Author: Nathan Gaertner

I am a Senior majoring in Finance with a minor in the Hoeft Technology & Management Program.
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E-Portfolio Reflection

Early Expectations

Coming into this class I really had no idea what to expect. I knew that the class involved 3D printing and design, but I wasn’t aware of how close we would be working with mentors to develop a real product that could be used in their everyday life. In this class, I was hoping to get more experience with 3D modeling and printing and learn more about the industry in general. I wanted to be familiar enough with the technology that I could use my knowledge after I graduated to understand how 3D printing will continue to disrupt the business world.

Overall, I would say that the class met most of my expectations and gave me great experiences that I wasn’t expecting to get going into the class. The nature of the class led us to focus much more on user-centered design and I gained very valuable experience on how to design for end-users during the product development process. I had some experienced with user-centered design in the past, (https://digitalmaking.web.illinois.edu/spring2019/week-2-recap-inspiration-ideation-and-implementation/) but this semester taught me so much more. From a personal standpoint, this course taught me how to collaborate with people with very different work styles and how to split up work to play to the strengths of everyone on the team. The whole semester was a team effort and I definitely could not have accomplished everything without the help of my amazing teammates, Ryan Kane and Jay Lee.

Resources and People

One of my biggest takeaways from the semester was just how awesome the University of Illinois network is. Vishal was able to do a great job bringing in speakers and resources for our class that helped make the experiential learning process easier. I want to thank Milestone Labs, John Hornick, Dan Banach, and Jeff Ginger for coming in and sharing their wisdom with our class. We were also able to seek advice on our project from two professors: Matthew Goodman (Material Science) and Deana McDonagh (Industrial Design). Both of these professors added helpful insight into the material make-up and aesthetic design of our prototype.

I am also thankful for Adam who introduced us to our mentors at DRES. Before this semester, I had no idea that DRES existed and it was so cool to see all the amazing services the facility provides and the awesome people who work and train there. Specifically, our mentor Jenna was incredible to work with and inspired us to keep on persisting through the design process.

In addition to these wonderful people, we were given access to a lot or resources at the college. I had very little interaction with the Fab Lab and the Makerlab before this semester, but I really enjoyed learning about and utilizing all of the resources they provide. As a Senior, I wish I had learned about these great facilities earlier so I could have used them more often throughout my college career.

https://digitalmaking.web.illinois.edu/spring2019/digging-deeper-into-our-ideas-week-3-reflection/
https://digitalmaking.web.illinois.edu/spring2019/democratization-of-innovation/
https://digitalmaking.web.illinois.edu/spring2019/preparing-for-the-make-a-thon-3/
https://digitalmaking.web.illinois.edu/spring2019/make-a-thon-preparation/

3D Printing Skills

One of my expectations coming into this course was that I would learn more about how to 3D print and model. Using Fusion 360, a 3D printing software, Dan Banach was able to teach us how to design our own custom phone holder. When I first saw the design we were going to create I was pretty overwhelmed, but by the end of the process, I realized how easy it was to design and model on Fusion 360. Learning how to 3D model was one of my favorite parts of the class and it was great to see my design come to life both on the screen and then on the 3D printer itself. 3D printing still fascinates me and I am hopeful that I will continue to have access to 3D printers where I can keep on designing and creating.

https://digitalmaking.web.illinois.edu/spring2019/moving-forward/
https://digitalmaking.web.illinois.edu/spring2019/week-6-learning-the-ropes/

Learning to Make

The most important thing I learned this semester was how to make. I know that this sounds pretty straightforward and a little bit vague, but for me “making” is all about being creative and unafraid to try new things. In business, there is a lot of structure and preparation and there is usually a “right way” and a “wrong way” to do things. However, when it comes to “making” there are so many different ways to achieve your end goal and there is no structure because you are creating something that hasn’t been created before. While at first I was intimidated by this process, by the end I found myself enjoying the ambiguity and creativity needed to succeed. My time at the Fab Lab and prototyping on our project showed me that there are so many ways to be creative and build new things. I hope that when I graduate I can take this new mindset with me and continue to make and create!

https://digitalmaking.web.illinois.edu/spring2019/creation-station-week-7/
https://digitalmaking.web.illinois.edu/spring2019/return-to-the-fab-lab-week-8/
https://digitalmaking.web.illinois.edu/spring2019/watches-and-storyboarding-week-9/
https://digitalmaking.web.illinois.edu/spring2019/make-a-thon-recap-and-next-steps/

