The Brief

In pairs we were tasked to create a device or app that would change the way people use navigation, we were to create a prototype model and then create a rendered model on Rhino.

Brainstorming

The fist step we took in our creative process was to do a few mind maps to get all our ideas down on a piece of paper, this allowed us to evaluate our ideas and further discuss what we could do and how it would work.

Once we had done a few mind maps we decided upon a device for dementia patients that would help them get to and from places more independently. Our initial idea was an ear piece that when a route was selected would talk the person through how to get to their selected destination.

Concept One

Our first concept was a very initial idea, we wanted to get an idea down in a hope that it would spark more ideas.

 

We decided that having a wall mounted console in the users home would be a good idea as it can’t get lost and won’t move. We were then thinking about what the user would do if they went out and couldn’t remember how to get home, so we though about also having a portable console for when the user is out and about.

Concept 2

With our second concept we decided to try and be more creative with the shape of the consoles. We thought that a semi circle shape would look less intrusive and wouldn’t be as in your face compared to a big cube on the wall.

In this concept we started to explore what the screen of the console would look like and how it would show the user which destination they had selected. We also thought it would be a good idea to have a colourful console that was easy to see and didn’t blend into the wall to much and be missed.

Concept 3

This concept idea stemmed from our previous ideas, we took the idea of having a wall mounted console and hand held console from the first concept and merged it with a more abstract shape, similar to our thinking behind the second concept.

We came up with this shape and thought it would be good as it is not a simple shape but also wouldn’t be to intrusive in a persons house. The thinking behind this is that the smaller circles would be buttons with programmed routes on the and when pressed the big screen in the middle would show what was selected.

For the hand held Console we brainstormed different shapes that would fit well ergonomically.

We narrowed our findings down to two shapes and cut them out of card to try and get a feel for which one fits better in the hand.

With regards to the first shape we came to the conclusion that it fit better into the hand upside down as the small end meant it was less chunky to hold. The second shape proved very hard to cut out which meant it wasn’t the best representation but we could get a rough idea as to how it would feel, despite it being a little deformed we decided that the second shape wasn’t as comfortable to hold as the first shape.

Concept 3 – Further Development

After deciding on concept 3 as our point to go forward from we started playing around with the layout of the hand held console.

We came up with two hand held layouts to get a sense of what the console would look like with the screen and buttons. After making the two layouts we took a survey using people in the class and the large majority said that the first layout was the best as it had the buttons in the middle and they weren’t having to cover the screen to use the buttons.

Making Prototypes

As our next stage of development we made prototypes of our consoles to get an idea for size, shape and aesthetic.

The first prototype we made was of the hand held console. We started off with the initial shape but realised the back was to flat and uncomfortable to hold, we decided to file the back of the console into a curve to get it to fit more snug into the hand. This did work however it still wasn’t 100% what we were looking for, so we added another layer of foam to bulk it out and let us create more of a curve without making the console really thin. We then covered the console in paper and drew on the screen, buttons and speakers to accurately represent our idea.

Our second prototype was of our wall mounted console. We had to brainstorm how we were going to achieve our vision as it was a more complex piece. We decided to make it in the workshop so we could use the machines and tools available there. First we drew out the shape we wanted the screen to be and cut it out of foam using the band-saw, we then sanded it down to achieve the smooth edges that we wanted. Our next dilemma was how we were going to put the rods into the screen, we came to the conclusion that we were going to have to sharpen the ends of the rods in order to pierce them into the foam then all we needed to do was cut out 7 circles from foam, sand them down and sharpen the other ends of the rods before we could glue it all together. Like we did with the hand held console we stuck paper onto the prototype and drew on the screen and all the buttons.

Rendering Our Model On Rhino

Once we had our prototypes we went into the media lab and started creating our models on Rhino.

 

This threw up many challenges as Rhino was a new software to us and we had very little idea as to how to use it. After a very stressful morning trying to get our models to look the was we wanted it too we were finally able to render the models (we thought this would be the easy part – oh how we were wrong), this created its own stress as after we had rendered the models the rendered image was a very low resolution. We managed to fix this but the rendered image was then very zoomed into the model and not the view we were looking for. We finally got everything working and were able to save images and start on our concept board.

Concept Board

 The second to last part of our project was to create a concept board to show our ideas, prototypes and rendered models.

For our concept board we wanted to show our models, our thinking behind our ideas and how it works. This was a challenge as we didn’t want too much text on our board. The part we found hardest was creating a layout that made sense and didn’t look too cluttered or empty.

The Presentation

At the end of the project we were asked to present our design to the class. It was really interesting listening to everyone’s presentations and how the brief was interpreted in different ways.

Our presentation went well and we managed not to mess up or go over time.