After having the chance to meet with my team and discuss who we wanted as our mentor, it was an easy decision. Arielle was someone who each of my teammates connected with throughout our visit to DRES. With her experience as an athlete and starting her own business with the creation of racing gloves through 3D printing, she makes a perfect mentor for this project. After speaking with her more we understood that there is opportunity to improve the racing chairs. Creating wheels that have different handrails with better grip would allow for the gloves Arielle makes to fit with the wheel creating a more efficient stroke. As you can see in the photo below, hand rails for racing chairs are made of rubber, becoming slick with any undesirable weather conditions, such as rain or snow. This could also improve racing in normal weather conditions as well just by increasing the ability to hook the glove onto the wheel.
The potential issue with this solution is the possibility of increasing friction. Adam, Arielle’s coach, mentioned adding a complex texture to the wheels may be a great solution, but it is important to be aware for friction to be created between the gloves and new wheels. In order to avoid creating a less efficient handrail, we will have to go through multiple rounds of testing. Luckily, there are great resources at DRES and we will have the opportunity to test out the facilities that the athletes use during their training sessions. With all of that in mind, I am excited to pursue this opportunity in hopes to find a solution that can aid Arielle’s current gloves to create a better experience for the racers. Unfortunately, we were not able to meet in person due to the weather, I look forward to working with my team, Adam and Arielle in the upcoming semester.
Additionally, Arielle mentioned creating an app that would take pictures and create measurements of the hands to help her current business. This may not result in an actual product, but if we may have the opportunity to walk through mockups for an app to streamline her business. This may not be our main focus throughout the semester, but their is potential for learning, improving, and creating new opportunities outside of the classroom
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Gies College of Business
I love this idea! I think Arielle is incredibly inspirational, and with her knowledge of designing a product I think she will be a phenomenal mentor keeping all of her experience in mind. I think something particularly cool about this project is the opportunity for analogous inspiration locations (http://www.designkit.org/methods/6). What other products use a texture to “catch” or align with another product? How does a bike chain re-“catch” when it slides off because it is too loose?
Good luck on your ideation phase!
@samantha- Great advice on analogous inspiration.