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Coming into this course, I didn’t really know what to expect. I heard about it in Dr. McDonagh’s Disability + Relevant design course. Since I really enjoyed that class, I thought I might enjoy this one as well. I had heard about Arielle’s company Ingenium in that course, and was very impressed to hear that the product she sells was first created in Digital Making. That really sparked my interest in the class even further.

When the semester began, I expected the class to focus a lot on 3D printing. I was surprised to find out that it was going to be set up more like the kind of studio class I am familiar with. This got me excited because I was eager to experience a design course from a more outside realm. We spent a lot of time in class doing brainstorms, research, and iterations, much like my design courses. But what was new for me about this course was having an opportunity to work with business students. It was fun to teach them what I know about design and introduce them to the importance and relevance of design thinking.

After having the chance to visit DRES early in the semester really sparked my interest in working with the wheelchair track team. We also had the chance to meet the mentors and meet Arielle. It was cool to hear her talk about her story and have the chance to see someone, and not necessarily even a designer, create a product and then profit from its creation is just so exciting for me to see. She really found an area that needed improvement, no matter the scale, and took off with it. This really got me as well as my team excited about working with her.

After deciding we wanted to work with Arielle, we got the chance to meet up with her and discuss the opportunities further. She told us about the struggles the team faces with their hand rings. She told us how during poor weather conditions, racing becomes even more difficult as you no longer have a good grip on the hand rings of the chair. We were lucky to be invited to visit the team practice and get a chance to have a closer look at the chairs, the hand rings, the gloves, and the process that goes into preparing your chair for a race. Wrapping the hand ring is such a difficult and time consuming task, we knew it would be so great to find a way to streamline that process into something more efficient and easier to do.

During the following weeks, we begun to really think about how we might find a good solution for our opportunity. We begun to discuss what materials we might want to test with our prototype. We decided to test how adding snaps to the existing hand ring, as well as to our materials will hold up. We also wanted to test various materials around the ring to hopefully find one that creates the best friction.

For the Makeathon, we purchased a variety of materials including a bath mat and a yoga mat. During the Makeathon, we quickly realized that our materials were very soft and didn’t withstand even minimal testing with the glove. We found that our most promising solution was to pursue to Plasti Dip. We discovered that there was a spray version available, which seemed to be a good and easy option. After the Makeathon, we purchased a can of the spray Plasti Dip to create another prototype. We used the spray booth in Art + Design to coat the hand rings and the gloves. The spray was so easy to use. We did the recommended three coats, waiting 30 minutes between each and four hours for it to dry. After it had dried, it had created a nice even coat that was slightly sticky to the touch.

We met with Joey Gibbs from the racing team to test the prototype. Once we arrived at the DRES morning practice, Joey was able to remove one of the hand rings from his chair and attach our prototype to it. The glove we had sprayed was not Joey’s size, so he wants able to test the glove with the ring. However, we did see Jenna, another racer and mentor from our class, and she was able to test the glove for us. After going about 40 feet, the Plasti Dip on the glove started peeling away immediately. We quickly realized this was not a solution.

Once Joey was ready to start practicing using our prototype, he quickly realized that the Plasti Dip created the perfect amount of friction between his glove and the ring. It was sticky enough to create a good grip, but not too sticky that it slowed down his stroke. After about five minutes of Joey practicing at a regular speed, we could see that the rubber spray coating was starting to peel away. Even though it was peeling away, it didn’t affect Joey’s speed or efficiency. After about 15 minutes, the rubber on the ring was almost worn away. We noticed that one section of the ring, however, was withstanding Joey’s strokes. Once we took a closer look at the ring, we realized the part that was no peeling was the part that we had coated with Plasti Dip at the Makeathon. This lead us to believe that our potential solution might be stronger if both types of Plasti Dip are used or if more coats are applied. In the end, Joey had found that his overall speed was actually 1 mph faster with our prototype than normal. This was an exciting finding! We think that if the team pursues trying this material in various ways, they might find a solution that is easier and more effective.

