Instead of meeting at our regular class time this week, we met Tuesday night to prepare for the Makeathon that is coming up in a couple of weeks. We meet new mentors and other students who are also participating in the Makeathon.
Two of our class mentors, Adam and Ryan, along with three new mentors sharing their stories with us.
One story that I was intrigued by was from one of the mentors who has been using a wheelchair since he was about ten. He doesn’t have a high level of mobility in his hands and fingers, so he saw an opportunity to make it easier to put his socks on. He bought fabric from Jo-Ann Fabrics and had his mother sew three loops onto the socks. This allows him to firmly grip the sock, bend over, and pull the sock over his foot. I thought this innovation was very creative, as I would not have thought of it myself. Moreover, I could see this sock innovation expanded to multiple different user bases, such as elderly people.
Another mentor who spoke at the pre-night was a representative from Clark-Lindsey, a retirement community in Urbana, IL. He shared with us three different personas of residents at Clark-Lindsey, which helped us empathize with the residents and understand their everyday lives and emotions. From this, the mentor shared that one large opportunity for the Makeathon is fall prevention. One great aspect of a fall prevention product is that it could be expanded to user bases outside of the elderly, and that is a huge goal for the Makeathon.
Mentor from Clark-Lindsey sharing the resident personas.
The last part of the class was designated to brainstorming with our teams and speaking with mentors. My team, Solestice, met a student from the MakerSpace class, and thought she would be a great addition to our team. She has more experience utilizing the tools that will be available during the Makeathon, so she will add great value and insight. I am looking forward to participate in the Makeathon in a couple of weeks!
Hi there! I am a Senior studying Marketing and Information Systems/Information Technology. I chose to take this course in order to expand my creative and design thinking skills that I can apply to my future career. I am grateful that we are provided the opportunity to take this course as Business majors.
This week was much different than most other classes. Instead of having our typical 9AM Wednesday class, we had a combined Tuesday evening class with Dr. McDonagh’s Industrial Design class and Jeff’s Fab Lab class. The main purpose of the class was to brief all the students about the upcoming Make-A-Thon and introduce more potential mentors. We learned that the Make-A-Thon would be spaced out throughout an entire weekend and that there would be lots of resources available to us. The Fab Lab, Makerlab, and Architecture lab were all kind enough to offer their facilities to us throughout the entire weekend and professionals and students will be volunteering their time to help us use these machines properly. We also learned that there would be prizes for the winners. While this is a nice bonus, the real incentive is making a product that our awesome mentor Jenna will be excited to use!
More Mentors
The class also introduced us to more mentors. While our Makerlab class already has partnered with mentors, meeting these new mentors was very helpful for the Industrial Design students. Most of the new mentors are from DRES and they shared stories about their experiences and examples of ways they have worked to develop solutions to everyday tasks. One student shared that he sewed on loops to his socks so that he could still put them on even though he has trouble fully closing his fingers to grab things. I though his solution was genius and a perfect example of the types of solutions we are trying to come up with in class. A representative from Clark-Lindsey, a retirement community, also came in to talk about some of the struggles that the elders in their community face. Our group was able to talk with him after the presentation and he told us about a really cool device that has an accelerometer that could tell when a user was falling and inflate a mini airbag to protect the hip. We began to brainstorm how we could use a similar advice to protect Jenna’s leg during a fall.
Team Movi Update
This week our team met up to discuss test protocols for our prototype testing. We now have a much better idea of how we miss measure success for our prototype. In addition, we are also scheduling a meeting with a material science professor on campus to learn what materials would be best to use for our device.
Once of the most
influential factors in my decision to enroll in the class was seeing the partnership
announced between ICON
and New Story in early 2018. After settling down post 2017 crypto crazy, I
began to look at other technologies which could impact the developing world. I had
fallen in love with enabling digital and social finance and in 2018 I slowly began
shifting my focus to housing. I had battled and worked through last mile internet
solutions through my time with Mesh++,
and now I wanted to delve into scalable solutions to solve homelessness,
because everyone deserves at least that.