Key Takeaways from the Digital Making Seminar

  1. The University of Illinois has amazing resources
  2. The University of Illinois has amazing people
  3. Design thinking is all about what the user needs
  4. Failure is part of the innovation process
  5. 3D printing is changing the world
  6. Making things is fun!
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Make-A-Thon Recap and Next Steps

This past weekend we had the Make-A-Thon which was the culminating event of our semester in the Digital Making Seminar. Our team had been working hard all semester to prepare for this event and it was exciting to see all our hard work pay off. We started the semester by meeting our mentors and identifying their needs. We then researched their needs more deeply and began to brainstorm potential solutions. After creating a couple of low fidelity prototypes and receiving feedback from our mentor Jenna and Milestone Labs, our team was ready to take on the Make-A-Thon and make our first high fidelity prototype. Unfortunately, I was out of town this week so I wasn’t able to participate directly in the event, but my team did some awesome work and kept me in the loop throughout the entire weekend!

Team Movi looking at the scan of Jenna’s prosthetic leg

Coming into the Make-A-Thon event our team worked hard to make sure we were fully prepared. Since our mentor, Jenna, was out of town that weekend, we met with her to take a 3D scan of her prosthetic leg. We then 3D printed the scan so that we could work with a life-size model to craft our prosthetic cover. The scan was so big that it took 12 hours to print and we had to print it in 3 separate parts for it to fit on the printer. We also brainstormed what materials we would need and researched their properties. We were able to submit all of the materials we intended to purchase for Vishal and he was able to get them all for us in time for the Make-A-Thon

Our team started our prosthetic cover by designing a pattern for the part of the cover that protects the shin. We wanted to create a design that would be aesthetically pleasing so that Jenna would actually want to wear it. We created the design on the software in the Fab Lab and then laser cut the design into a sheet of purple acrylic. Purple is Jenna’s favorite color! After we cut the design we need to fit the mold to cover Jenna’s leg. We used a heat gun and the acrylic heater to warm the acrylic so that we could mold it. We also cut the acrylic down the middle and added a hinge joint to it. We thought that this would make it easier for Jenna to take the prosthetic cover on and off.

Our next part of the process involved creating the padding to protect Jenna’s leg during impact. Movi was very lucky to have Yishou join our team for the Make-A-Thon. Yishou is a Ph.D. student in Engineering and has a lot of knowledge about the various tools in the Fab Lab. He was incredibly helpful for using tools and working on designing our prosthetic. For the inner padding, we used the nylon we had purchased to create a fabric sleeve to surround the padding. Sticking with our original theme, we sewed the fabric cover out of purple nylon. After we made the inner cover, we transitioned to the top cover. We used two small pieces of high-impact foam padding to protect Jenna’s knee in case she fell. Her knee has microprocessing capabilities so it is one of the most important and expensive parts of her leg.

Once we had completed each of the components, it was time to put our prototype together and admire our work. Overall, I thought our final product looked great! Luckily, the judges agreed and our team was awarded a prize for the best prototype for our Digital Making Seminar class. I am so proud of all the hard work that my team mates put in during the Make-A-Thon weekend! Our next step is to meet with Jenna and other potential users to test out the prosthetic leg and gather feedback for our next prototype!

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Preparing for the Make-a-thon

This week we spent most of the class period receiving feedback from Milestone Labs and identifying the materials we wanted to work with for the Make-a-thon. This class was a helpful time to talk with our team and all get on the same page as we prepare for next weekend.

Classroom Session

Our class started with a talk from Valerie who is plugged into the entrepreneurship scene on campus. She was kind enough to sponsor Milestone Labs’ visit to our Make-a-thon this upcoming weekend. She came in and talked to us about the entrepreneurship resources on campus and encouraged us to apply for the iVenture accelerator program with our prototyped products. I am a Senior so unfortunately I will not be staying on campus to see our product continue, but I hope that one of my classmates takes care of this awesome opportunity.

After Valerie’s presentation, each individual group met with Milestone Labs to get feedback on our progress. Milestone Labs liked our product idea but wanted us to begin prototyping and experimenting so we could enhance our product through trial and error. They also really liked our testing protocol and procedures but wanted us to add a couple more testers that we could have more well-rounded feedback.

