Assignment 6 – 3D Printed LEGO

For this assignment, I decided to print out the LEGO piece that I made in Rhino for Assignment 1. It was quite the experience working with the 3D printer because I felt all sorts of emotions. Mainly I just went for happy and watching the oddly fascinating print, to having anger towards an error, and back to happy. It started out great, printing like a champ. I turned away for a bit and came back to notice the filament had loosed and came out. I thought I could just push the filament through and it would restart, but the printer had kept moving as if it were printing so it didn’t continue in the correct spot. That is why you see a half printed larger model and a smaller complete model. I was on a crunch time to get the project done so I got a quick, small print. Overall, I believe it was a good experience because I ran into a problem but I was able to overcome it.

Project 2 Inspiration

At first I was thinking about creating  something that can be utilized on your desk. Something like a pencil holder, a glasses holder, maybe a key chain holder, or even a decorative ornaments such as an animal or planes. That is when I started to think of those unique lampshades that look almost like origami that you would get at IKEA or a DIY kit from a hobby store.

That is when lampshades/light shades caught my eye. There are so many different ways that you can make the shades and even personalize it to have your favorite cartoon character or superhero on the sides. After that I started to come up with ideas for a lamp that is shaped in a plane or a spacecraft.

It is a rough sketch but it is a start. I’m still deciding exactly what I want to create but these are my stepping stones to getting to that final idea of making this joinery project.

Reaction to What is a “Good Design”

In the readings over the weekend the trending idea that revolved around what makes a good design was the Dieter Rams’ Ten Principles of “Good Design”. In one way, shape, or form that is how “good design” was described having to each requirement: innovative, makes a product useful, aesthetic, makes a product understandable, unobtrusive, honest, long-lasting, thorough, environmentally friendly, and as little of design as possible. According to the readings, the “good design” must have all those in harmony. It is funny to think though that entrepreneurs (business people), engineers, and designers all think alike when it comes to what is important in “good design” when they are thinking about a product, service, or idea they are going to startup. In the reading, “Startups, This is How Design Works.”, they bring up an interesting idea of how important designers are to the founding team in a startup. Steering away from the traditional business/engineering combo. It makes sense since so much of what makes a good product comes with “good design”. It is ideal for a startups to have a designer, take for example, a web designer but as well have the front end development end down. It would be great to have a separate designer and developer but more than often, the designer must learn the front end or vice versa. It is great to have a well rounded team and will help your startup tremendously because each side will be working hard to have the idea of “good design” met.

Assignment 3 – The Time is NOW

The inspiration of this stencil came from a rap song that I have had stuck in my head for a couple of weeks now. The title is ‘The Time is Now’ by Futuristic and it has a great message behind it. He talks about getting up and working towards your goals each and every day in hopes that each day you are closer and happier. Ever since I have heard the song, I have listened to it each day because it motivates me to do better than I did the day before. The time is NOW for me to build myself to be as successful and happy as possible in this life.

 

  

The Counter Top

A Vision from Old to New

Lately I have been wanting to remodel my house but I know that I will have to start little by little to do this. My first thought into what I should remodel is the bathroom counter top and sink. That is where my inspiration has come from with the project at hand. Right now I have just an ordinary particle board counter top but I want to see or imagine what it would look like using Rhino. In this it will just be the counter top along with drawers and doors for storage. A hole at the top is placed to mimic where the sink will go. It is awesome to think that we do not only have drawing to make up what we want things to look like but we also have 3-D rendering to help get a bigger picture of what we want. The model I created helps with the idea of remodeling because it allows me to see different materials I can use, different angles, and shapes for the certain design. So with this I hope you enjoy my ideas of a style of counter top.

In my process I used a bunch of rectangles and then the ellipse tools to build this counter top. I filleted the edge of the counter top so that it was not sharped edged. Everything that is flat edged will be flush with a wall so that when this is in use no one can slip and hurt themselves on it. I used boolean difference and boolean union to make the drawers and doors on the front of counters for storage in the bathroom.

thecountertop_presentationsheet

Everyone sees Design Differently

The idea of design is and why it matters presented this week hit the bullseye with how one should think of this matter. In the IKEA presentation on design, it was repeated over and over again that design hones right on in on emotion. Should be apparent that’s what design does, but both the video and reading bring up that people FEEL that a certain may or may not be of use to them. It gives someone a feeling because it creates an emotion toward that item. It’s a serious relationship that one has with the item because once they have possession of this, it is part of that person’s personality. A flashy watch versus a watch out of the 50 cent machine, it becomes part of the body language that one has. Design helps enhance our feelings about who we are by showing it off. It is our outer shell.

It is important though as designers that we actually develop things for people that they will actually need or feel they need the use of it. The beauty of the item is different to each person but at least we have that idea that it has an impression on people to keep it. Emotion is one of the best ways to get to any human being because we all feel. But it is an art that is practiced, honing into people’s emotion. Well practice creates good habits and hopefully better designs.

First Model – Assignment 1

 

 For my first model, I decided to make a LEGO block. The inspiration came from the numerous amounts of times I stepped on these over this past three day weekend. These are my rough sketches along with my process in this.

It took longer than I thought to get to the final product but it all worked out in the end. Here’s that final product.