This class was a great learning experience. Though it was different than what I had expected in terms of what we actually did during the class, I still enjoyed it. The best part for me was having the chance to work with business students and learn more about their point of view when it comes to problem solving and design. I learned that I have better problem solving skills than I thought, which was an exciting self discovery.

https://digitalmaking.web.illinois.edu/spring2019/team-four-project-reflection/?preview_id=2389&preview_nonce=ce857f17ee&preview=true

Course Expectations

My journey in this course all started when I was looking for additional interesting courses to take before the course registration day. After I selected all the courses that allow me to fulfill my graduation requirement, I noticed that I still have the credit hours available to select two courses of my own interest, so I started looking for additional interesting courses on the course explorer. When the course name “Digital Making Seminar” came in front of my eye, I was so amazed that the business school would offer such a course that is related heavily with 3D printing and other types of digital making as well as product design, so I applied. Before the start of the course, I expected the course to have more focus on technical skills, including 3D printing, 3D modeling, 3D scanning, and other digital making skills. But when I entered the course, I noticed that this year we have a focus on the accessible design. This was definitely something that I did not expect, but this did not mean that I didn’t like this course.

Course Experience

During the course, I learned a lot of technical skills that I previously expected, but these skills are not all touched on a deeper level than I expected. This makes me think that my initial expectations of this course was not fully met. However, I learned more things that I did not expect previously, which filled the gap of the unmet expectations. This semester, the course focused primarily on human-centered design with a focus on accessibility design. I think, the primary goal of this course was very inspiring and the overall experience was great without focusing on what my expectations were prior to the course.

In week 2, we visited the Disability Resources & Educational Services facility. This was the first time we met the mentors, people who used their stories to give us inspirations on accessibility product designs. In this experience, I learned how to interview others, learn from their stories while keeping empathy in mind. From these stories and experiences that the mentors told us, I learned to seize the opportunities within these stories and experiences. I also found it very important to understand that people with disabilities are nothing different from people without disabilities. When we are designing items that could improve the user experience that people with disabilities have, we could also apply the same or similar ideas to improve the user experience of people without disabilities. It is more important to capture the opportunities. From this experience, I also learned that I was capturing the opportunities slower than others, perhaps, this was why I was not a designer in the first place. But I learned that even if this was true, I could still come up with design ideas that could improve user experience.

In week 3, we met the Milestone Labs online due to the extreme weather in Champaign on the day of the class. We learned about how the experts from Milestone Labs approach to design problems, discovery opportunities and brainstorm solutions for an opportunity. This was also the first time I realized that people, including me, are so creative in finding simple solutions to overcome small challenges that exist in our everyday lives. However, we usually did not realize that we are solving the small challenges within our daily lives with such simple solutions. I was shocked that I have been so creative in solving the daily challenges that came up as well. I think a big takeaway from this was that we should not overcomplicate problems when there could be a simple solution, and we should not ignore our creativity. From this experience, I became more confident in myself on my ability to solve problems to improve our user experience.

In week 4, we learned about that failure was nothing to afraid of from the presentation conducted by Mike from EarthSense. Instead, we need to learn from failures and fail early to improve our design from the things we learned from our failures. This was very helpful in our later product design stages. In addition to this, we also how to 3D model on tinkercad. We designed our team logo, turned it into a design model on tinkercad, and 3D printed the model. This was our first of a few experiences of 3D modeling and printing in this course.

In week 5, we learned about the needs of another potential mentor group, Illini Service Dogs. We also learned about the development of 3D printing and its applications in the health industry. We were amazed and inspired by how 3D printing made many unsolved challenges in the health industry possible to solve and how people were inspired by 3D printing to improve the experience in the health industry. We also learned about the fab lab and the tools that are available in the fab lab. I think this week gave me an introduction to the resources available on campus that I did not previously know about. I think this was one of the most useful takeaway coming out from this course – I learned that I could utilize the resources available on campus to do things that fit my interests.

In week 6, we finally had an advanced learning on 3D modeling using FUSION 360, which was another few experiences in class that we actually learned the technical skills.

In week 7-9, we learned the tools available in the fab lab and took our brainstorming of design and prototyping forward. In the fab lab, we learned how to design for laser cutting on Inkscape, how to play with the electronics on the breadboard, and how to input codes on Arduino to make this microcomputer to perform the tasks that we wanted it to perform. Besides the skills that we learned in the fab lab, we also brainstormed ideas about the design of our prototype, made our first low-fidelity prototype, collected user feedback, learned from experts’ recommendations and interviews, adjusted the design of our prototype, and designed our storyboard, which served as a plan of how our users would use the product and how we would market our prototype. We also conducted market research on similar products and how our product would be different and unique so that it could capture the opportunities that exist in the market.