We spent the remainder of class brainstorming materials to use for our products. My team came up with a list of materials that included tough nylon, silicone, and a bike helmet among other items. Vishal was great because he agreed to order all of our materials, which saved us from having to go shopping all around Champaign to get them.

Material Science Meeting

Later in the week, I had the chance to meet up with a Material Science professor named Dr. Goodman. Dr. Goodman taught my class last year and when I reached out to him he was happy to help out with our project. I introduced him to our product and asked him what materials he would recommend using. He had some great insight on the material properties needed for our prototype and in the end we ended up ordering some additional items. I am very thankful that Dr. Goodman was willing to spend some time helping out our team!

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Make-A-Thon Preparation

Getting Up To Speed

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.

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Watches and Storyboarding: Week 9

Finalizing the Watches

This week in class we went to the Fab Lab and finally finished the watches that we have been working on for the past three weeks. In our first class session, I learned how to build a circuit with an arduino. In my second class session, I designed the top of the watch face with Inkscape and learned how to sew the watch band. This week we put all of these skills together to make a finished product. We started the class by learning how to code on the arduinos. We learned how to flicker an LED light and how to use a tilt sensor to change the computer output depending on the orientation of the tilt sensor. Using the arduino, tilt sensors, zip ties, and 3D etched watch face we were able to assemble the watch with the help of the fab lab staff. One thing I found very interesting was that the creator of the watch in the Fab Lab changed a few components from the original to design for the design we created. This helped reinforce the notion of how important it is to iterate in multiple prototypes to get the best possible design with the easiest possible steps. The final product also showed me how easy it was to build a complex product using simple inputs.

  • Building the watch
  • The finished product

Storyboarding

The next part of the class we spend storyboarding the user experience for our product prototype. This portion of class had to be shortened slightly because we experienced a few difficulties putting together the watch in the time allotted. Our first panel of the user journey focused on the user itself. We spotlighted Jenna and the things about her that made her unique. The next step of our user experience was raising awareness. We thought that our product would primarily be advertised through word of mouth and through online advertisements and social media. The third step was the initial purchase of the product. We hypothesized that our product could be bought at a hospital through a doctor referral, online on our website, or at a specialty sports store such as a Sports Authority. Our next step was the first introduction of the user to how the use the product. This would most likely happen by a doctor at a hospital or a store aide at a sports store. The next step is the user’s first use of the product alone. This experience focused on the user’s first time putting on the product by themselves and any complications they might have. Our 6th panel was the transition to everyday use and it showed how a user would become comfortable with the product and the protection it offered. The final step in our user journey would be referring the product to a friend. We hope that the user would be satisfied with our product and would want to recommend it to others.

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Return to the Fab Lab: Week 8

Our time at the FabLab has been focused on making a cheap, interactive watch face that helps doctors measure whether outpatients have been completing their proper outpatient physical therapy sessions. Last week, I learned how to build the electronic circuit in the watch face. This week, it was our class section’s turn to learn how to laser print the watch face and sew the watch strap. After learning these tools, we met with Milestone Labs to receive feedback on our prototypes and then worked with Jenna to begin to design the second iteration of our prototypes.

Learning InkScape

Our first lesson was on the laser printing and etching software InkScape. We learned that InkScape has many different capabilities and we were able to play around with designing shapes and importing silhouettes from the internet. After we gained som familiarity with the tool, we were tasked with desiging an easy to use watch interface that would help user differentiate between the settings for both the “curl” and “twist” exercises. For my design, I decided to orient different arrows to show which way the watch face should be facing to correctly monitor each different exercize.

Sewing Refresher

The next portion of our class was focused on learning how to sew. When I was little my grandmother had taught me how to sew, but that was such a long time ago that I needed a refresher on how to work the machine. However, after a short tutorial, I was able to get up to speed and feel confident in my sewing abilities. One of my biggest takeaways was the improtance of backstitching. Backstitching is when you stitch backwards at the start of your stitch to reinforce the line so it doesn’t unravel overtime. At first, I made this mistake and needed to go back over my original stitch. Once we felt comfortable sewing we were given the assignment to make a watch strap. The watch strap had many steps, but are instructor Duncan did a great job leading our class through them and we all came out with acceptable watch straps by the end of class.