While researching this topic, I familiarized myself with
someone we all should know, Charles Hull, the inventor of stereolithography.
This was a process discovered over 30 years ago and it has just begun to go
mainstream as 3D printing. It blew my mind that this was a technology
discovered before the internet. As
with all innovations, it takes time and large institutional investments to drive
the price down, but with companies such as Formlabs
coming to prominence in the last decade, we can surely say 3D printing is here
to stay.
Nonetheless, concrete 3D printers are typically the type which are used currently in 3D printed houses, so it is still a niche within the industry that is not necessarily accessible or affordable for the average person yet. With that taken into account, they are typically reasonably priced, rarely crossing the $20,000 threshold. However, even the everyday firm architect experiences significant value adds from incorporating the 3D printing process into their workflow.
For starters, 3D printing can help clients better
visualize and scale a potential project. Mini-cities and structures could be
easily developed to show urban planners how another building would influence
the landscape, and let clients get a sneak peak of their dream home through
scaled down models. It also allows for simple remote collaboration, as architects
could edit the digital files anywhere around the world, and then print them
remotely themselves.
Additionally, by moving this manual process to a digital format, architects will inherently save time and money throughout the design process. Yet the most important aspect could be what is the equivalent of the open source code community. By lowering the cost and time effects of creating digital models, architects will be more encouraged to start repositories of their 3D designs, allowing the greater community to leverage and build off them. I can’t wait to see the GitHub equivalent in the architecture or design industries!
On the higher level, we see 3D printing continuously used
more to 3D print houses directly. ICON
is currently leading the field, with their printer being able to create
communities with houses up to 2,000 square feet! The previously mentioned partnership
with New Story subsidizes these types of houses for the developing world, specifically
targeting families who live on less than $200 per month. It is reassuring to
see industry trailblazers continuing to conduct business with a social impact;
that is our responsibility as early adopters of disruptive technology.
Even though I can’t wait to own my mini-empire of personal 3D printed homes all across the globe, 3D printing is making an impact in architecture far beyond replacing traditional home construction (as if that wasn’t enough already). Just this month, a team of Boston University researches unveiled a shape which blocks 94% of sound. The ring-like figure is “mathematically designed, [and made from a] 3D-printed acoustic metamaterial [that] is shaped in such a way that it sends incoming sounds back to where they came from” (Fast Company). 3D printing is literally spearheading an architectural and design movement which will serve as our infrastructure backbone for at least the coming decades.
The influence of 3D printing in architecture has arguably even been felt. We’re finally closing in on an era of affordable housing in which entire communities can appear out of nowhere in a matter of days. Architects will delve into an age of newfound collaboration and digital innovation which will stimulate real estate development at a lower cost. And maybe scientists will even 3D print more ridiculous innovations which alter the sensory output of our environments. 3D printing will disrupt architecture in a way few expect, but in a way which will never leave our world looking the same.
This week we did not meet during our usual class hours. Instead, we meet on a Tuesday with students from other classes, our mentors/expert users and FabLab members. In this meeting, we discussed ways to prepare for the next 3 weeks which we will spend preparing for the Make-a-thon.
The extreme users gave us great prompts to consider. One of my favorites was to focus on improving aspects of everyday life for everyone. I found this to be great advice because when working with a client it can sometimes be tempting to solely focus on solutions for them. This can be slightly difficult because it can be hard to shift one’s perspective to see from another. I find it easier to start with a perspective that I identify with and then alter a proposed solution to cater to other perspectives. At the beginning of the semester MileStone Labs shared with us a story of how a group of engineers and designers came together to create a product for a person with a disability. They thought they were creating a solution to what they believed to be a problem but soon found out that what they saw as a problem was not what the client saw. I believe this same situation could be true for those participating in the Make-a-thon if the sole focus is on trying to improve the lives of clients. Not having the same perspective may lead to misidentifying issues.