In week 10-11, we spent time in preparing for the Make-a-thon. We met new mentors, spent our time listening to their stories and needs. To be honest, I thought that the time we spent in week 10 was actually a waste of time since the major focus was to introduce mentors to students from another course who are also participating in the Make-a-thon. Although the new mentors had great stories that we could learn new opportunities from the new mentors, we were not able to change our approach since our design focus was on improving Jenna and other amputees’ yoga experience, and she actually hoped to get a functional product out from us to improve her experience in yoga. In week 11, we spent time in meeting with the experts from Milestone Labs, learned about the limitations that our team has and how to improve our design for the product. In this week’s experience, I actually learned about the limitations that I had. I am not a design student, and I was lack of the art skills that I could not make sketches and express my ideas clearly enough, even though I had a picture in mind of what the design would look like. Therefore, we consulted with FUSION 360 experts in making sketches of our prototype and making the 3D model of our prototype.

During this period of time, I also completed my once per semester project on 3D printing’s impact on the food industry. This was something that I was particularly interested in. This was also something that allowed me to learn a lot about the 3D printing technology and the benefits and disadvantages it could bring to our daily lives.

In week 12, prior to the Make-a-thon, we finalized our first 3D model of our prototype and 3D printed a scale version of our prototype. We met our new member who would join us during the Make-a-thon.

In the weekends of week 12, the Make-a-thon started. The Make-a-thon experienced was not bad, but it was not the best too. Entering the Make-a-thon without my two teammates but with a new teammate was a challenge. Not to say that we were not in the same page about our product design due to the fact that our new teammate did not have enough knowledge about our design, we encountered many problems of our original design that we would need to deal with. Both of us did not have enough knowledge of FUSION 360, and we also did not have our mentor. We faced a lot of challenges that would cause us in our progress that we would not able to move forward. Although this experience sounds negative til this point, the experience was actually very positive. I learned to deal with my teammate when we had different ideas. We learned how to compromise, but we also learned to move on first when we got stuck into one challenge that would waste our limited time. We learned how to consult with experts and utilize the experts who are available to us during the Make-a-thon. I would always remember how proud I was when three experts and my teammate were debating over the physics of our design and the problems that we might encounter with the 3D model of our second design. Although debates might not seem positive, this was a sign of failing early so that we were about to fix the failures to improve our design. I would rather experience this in the early stages so that we did not make the failing products due to our lack of knowledge in physics and material science. This was an important lesson that I learned from the Make-a-thon: fail early and make improvements to the design utilizing the feedback and actively consult with the experts so that our design would not be failing due to our lack of knowledge.

The challenge came up also due to the fact that we did not have our mentor, Jenna, during the Make-a-thon to test out our product. This made us went for another approach during the Make-a-thon, which to design a product that could be used not just for prosthetic users so that we could actually test out the functionality without Jenna. After the Make-a-thon, we tested the product with Jenna. The test showed success in concept, but a failure in the actual functionality due to the fact that Jenna’s prosthetic leg was different from the actual human leg, which has muscles that could provide us additional support. The prototype we made during the Make-a-thon could improve the lateral balance but only limited to the portion below her ankle. This made us went back to the original design of a prosthetic replacement for yoga.

In the end, we finally came up with a functional prototype after multiple prototype testing with Jenna followed by multiple iterations to the design. I would say that this course helped me grow in problem-solving skills. I also went through a full stage of human-centered design and product development. With a functional prototype coming out of the course, I am very proud of the work we have done during the short semester in the course. If I could choose the course again, I would definitely do so even if it did not fully meet my original expectations.

As the semester comes to the close this is a summary of what I’ve gained and learned from the Digital Making Class. For me, it was a different experience taking a class that is project based. However, it was nice to have a change of environment and pace for a change. In the next couple of paragraphs, I will highlight what I expected from the class and what I actually got out of it.

I was introduced to this class through an instructor. In high school, I volunteered at the Museum of Science and Industry in their Fabrication Laboratory. I love to learn through experimenting, so I thought the class was a great opportunity to get back into fabrication. I did not know anyone who took the class at the time, so I skimmed through a couple of the blog posts and saw interesting topics such as Arduino learning and 3d printing. Therefore, going into the course I expected it to be a hands-on, interactive space to explore various topic connected with fabrication. Looking back some of my expectations were met but not necessarily all. Most of the class time was spent learning about other people’s stories and completing brainstorming exercises. However, I came to realize that it was good that we were doing a lot of reflection. I remember a quote from the beginning of the semester that stressed the importance of analyzing the problem instead of being quick to come up with a solution. Although the class was not quite as I expected, I still felt challenged by the prompt which was to design assistive tech.