  • Initial Sewing Exercise
  • Fab Lab Sewing Machine

Milestone Midpoint

In our next portion of the class, my team met with representatives from Milestone Labs to discuss our progress so far. The designers at Milestone Labs were happy with our current progress but challenged us to get more user interviews from a wider variety of sources. They recommended interviewing veterans and elderly users and we have worked on contacting different users from these designations this week. They were also impressed with the prototypes we had made and gave a few suggestions, such as th BOA strap, on ways to improve our designs.

Testing and Iterating

Our next step was to meet with our mentor Jenna to test out the prototypes we had created on her prosthetic leg. After testing our prototypes, Jenna told us that while she liked the basic concept of our sleeve design, it would not work because the fabric might interfere with the walking mechanism at the back of her knee. This was an important discovery because it meant that we had to alter all of our prototypes to stay away from the back of the knee. To me, this was a big learning moment that reinforced the importance of prototype iterations and user-centered design. While our original prototype was good in theory it would have failed to meet Jenna’s specifications because we had overlooked an important aspect of its usability. After our talk with Jenna, our team brainstormed and came up with a new prototype idea that hooked on to the top of the knee and the back of her calf. We will work on prototyping this new design and get ready to show it to Jenna again this week!

  • Jenna tests our prototype
  • Sketch of the available surface to attach the cover
  • Fab Lab design that inspired our new prototype
  • An idea for our second round of prototyping
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Creation Station: Week 7

This week was jam-packed as our team visited the Fab Lab, brainstormed potential prototypes, 3D printed our fusion models, met with Jeannette Elliot, and created our first low-fidelity prototypes.

Introduction to the Fab Lab

Our class this week took place in the Fab Lab on campus. The Fab Lab is a maker space that houses designers, makers, and innovators from the campus and the local community. I was blown away by the amount of creativity on display at the Fab Lab. People had let their imagination run wild and were creating anything that came into their head. One of my favorite inventions, was a keyboard made out of wood and copper tape. I was struck by the simplicity and cost-efficiency of the product when compared to typical keyboards. In the Fab Lab, we were split into two groups to learn a little bit more about the various resources. My group worked with arduinos to create a circuit that could turn a lightbulb on and off based on its horizontal or vertical orientation.

  • Example of items lying around the Fab Lab
  • Exterior view of keyboard
  • Interior view of keyboard
  • Inside wall in the Fab Lab

Diverging on Ideas

During the second half of class we split up into our teams to brainstorm potential solutions for the needs we had identified. We were given 4 different prompts to challenge us to think creatively about the problem. At first, I was worried that our group would run out of ideas after the first prompt because I thought there were only a few ways to solve our problem. However, being forced to think about designing our problem for little kids and the elderly forced us to think outside the box and explore new possibilities.

Our design ideas from the brainstorming activity

If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again

After class, I went to the Makerlab to pick up the 3D print of the phone holder I had designed on Fusion 360 during the last class. However, when I got there I was dismayed to see there had been a failure and the top of my phone holder had failed to print. When I talked to the lab assistant about what happened they told me that sometimes prints fail and that I should just try again. Luckily, my phone holder and the box and lid I created were a success the second time through. This taught me a valuable lesson that while 3D printing is very cool it is still an emerging technology and it is not perfect all the time.

  • Failed phone holder print
  • Successful phone holder print
  • Box and lid print

Stakeholder Meeting

Later in the week, my team had a chance to meet with Jeannette Elliot. Jeannette is a physical therapist at DRES and a prosthetic leg user. Our interview with her was very informative and we learned about the struggles she has had in the past with prosthetic leg protective covers. The main takeaways from our conversation were the importance of maintaining flexibility with the cover, keeping the cost affordable, and offering customization options to appeal to the different aesthetic preferences of users. Our team is very thankful that Jeannette took the time to share her insights with us!

Design Time

The week ended with our team making our first low-fidelity prototypes. The 3 designs we chose to prototype were a knee pad attached by velcro, a flexible knee pad attached by a hook and ring strap, and a fabric sleeve with a knee pad encased inside. Our next steps will be to show these designs to Jenna and get her initial feedback.