Another part of the session that I found to be helpful was seeing John demo for how he puts on his socks. John struggles with his mobility which makes it hard for him to do things such as put on his socks. Therefore, his mom sewn loops onto his socks so that by placing one finger in each loop he can easily put on his socks. This type of simple innovation is what I and my team are looking to incorporate into our design for protecting the joystick of powerchairs from the rain. After all the presentations, we had a brainstorming session. In class, we’ve had plenty brainstorming sessions so my team basically reaffirmed our goals and steps for the work that we would complete for the Make-a-thon. I am excited to see all of the innovative work that everyone produces at the Make-a-thon.
This week we met with other students who are also going to be participating in the Make-A-Thon. We also got to hear people in the community as well as more potential mentors speak to us. While we were interviewing our users with mentioning or idea for the glove, we found a new challenge of being able to use a knife to cut and a fork at the same time. It requires a lot of force on food like tough meat and the plate tends to slip away. This was interesting for us to learn because we were just focused on a glove that helps with grabbing things, but this was a new opportunity space that we haven’t thought about.
My friend Brandon who works in Beckwith recommended a student to talk to about grabbing things, so we might still interview him this week if we believe that is the direction we want to go in. There seem to be many opportunities now and it is hard to decide on the one we want to pursue.
Another opportunity that came with talking to one of the users John, was that he cannot wear a watch, but would love to. John has Charcot Marie Tooth. This affects both motor and sensory nerves. He has trouble with buttons and zippers, and would appreciate something that would help him deal with them as well as stylish. This discovery about the watch idea came from the student pictured above asking him about it. He had the opportunity to try a strap for a watch that was magnetic, but that interfered with his wheels when he was pushing them forward. I think this is an area that I want to pursue more, because it not only excited John but it also seems feasible.
I got the number of the guy pictured above so we could work with him during the Make-A-Thon, but unfortunately I don’t remember his name. I am hoping to figure that out soon in order to see if he has thought about his watch idea more.
Next steps include interviewing the student Brandon suggested to see if we want to finalize pursuing the glove idea and figuring out who the student pictured above is to contact him before the Make-A-Thon.
This week, instead of holding a regular class, we had an opportunity to come together with the rest of the Make-a-thon participants. Make-a-thon is a 3-day capstone event for our course, where the goal is to develop a working prototype of the idea that we have been working on over the semester by the end of it. Just like any other make-a-thon or a hackathon event, there will be a panel of judges to select the best prototype/idea, and prizes, including a 3D printer, will be given out. What got me excited about this event is that it is not only us, the Digital Making Seminar students, participating in it but there are students from the Accessibility + Design course, as well as other design and making courses and programs across the campus who will be participating in it. With everyone working on the theme of accessibility, I am glad that this event is open to more people and hope that it will continue to expand over the years.
It was exciting for me to see a room full of participants and the mentors, all buzzing with various ideas. With so many people present, I could not wait to see the different ideas that they were exploring and what would come out by the end of the event.
Getting Inspired by the Mentors and Expert Users
Another important part of the meeting was being introduced to new mentors/expert users and hearing their stories. One of the most inspiring stories that I heard was from John, an expert user, who has conditions that do not allow him to have the necessary grip strengths on his hands to pull a sock apart to put it over his foot. He shared the challenge of this as well as how he overcame it. His solution was to attach three loops around the neck of the sock, through which he can insert his fingers and pull it over his foot. It was an extremely simple, yet brilliant idea.
This reminded me of the phrase “simple is the best” and made me reevaluate the ideas that my team and I are working on. To ensure that our product is usable by a large user base, we need to make sure that the idea is simple and clear enough that it can be used easily. As an idea develops and makes progress, I think it is very easy to lose the initial goal or a mindset that the idea was developed from due to the excitement and the desire to do more. However, since the ultimate purpose is to allow the users to use the product easily, we always need to be conscious of them. John’s story inspired me to look around the daily objects to see if they can be modified to help with the opportunity that my team and I have identified.
