This is the third part in a series on a concept to encourage woodland planting; ‘Plot’. This project was my final year project whilst studying Product Design Technology at UWE. The aim was to encourage farmers to plant more trees by making the data needed for woodland grants easier to collect. You can read the first part of the series, Plot – The ideation here.
No matter how well developed a form may be, or how robust the electronics, a product always boils down to the user interaction with the hardware. After a lot of form development (see part one), the piece was constructed in CAD using Solidworks. This was then rapid prototyped.
The best part of working on a project for such a long time is when you finally get the material object in your hand. You have a relationship with it that no-one else does and probably ever will – you created it, after all. For me, the pleasure came with the size of the RP pieces. It was so much smaller when I actually grabbed it that I had expected. This was mainly due to having spent such a long time on the detail in the CAD, with it being large on screen, that I had forgotten how small the dimensions actually were.
Then came the fun part – the finishing. This is something that is overlooked by a lot of university courses it seems. To that extent, at the New Designers show in London, there were a large number of student’s concept models which weren’t made by the students at all – they were all outsourced. Where is the fun in that?
First and foremost, the RP pieces needed to be smoothed down. This involved using grey primer and yellow filler primer, along with various levels of sandpaper, to smooth it all out. Top tip: Using two colours means you can see how much you have sanded away when doing alternate layers.
This was then repeated for the end caps and the buttons, which needed to be especially smooth for the next process.
Both the end caps and buttons were made of rubber. This meant that the product had a greater resilience to being dropped (the end caps stuck out further than all other points), as well as helping with grip. To do this, a mould of the pieces was taken. Top tip: The silver balls (removed when casting the second piece)help to align the two bits of the mould when done.
Finally, once the end pieces had been cast, all that was left was to paint the main casing. This was done in a bright yellow, to aid the visibility of the product if dropped.
The end result? Not too bad if I do say so myself. Not only did the prototype work, but I saw it through every step of the way. I worked on the sketches, on the form, on the electronics, on the CAD, and on the manufacture and finishing of the final piece. Never underestimate how much you learn from doing a project end to end. It’s something that in my opinion, every designer should do at least once.
Tags: gps, graduate, ideation, plot, plotter, product design, project, sketching, uwe, woodland