  • Hook/Ring Strap Prototype
  • Fabric Sleeve Prototype
  • Velcro Knee Pad Prototype
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Week 6 – Learning the Ropes

Fusion 360 Introduction

This week was all about learning how to use the 3D modeling platform Fusion 360 from Autodesk. Our first task was to build the box from this video on our own before class. I had some experience with a 3D modeling software called Sketch Up from a previous class, but I still found my initial pass at building a model in Fusion 360 to be a bit harder than I thought. My biggest problem was not fully understanding the shortcut keys. I had trouble orienting the screen’s viewpoint how I wanted until I learned that holding shift allowed me to move the structure with my trackpad.

In class, we were lucky to have Dan Banach from Autodesk come in and take us through a Fusion 360 tutorial. We were designing a custom-made phone holder. This model was much more complex than the box we originally had to make, but Dan did a great job walking us through it step by step. He also showed us a bunch of really helpful quick key shortcuts that made the making process much more streamlined. Through creating the phone holder we learned how to build shapes, extrude surfaces, measure distances, and change colors and materials of surfaces. In the end, my finished model turned out much better than I thought it would at the start of class. After building the phone holder, we rendered it and exported a file that we could print in the Maker Lab. I went to the Maker Lab on friday to print the phone holder and I am excited to use it when I pick it up on Monday

A rendered version of my Fusion 360 phone holder.

Human Centered Design Activity

After learning how to use Fusion 360, we continued our Human Centered Design activity from last week. First, we reviewed all of the needs that we identified and the groupings we put them in. Our next step was to break down the groupings into “How Might We Statements”. The main focus of these statements was to organize our group’s thoughts and fully identify our direct need. We had some difficulty making our “How Might We Statements” because they could not be too general or specific. Our statements mainly centered around the protection of Jenna’s leg and also giving her more customization and mobility than her current prosthetic covering.

Looking Forward

Overall it was a very informative week and I am excited to start working in the Fab Lab next class!

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Week 5 Recap – Inspiration, Innovation, and Implementation

Week 5 was an information overload as we heard from 4 speakers about potential partnerships, campus resources, innovation in the 3D printing space, and the human-centered design process.

New Opportunities

Our first speaker was Sneha Subramanian from Illini Service Dogs. She gave a great presentation about the needs that her organization faces for cheap and innovative solutions to problems that their dogs face every day. A few ideas she mentioned were redesigning collars and leashes, easily attachable and detachable leashes to wheelchairs, and easier ways for dogs to open cabinet doors. While no group ended up taking Illini Service Dogs on as their mentor this semester, the presentation was still very informative and I hope that future classes choose to tackle these problems!

3D Printing Innovation

Our next speaker was John Hornick, author of 3D Printing Will Rock the World, and an acclaimed speaker on innovation in the 3D printing space. John’s presentation focused on the innovation, customization, and democratization of 3D printing and its impact on the world. He talked about how the democratization of 3D printing has been a catalyst for customization and innovation within the space. One notable example he gave was of a 5-year-old named Cameron Haight who was born without an arm. Cameron has customized his prosthetic with custom 3D printed attachments as a way of expressing himself. He has even 3D printed prosthetics for other kids like him. Here 3D printing has been used as a way for little kids to be proud of their prosthetics and what makes them unique. John also went on to talk more about the future of the industry. He mentioned how 3D printing in healthcare is moving towards substitutes which attempt to improve functionality, instead of replacements which simply mimic it. One interesting example he gave was of a molecular self-assembly project conducted by the University of London that is using 3D printing and human cells to create bio-mechanical structures. Overall, John’s talk was very informative and we were very lucky to him present to our class.

Exploring Resources

Jeff Ginger was our third speaker of the day and he told us about his job as director of the Fab Lab at the University of Illinois. The Fab Lab is a maker space on campus that houses many different tools that students and community member can use to build things. Our CU Fab Lab is part of a larger global network of Fab Labs that share best practices and aim to democratize making to everyone. The students in our class have varying experience levels with the Fab Lab so it was helpful to learn about the full range of services they offer. One thing that stuck out to me about Jeff’s talk was the concept of DIWO, or Do It With Others. This concept perfectly embodies our class and our approach to making. Through Yellowdig, blog posts, and class presentations we are encouraged to all work together to share ideas and best practices. This process helps keeps us accountable to the true needs of our mentors and ensures that we come up with the best possible solution. Before this class, I thought that design was a very individual process, but now I see that design takes a lot of people in order to succeed.