Team Rotam
With the new inspiration and energy from the participants, my team and I gathered during the breakout session to talk about our ideas further. While discussing, we realized that we have several ideas but it would be more helpful to have them be tangible to determine whether they are viable options or not. Therefore, we are looking to develop on the ideas further and create a few low fidelity prototypes of each to test them out. We expect challenges from transferring our ideas to tangible products, but we are also very excited to see how they will turn out. We believe that with tangible prototypes, we will also have an easier time demonstrating our ideas to Ryan to receive his feedback, which is why this is very important.
This week we got an introduction to the Make-a-thon. The participants of this event go beyond our Digital Making seminar course. Its expanded to Industrial design students from Dr. Deana McDonagh and Jim Kendall’s course, as well as students from Jeff Ginger’s Makerspace. This pre-event to the actual Make-a-thon gave us a general overview of what was going to take place leading up to the weekend long event. Later during the session there was a panel of a few returning experts and a few new ones. Some new faces were Isaac, John, and Steve. They all spoke about their disabilities and the daily frustrations they face. The panel even discussed some of the unique ways they’ve adapted to make the best of their situations.
John’s sock with three attached loops Joh’s sock with three attached loops
Above is an image of one of John’s sock. I thought this was so simple, yet very effective. Apart of John’s condition is very minimal grip strength. So task like putting on socks or buttoning a shirt is difficult to him. A simple life hack he came up with was sewing loops on the outer edge of his sock, which he can fit around his fingers and pull on the sock. It crazy to think this is all it took and it making a huge difference.
Steve from the panel also gave us an overview of Clark Lindsey, which is a premier retirement community for today’s accomplished adults. From the presentation he gave I found there to be quite some opportunity in this specific sector. He put a heavy emphasis on fall prevention. Maybe we can design some sort of new innovative thing around this opportunity.
The last part of the Make-a-thon pre-event was a social portion. This time was for everyone to meet and talk amongst each other. Since we’ve been working on our project for sometime used this portion to to talk with some of the new experts and students to see if any wanted to get involved. We did meet a potential new team member from Jeff’s makerspace seminar. She seemed very interested in what it was Solestice is trying to do. After this It really just turned into a team meeting where we mapped out what we needed to from the session up until the Make-a-thon itself.
For once, this week’s class did not involve waking up for
9am class! The lecture was moved to Tuesday night as we gathered with 3
different classes and officially announced the kickoff of the Make-a-Thon
event. The room was buzzing with excitement from the other students, but
definitely filled with some overwhelm and stress from peers in 357. We’re
finally going to have to make a final prototype within 2 weeks from today.
At this point, we have more or less settled on a concrete
strategy. We will use inspiration from current joystick cover solutions to
create a lower cost product. Most of the market is saturated with products
which end up costing well over $60 when accounting for tax. The disabled
community is already one of the lowest earning demographics, and it makes no
sense to monetize of a disability, so we are keen to undercut the market and
steal market share from overpriced competitors.
We will need materials help during the make-a-thon. Thankfully
we have a designer and a coder so simple software solutions will be able to be
easily implemented. However, the most pressing question is which filament is malleable
enough to make a joystick cover? It needs to be able to resist water, fold and
wrap around the arm of the chair.
Make-a-thon is bound to leave us with some marvelous
experiences and I’m excited to finally bring our concept to life.
This week, instead of regular class, we had a Pre-Event for our capstone Make-A-Thon event. At this event, we previewed our schedule for the Make-A-Thon weekend and got to meet some new mentors and participants. All three classes participating in the Make-A-Thon were present (which includes Vishal’s Digital Making class of which I am a part of, Dr. McDonagh’s Accessibility + Design course, and Jeff Ginger’s Makerspace seminar). During the night, we had a panel of wheelchair users talk to us about what people with disabilities really wanted out of the Make-A-Thon – a chance for innovators to learn to use empathetic design, include humanizing language in their vocabulary, and create tools which can help make daily living easier. They are not asking us to solve particular “problems” or find “solutions” to the difficult aspects of their lives, rather they want to take the opportunity to collaboratively innovate with us.
