My intentions for taking Digital Making was to better understand digital making and to become more fluent within the skill. As an industrial designer I have been able to to acquire skills in “making”, however I was looking to refine my skill set as well as learn more. Thanks to this course, the MakerLab and the community Fab Lab I have learned so much about digital making this semester!
What I learned and the people I met:
Visiting DRES
Visiting DRES was a great experience. I thought it was really interesting to see the progression of the racing wheelchairs over time. Especially as an industrial designer, I found it inspiring to see the amount of opportunity there is within this field. While we were in the basement we also had the chance to see four athletes training on racing wheelchair rollers. This really put a lot into perspective for me, forcing me to think about the stigmas there is surrounding people who use wheelchairs in relation to exercise.
I really appreciated the people we met during our visit for giving us some their time and sharing their stories. As a designer in this situation it is easy to think just of the wheelchair and design innovation vs. the person and their life experiences. It was extremely valuable to sit down at a table and listen to their stories. In design it is very structure oriented, and having the opportunity to listen to real life experience gave me a lot more insight than I would have jumping into this project with strictly online research. Everybody had such interesting and unique story to share.
Milestone Labs
Milestone Labs come to campus during the coldest days in the midwest so unfortunately we were only able to speak to them through Skype.
Talking to two members of the Milestone Labs team was a great opportunity for students to learn about the design process or refine what has been taught to some already. Particularly they helped us figure out our “Opportunity Statement”. I love we refer to this as the opportunity statement rather than problem statement which is typically what it has been referred to in the past 4 years in my college career. Opportunity statement makes things more general and instills more open ended-ness not simply one solution to a “problem”.
This last class was a pinnacle point for my team in terms of brainstorming. The worksheet really helped bring everyone’s voices forward, although we were not sitting in the classroom face to face we were able to discuss through video chat and bounce ideas off each other in our google document.
Michael Hansen “fail early, fail often”
We had the opportunity to listen to Mike Hansen who now is a part of the EarthSense startup.EarthSense is revolutionary for the agricultural business. They are creating new possibilities in crop breeding, agricultural product development, product testing, crop research, and field scouting by improving the quantity, accuracy, cost, and speed of in-field plant trait data collection and analytics. (https://www.earthsense.co/home)
Mike stressed the theory of trial and error. SolidWorks and 3D printing lend themselves to learning from failures since both are relatively young practices. The only true way of learning how to use either platform one must try things they will most likely fail at. Mike’s story about constructing the case for the camera is a great example of failure leading to innovation. Trying something that no one has done before is a risk, however, if risks aren’t being made, progress isn’t being made either.
Guest Speakers
Three guests came to our class to share their insights. These guests included a member of the Illini Service Dog, John Hornick, and Jeff Ginger. We started by talking about possible opportunities for design within the service dog experience, then learned a lot about advancements within the 3D printing world, were exposed to the amazing network of Fab Labs, and finally met up with our teams for a brainstorm activity.
A few opportunities the Illini Service Dogs were presenting our class were redesigns of collar and leashes, a better way of connecting leashes to wheelchairs, FOB attachments to carabiners to open and close cabinets, better designed problem collar so it is easer to take on and off, and finally an easier clasp for the vests the dogs have to wear. As for research opportunities, we were encouraged to talk to occupational therapists, physical therapists, personal assistants and expert users.
John Hornick was extremely well versed on the history/progress of the 3D printing world. He shared a lot of interesting information. My biggest takeaways were democratization and customization. 3D printing allows people and patients to physically see ailments in the 3-dimensional world giving a lot more people access to information that wasn’t able to be expressed before. John also talked about the customization 3D printing is capable of. There is great strength within 3D printing. These technological advancements have aided in facial reconstruction, implants as well as 3D printing of skin! Wake Forest University’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine is 3D printing cartilage, organ tissue and even skin for the U.S army.