What I learned:

Technical Skills:

Throughout the semester we completed a couple of hands-on workshops in the Fab Lab. One of those workshops involved building a watch for physical therapy patients from scratch. As a result of this workshop, we learned how to use and code an Arduino, sew, laser cut, and use a software program called Inkscape. This workshop took us about three class days to complete. Before coming to college, I learned how to use a laser cutter and Inkscape. I’ve also worked with a Raspberry Pi before which is similar to an Arduino and had previous experience with sewing. The individual workshops were helpful I talked about all of them in some of my blog posts here.

Earlier in the semester we also had another technical workshop hosted by Autodesk. A representative from Autodesk taught us the basics of Fusion 360. In the workshop we designed a phone case stand, I talked about the experience in this blog post here. To my surprise Fusion 360 is fairly easy to use. Although for my team’s project we did not utilize fusion, I still found the tutorial to be beneficial.

In general, the technical workshops were my favorite part of the course. I am a hands-on learner, so it was exciting to actually fabricate. However, I wished the course was comprised of a variety of workshops that happened more than a couple of class days.

Creative Skills:

The course also encouraged the building of what I like to call creative skills. This happened when we spent class time in our groups brainstorming. Since we had a fixed prompt it was essential that we all collaborated. Being in a team with business and design students made that collaboration easier. Throughout the semester we had brainstorming exercises such as writing important ideas on post-its and designing prototypes. The most memorable was coming up with designs. Knowing what we wanted to create we essentially had to figure out what design would accomplish our goal. We came up with nearly impossible designs and designs that we could implement in a couple of hours. I talk more about this exercise and others in these blog posts here. The area in which creative skills were essential was the interview we had to conduct with our mentor. Going into the interview we did not exactly know what it was that we wanted to create. The interview questions that we asked had to be constructed with a lot of curiosity and creativity. With simple questions such as, “what is your dream car” we were able to gain a more personal perspective of our mentor Ryan. These creative skills that we gained were not only very helpful but also applicable to everyday life.

In conclusion, this course was not exactly what I expected it to be. However, I am glad that I went outside of my comfort zone to learn in a different way.

Course Experience

Overall, I did not know what to expect from this course. Speaking to students who had taken it before, it did not have the same accessibility design focus as it did this semester. I was excited to learn how to design and 3D print, and I didn’t know what else the semester would bring! While I thought some of the coursework and assignments distracted from our main opportunity and goal to create a product that Jenna could use during yoga to increase balance, overall I learned a lot. I was very happy at the end when presented Jenna with a prototype that she was genuinely very excited about. I hope if nothing else that Jenna uses our prototype when she does yoga to get better at her practice!

What I Learned

This course brought a lot of different topics together and I learned a lot of both technical and soft skills throughout the weeks.

In Week 2, I was introduced to the mentors for the first time. I learned how to interview, how to prompt others to tell their stories, and how to listen to hear the opportunities in various situations. We also discussed designing with empathy in mind, which comes very naturally when you are able to listen closely and truly hear the opportunities!

In Week 3, things were a bit unorthodox when Champaign was hit with incredibly low temperatures. However, we were still able to hear from Milestone Studio Labs about how they approach designing. I think one big takeaway from this presentation was that sometimes the simplest designs still make a huge impact. This definitely came into play during our design process, as we started overcomplicating rather than creating a helpful solution.

In Week 4, we learned the basics of Fusion 360 design and how to print on the 3D printers. This was the first time I had ever printed anything and it was a very cool technical skill to learn. I think additive creation methods are really awesome to bring your ideas to life quickly. Later in Week 6 we had a more advanced presentation on Fusion 360 from an AutoDesk representative. This was great as we thought 3D printing would be best to allow others outside this class to recreate our design for themselves.

Backtracking a little, in Week 5 we honed our project focus and chose the opportunity wanted to address. Using the sticky note activity we were able to lay out exactly why this opportunity to help with yoga spoke to us and how we could help. When we met with her to discuss working on this opportunity, she was really excited about our choice which confirmed our direction.