The panel itself, included Adam Bleakney (one of our mentors and Coach of U of I’s wheelchair racing track team), Isaac (an U of I freshman), John (an U of I sophomore), Ryan Wilson (an U of I alumnus), and Steve (a representative from Clark-Lindsey). Each member of the panel described to us some frustrations they had with their daily living and helped us understand more about the disabilities they had as well as what sort of innovations they have created as a result.
Below is a picture of what all of John’s socks look like. He has attached three loops because his condition means that he has no grip strength in his hands. With the help of the loops, he is able to independently put his socks on via putting his fingers through the loops!
Additionally, not only did Steve tell us about his own experiences, but he also related to us the experiences of the residents of Clark-Lindsey. Clark-Lindsey is a local retirement community that Steve works at. At Clark-Lindsey, many of the elders have problems such as dementia or pre-Parkinson’s disease which makes some daily living actions difficult, such as walking (and therefore tripping often) or not being able to hold a phone steadily (which makes Facetiming family and grandchildren difficult). Steve talked us through the most common difficulties and proposed that those without a current project help out with some of them. Although I am already working with my team on our attachable treads, one quick idea I had thought of was to use a music stand to help those with trembling hands hold a phone, tablet, or book still for use.
The final part of the Pre-Event had us mingling with the other
students as well as the new mentors to create some project ideas. As we already
had our own project that we have been working on throughout this semester, my
group ended up having a team meeting about the extra research we would need to
do in the upcoming days in order to be fully prepared for the Make-A-Thon
event. We also talked to a prospective new team member that is a student from
Jeff’s Makerspace seminar.
DIGGING AROUND.
Since we did not have a formal workshop class this week as
we usually do, I want to also recap some of the other learning that we are
doing in class that has not been mentioned before. We have a class forum on a
site called Yellowdig where each member of
the class can post news articles about the different innovation tools we come
across in our lives. This could be extra research on anything we have learned
in class that we were particularly interested in or even just articles relating
to maker culture and current innovations. In the past week, I have posted a
couple interesting articles I have found online. One article was about Odyssey
Innovation, a company that makes kayaks out of sea plastic and the other
was about Stanford
and Apple Watch’s research.
I found these articles interesting for a couple reasons. First,
for the article about Odyssey
Innovation talked about using a business model as a tool for promoting
recycling. While I would like to believe the best of people, the current amount
of recycling being done is still not enough – whether this is due to a lack of
time, lack or caring, or lack of accessibility. However, if a business model
were used, I can see that being enough of a motivator to increase the amount of
recycling being done. It is an interesting concept that I think should
definitely be explored further by activists.
Next, the Stanford and Apple Watch research was interesting
to me in that it is a possible way to make medical information more readily available.
While Apple is adamant that their products are not medical grade and therefore cannot
give completely accurate results and should not replace doctor’s visits, the
application of Apple Watch in sensing irregular heart rates seems to be
something that can help discover early indications of heart problems and give
users a heads up as to when to visit the doctor. I feel like there could be
some really cool applications for the medical field to explore in conjunction
with Apple, and I hope that they continue to develop their research.
Finally, one article
that my classmate and fellow Solestice teammate, Trevor Sibby, posted
was actually about a startup that he is a part of: Nouvo. Nouvo aims to create a smart
pacifier that can sense the pH level and temperature of a baby’s saliva in
order to help discover problems earlier rather than when symptoms start to show
themselves. It is incredibly inspiring to work so closely with someone who is
working on technology with such potential.
Salutations! I’m a sophomore studying accountancy who likes to create some art on the side (yes, I’m one of those photographer/poet/all around artist people). My passion is in advocating for equity, and I probably spend a little too much time on Hulu.
