. Instead of hand making some of the more complex parts, I decided to 3D print them to get perfect accuracy for holding all the parts. The design is quite simple, with 4 RED LEDs diffusing light through the two acrylic arms. At first, I used a permanent battery pack, however I later decided to hook up the arduino and distance sensor. To test the prototype, a friend and I cycled down the incredibly busy Newport road in Cardiff with a camera watching the back of the bike: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svTkHRqegU8&w=420&h=315]
Today, I have had both my tutorial with Bethan discussing my work on my product design prototypes and my tutorial discussing my technical report design ideas with Paul. Bethan was keen that I further experimented with my prototypes to identify which design elements were successful and which could be cut. She agreed that whilst individually my designs did solve the problems arising from my brief and PDS, we were both unsure as to whether they would work as a fluid system. It is difficult to measure my work against any real criteria as the examples available are only those of my peers, who are all doing very different projects. I feel as though my work isn’t going as well as it could be, a problem I seem to be suffering from greatly this year… Paul was quite pleased with the area’s I had been looking into and proposed the idea […]
This week I have been working on further developing my five concept designs and adapting them perhaps into a single system. Overall however I do feel like I might be accidentally creating a mismatch of product ideas into a system which might not make sense or work well together. I have also been working on creating a testing rig for the 180 Light, which uses light created with LEDs diffused through acrylic to create an arc of light on the front and rear of the bike. The test right does however suffer from some stability issues due to an error in sizing the parts, which resulted in a prototype that was accidentally twice the size intended.
Today I completed another interim viva in front of my tutorial group. Overall, I feel the viva was quite successful, though I did feel a little under prepared as I had not rehearsed the presentation a great deal. Unfortunately, as I was concerned about remembering what I was saying, I said “Uh” and “Umm” a fair amount of times and I also missed out some key features about one of my designs, which was quite annoying. Overall, I think that with practice, I would have been far more capable of presenting my work well, but the time to rehearse just wasn’t available due o having to work right up to the day of the presentation. I also had my tutorial with Paul regarding my technical report where I was able to tell him that I had completed my report. Paul was fairly pleased at this and we discussed what was […]
Since the completion of my technical report first draft, I have been focusing on developing my concept designs for my product design project. I have acquired a set of laser pointers which I intend to test to create an arc shape in front of the bike. I have also developed some CAD prototypes of my four main concept ideas. The laser bubble was also quite successful, though I am unsure about the legality of the use of such lasers on the road.