Weeks 7, 8, and 9 were spent in the FabLab learning about the tools available to us while creating a motion-sensing watch. This was a great experience because we were able to make a fun product while learning a variety of different tools. We learned how to use the lasers to raster and vector our watch faces. We learned how to use basic programming to program an arduino with tilt sensors. Lastly, we learned how to sew and how all of these different techniques can be used to create a plethora of different products and prototypes.

During these 3 weeks, we also continued work on our opportunity with Jenna. We were able to interview a yoga instructor and the founder of Yoga for Amputees, attend a yoga class, and create low-fidelity prototypes to have critiqued by Milestone Labs.

Weeks 10 and 11 were spend preparing for the Make-a-thon. We met the other two classes who would be participating in the Make-a-thon with us alongside their faculty sponsors. We also continued sketching and ideating using feedback from Jenna along the way to make sure we were creating an effective design. We received help from Fusion experts in starting our 3D CAD file. I learned how to design files so that dimensions can be editable later which was very helpful for our final Instructable.

Finally, the Make-a-thon took place. Unfortunately I was not able to participate but I definitely learned through the experience of my teammates and our preparation. During a Make-a-thon, time is essential. Since 3D printing takes so long, the team used a different approach that would be applicable to more users. Although our final design did not use this approach, it was good to explore multiple avenues and they came out with an awesome prototype shown in Week 13.

Lastly, we created our final prototype! I could not be more proud of everything I learned in Fusion360 that helped me create this design and have the know-how to explain it to others as well. Jenna was really happy with our final prototype and I hope she is able to take it to a yoga class soon to really put it to the test!

Early Expectations

I remember when I first saw the introduction e-mail on this course, I was very intrigued as it was very different from the typical accounting classes I would take. Most of the classes I took do not require me to use my creativity so I thought that this class would be a great opportunity to test it as well as learning about design thinking and other additional skills. So, I went into class looking to be inspired to create and learning to use software to design products to be 3D printed.

Now, after completing the course. I can say that most of my expectations are met. The instructor, Vishal Sachdev, along with the TAs, Charlotte and Mehmet, provided me with an unforgettable learning experience. I am glad that they designed the class to be user-centric so that we are actually designing for someone rather than having us graded base on pre-determined assignments. From the course, I learned how to use tools and resources that I had no previous knowledge of. I also learned to work with people with different skillsets to create a product through design thinking process.

Resources and People

One of my favorited aspect of the course is the people. I not only enjoyed working with my fellow teammates, Samantha McClary and Yingyi Wu, but also the mentors, instructors, and TAs in the course. It was great to be able to create a network among us that goes beyond the scope of the University as we were able to invite many outside speakers and experts to the course. Through my experience working with them, I was able to learn new skills and gain experiences. For example, I had never been to the dress facility prior to taking this course. The course allowed me to not only to visit the facility but work with the individuals there. I have also never been to the FabLab and it was great opportunity to be introduced to the facility as well as the resources. Everyone in the course had a unique set of skills and working style and by having the opportunity to work with them was a pleasure and a great learning experience.

3D Printing Skills

To be able to learn and use 3D printing technology was the primary reason that I chose to sign up for this course. Now, after completing the class, I have to say that I was definitely not disappointed as I was not only able to get my hands-on 3D printers but actually learn how to model 3D prints with software such as Fusion360. It was an awesome to be able to see your ideas get printed as turn into physical products.

Learning to Make

I think for me this was probably the most challenging aspects of the course as I was never asked to “make” something in my previous classes in college. However, I did enjoy the process as it did challenge me to step out of my comfort zone and to develop new skills. I enjoyed how this class encouraged and allowed us to “fail” as it allowed us to refine our ideas/solution and continued to improve our skills. There was no one correct answer as we had to come up with our own solutions and that could even fail at times. It was definitely the most fun but challenging part of the course and I really value the experience of it. I believe that I will be able to use this skill in my professional career in the future as there will be situations were there are no definite solutions and I will have to “make” one.

Key Takeaways from the Digital Making Seminar

After one full semester in BADM 357, I have more takeaways then I previously expected. It is one of the most memorable courses in my academic career and not only we did not have the usual examination to grade our learning process, but we were also provided food regularly as we deplete our energy and brain power for design thinking. My first takeaway is that we should not be afraid of failing as each fail brings up closer to success and give us an edge over everyone else. Secondly, I learned that people are the most valuable resource as each person has their own strength and weaknesses and together, we can accomplish objectives that are impossible to an individual. Lastly, I learned that it is important to keep up technology as it is an essential tool in the business world today.