Human Centered Design Process

The final speaker of the day was our TA Mehmet Aydin. His presentation focused on the principles of Human Centered Design and how we can apply the process to our own projects. One of his main points was about the process of diverging and converging ideas in multiple iterations to get to the best possible outcome. The diverging process involves creating choices, while the subsequent converging process forces you to pick from that pool of choices. He also brought up a unique example of how simple solutions can be the most effective. Mehmet shared the story of how little kids were scared of using MRI machines and were having trouble laying still throughout the whole process. Instead of redesigning the whole MRI machine, doctors made the experience fun for kids by decorating the machine as a pirate ship or space ship and pretending that the kids had to stay still as part of a game. This made the experience fun for the kids and yielded more accurate scan results.

Mehmet’s presentation on Human Centered Design

Trying It Out

After Mehmet’s presentation, our class split up into our teams to try the Human Centered Design process for ourselves. We started by recounting the interviews our teams had conducted over the past few weeks and identifying the issues, motivators, and barriers surrounding our need and need groups. After using the “diverge” stage to come up with as many ideas as possible, our next task was to group our findings into segments. This part of the process helped us organize our thoughts and see broad trends across our needs. This exercise was a valuable learning process for all of the teams and it helped us identify main needs and areas where we still needed to conduct interviews to receive more information.

  • Team Evinco
  • Team 3D Bal
  • Team Solestice
  • Team Movi

Thank you to all of the presenters who took the time to share their experiences with our class!

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Democratization of Innovation

Expanding Innovation

This week we had four presentations that focused on how 3D printing is revolutionizing the world, information on the different maker resources around campus, and an in-depth guide into the Human-Centered Design process. Our first presenter was Sneha from Illini Service Dogs. Her presentation focused on opportunities for our class to help make tailored solutions to Illini service dogs. While our group is currently focused on making a protective cover for Jenna’s leg, if for some reason this plan falls through, Illini Service Dogs would be a great partner to pivot too.

  • John Hornick presents to the class
  • Sneha shares opportunities to work with Illini Service Dogs

Our next speaker was John Hornick, author of the book 3D Printing Will Rock the World, and a global speaker on 3D printing. John’s talk focused on how innovation, democratization, and customization of 3D printing is revolutionizing many different industries. A key pillar of his talk focused on the spread of 3D printing to the masses. He told a story about a 5-year-old named Cameron Haight who has 3D printed attachments for his prosthetic hand and also has 3D printed prosthetics for other kids suffering from similar conditions. With the spread of 3D printing to more people, it allows for people’s ideas to flourish and for innovation to occur. A perfect example of this is our class and the maker lab at the Gies College of Business. By giving students a space to explore 3D printing technologies and teaching them human-centered design methods, our class is fostering innovation.

Exploring Campus Resources

Our next speaker was Jeff Ginger, who runs the Fab Lab at the University of Illinois. I had been to the Fab Lab once before for a school project, but I had no idea how many resources the Fab Lab has to offer. Jeff talked a lot about how the Fab Lab and the Makerlab were working with other maker spaces on campus to try and open up resources to all students and not just those in certain programs or majors. I thought this was a very noble idea and tied in well to the democratization of resources and innovation that John talked about. I also had no idea how prevalent Fab Labs were worldwide. The UIUC Fab Lab is part of a network of hundreds of Fab Labs worldwide that work to share best practices and to give maker resources to as many people as others. I especially resonated with the Fab Lab motto “Don’t DIY, Do it with others” because I thought that it perfectly embodied the collaborative nature of making.

Trying It Out

We spent the rest of class working with our teams to better identify the need we were working to solve. We used information from our interviews to fully understand all facets of the need before we dove into the solution. Initially we wrote out everything we could think of on post it notes and put them on the wall. The next step was to group the thoughts so that we could identify the mian characteristics of the need. Our group’s categories were feelings, customization, function, and protection (shown below). I had done an exercise similar to this in a previous class and I found it a very good way to encourage collaboration and creativity when discussing a problem in groups.

This week we are continuing to finish up our need group interviews and I am looking forward to begin designing in Fusion 360 in class on Wednesday!