Our final speaker for the day was Jeff Ginger who works at the UIUC Community Fab Lab. He is an expert problem solver and critical thinker. Jeff introduced us to his world of Fab Lab. Fab Lab actually is a network of fabrication labs across the world who hold conferences and offer easier/cheaper access to extremely expensive tools to the general public.
AutoDesk Fusion 360 Basics
Dan Banach from AutoDesk lead a workshop on Fusion 360. We learned the basics of 3D modeling as well as shortcut keys. Prior to our class meeting in the basement of the Psych building we were assigned the task of downloading Fusion 360 and following a tutorial of how to make a basic rectangular box. We used methods like sketching, extruding (both adding and subtracting material), and filleting.
Although I have taken a course on SolidWorks (another 3D modeling program) it was nice to have a basic tutorial to show how to use fusion 360. I downloaded Fusion 360 last year when I found out about the FREE program. I tried to teach myself, and when I first download the program it was little overwhelming. However, once I started watching specific tutorials for what I wanted to accomplish it started to become for familiar.
Dan Banach’s workshop was very helpful! I saw people who had never used Fusion or a 3D modeling program create in 3D space for the first time. The phone dock we created wasn’t the simplest design either. I learned short cuts I had not known before as well as the possibility of inserting a decal on a surface. I would love to take another AutoDesk workshop for Fusion, there are other “environments” I would love to learn about. Specifically I would love to learn how to use the sculpt tool.
Fab Lab Part 1
We were taught how to use Inkspace to design templates to laser cut surfaces, and the basics of lighting a small LED light bulb with a simple electrical circuit.
Using a multimeter we measured the voltage the battery carried as well as the strength of the resistors. Depending on what level of strength your resistor was the brightness of your LED light bulb changed. The higher the resistance the lower the light would be.
We ended our class session we split off into our project groups. In these groups, we had an extensive brainstorming activity. This was the biggest brainstorming session for our group since we have had a breakthrough in our direction after our successful and highly informative interview with Ryan.
In this brainstorm activity, we were told to think about solving the problem at hand wearing many different hats. During one round of brainstorming were told not to think about cost in another we were told to think about solving the problem for someone very young. It was interesting to look at the problem through so many different lenses.
Fab Lab Part II
We learned how to use the laser engraving and cutting software Inkscape, then we learned how to use the Fab Labs high tech sewing machines.
This was my first time using the program Inkscape, however, I am very familiar with changing regular files to vector files. I work for a screen printing company on campus where it is a similar process for preparing files for production. In order to get the best image resolution, all artwork files must be converted to vector format. Once a file is converted to vector format the design can be enlarged to any size and keep its resolution (it will never get pixelated). It is very similar for laser cutting, these lines must tell the machine exactly what to do, either raster or vector. Vector will cut straight through while raster will engrave .
The second portion of the class we were taught how to sew our watch bands! We started with a cloth where we were told to follow a zig-zag line to practice with the pedal and changing directions while sewing. I love to sew so it was awesome to have an opportunity to!
Fab Lab Part III
It was awesome to see out watches finally come together. In the last class we laser cut the watch parts as well as designed the watch face. During this class we learned how to code an Arduino Uno board to count the number of curls/twists through a tilt sensor. We were directed how to assemble the final parts as well as test out the software. This was my first time ever coding! I have had an amazing time at the Fab Lab learning all sorts of new skillsets. I will be coming back to use the resources and staff!
Take Aways:
This course opened up the world of digital making and the communities we have to support digital making on campus and surrounding campus.
Taking Dr. Mcdonaghs’s ARTD 420 course really encouraged me to take this course as my next step. Both Professor Vishal and Dr. Mcdonagh have taught me to conduct more empathic research within my designs which has been the first time I have practiced more emotional design within my department. Being able to partake in something like the Makerthon was something I would never think id be able to do and being able to work with my team members so successfully and win was one of the best feelings I’ve ever had in a course!
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