As 3D printing increases in popularity and becomes more common, many industries are evolving to include the technology. A great example of this that many people do not normally consider is the fashion industry. As a user who was unfamiliar with 3D printing in the beginning of this class, I understand people might not grasp the impact 3D printing plastic can have on fashion. However, 3D printing has major implications for design, texture and innovation for fashion designers.
A great example of this is LabeledBy a design studio in the Netherlands that works to incorporate innovation into their textiles and garments. The studio strives for personalization and sustainability within the fashion industry. LabeledBy says they have been able to use Ultimaker and 3D printers to make personalized garments that uniquely fit a person’s body. During their interview, LabeledBy explained that the 3D printer they use has been optimized for garments and textiles. The 3D printer can print all materials and they are making even more changes so they can print with more experimental and biodegradable materials. They also make sure to use materials that are suitable or the washing machine! LabeledBy is a great example of a company that is innovating the fashion industry with 3D printing.
Example of clothing created by LabeledBy
Another great example of 3D printing in the fashion industry is within movie props and costumes. In the movie Black Panther, the costume designed for Queen Ramonda was created with a 3D printer (see picture below). The technique used to create this design was SLS or selective laser sintering. It involved using lasers to heat a powder and fuse the particles together. The particles were fused layer by layer and then the excess filament was removed. A CAD software was used to create the 3D costume and was then tailored for the actress’s specific measurements.
Queen Ramonda’s dress
The designer of the costume, Julia Korner, had previously worked on 3D printed designs for Haute Couture collections (including items for Chanel and Herpen). Haute Couture is the most exclusive, expensive segment of the fashion industry. This segment is so high fashion many people have never even heard of the designers. Even celebrities don’t normally participate in the Haute Couture fashion segment. This segment is meant for true fashion enthusiast who spend millions on a single piece only to never wear it and to save it to be admired for generations. Therefore, it is absolutely crazy to think that 3D printing is invading the Haute Couture fashion segment. This really has the ability to decrease the exclusivity of a fashion piece and allow it to be affordable or within reach for average consumers.
3D printing has also disrupted the luxury fashion industry and caused many concerns for designers. Luxury fashion is what is still a very high end fashion segment but includes more well-known brands such as Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Gucci and Burberry. There is some overlap between luxury fashion and Haute Couture (example Chanel), but a brand can meet luxury fashion criteria and still not be high end enough for Haute Couture. The biggest concern of luxury brands with the introduction of 3D printing is intellectual property rights infringement. Global import of counterfeit goods is already over $500 billion a year however, with 3D printing luxury brands expect this number to grow. However, the article mentions how it is still important for luxury brands to embrace 3D printing and view the technology as a way to create a personalized product for an affluent customer.
3D printed outfit on the fashion runway in Vancouver
Personally, I view this shift in the industry as positive and I wish luxury brands would embrace affordability. (I understand this counterattacks the idea of it being a luxury brand.) I believe if everyone has the opportunity to access “luxury” fashion (even if it is 3D printed and “counterfeit”) socioeconomic disparities based on fashion would reduce. Sometimes people are quick to judge based on the clothing and brands a person wears. However, that isn’t fair in my opinion; just because someone does own a Chanel purse it doesn’t mean they are any less of a person.
3D printing is also helping to increase the sustainability of the fashion industry. Currently, the fashion industry is highly criticized due to large amounts of clothing that end up as waste in landfills. However, with 3D printers’ designers are able to print new designs and create less waste. Designers are also looking into biodegradable clothing that could be 3D printed. According to St. Catherine University researchers, 3D printing has the potential to change the entire fashion industry and allow ready to wear fashion companies to create less waste. Within the shoe industry, 3D printing allows designers to easily prototype and reduce waste associated with making multiple shoe models.
In class, we were able to understand how 3D printing applies to the fashion industry when we visited the Fab Lab in Champaign, IL. We actually were shown a fabric that had 3D printed thorns on it for a costume. This is only the beginning of the capabilities 3D printers can have for the fashion industry. As people continue to experiment it will be interesting to see how the fashion industry innovates with this technology.
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