Inspiration to Ideation
Inspiration continues and shifts toward the ideation phase this week. Starting with a pre-class research plan, we developed the opportunity statement into a complete research plan. We spent a lot of time thinking about the various contacts we could reach to learn more about how to turn our idea of opportunity into a real product. Much more details and research is needed around the areas we have almost no experience in – the life of wearing a prosthetic leg and practicing yoga. We must first confirm that what we learned from Jenna in our first group interview was something actionable. Therefore, we decided to contact Jenna this week, but we just got in contact with her yesterday and had not yet asked her the questions we have in plan. After learning from Jenna, we would like to learn the restrictions in yoga that may prevent our target users from achieving the goal of reaching balance in yoga. Last week, I found a link about the organization that teaches yoga to people with prosthetic legs. If we can get into contact with this organization, I think our learning about yoga and prosthetic legs can be much deeper.
Learning from Failures
This week in class, a guest speaker, Mike Hansen, from EarthSense came to give a presentation on the ideation and creation process of their products. During the presentation, I found a few things that are exceptionally inspiring. He talked about the numerous failures of design models that he had for the camera cap. In this sense, I found that it is extremely important to rapidly try out the ideas in prototypes and not afraid of failures because every failure brings a new lesson learned and allows us to improve the product design. I also found it useful to allow early stage user feedback to improve on the product.
First 3D Printed Product – Team Logo
This week in class, we were asked to come up with a team name and logo. As inspired by our team’s opportunity statement, we decided to have a team name that represents a 3D product created for balance, so we named ourselves as 3D Bal, which Bal stands for balance.
We used tinkercad.com for the 3D design of the model and added lots of supports before cleaning. Looking at the logo being printed, it feels like a baby is coming to life. Even though this is not the first time I 3D printed an object, the feeling of excitement was still there.
After printing, I cleaned out most of the supports, but there are a few supports in the alphabets “B” and “a” that I was unable to clean out due to their sizes are too small. I am excited about our actual product design.
I am a student who’s currently studying accountancy and management of information systems. I am graduating this year and entering the MAS program at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. I love programming and accountancy as much as I love taking photographs and learning how to play the Rubik’s cube. I love trying out new things and learning new skills. Learning how to make accessible designs utilizing digital making skills is one of the new skills I learned.
I really like how you are planning on conducting empathic modeling such as trying out a prosthetic leg and trying out yoga. However I feel like you can try out other methods such as analogous modeling. For an example, since you guys are working on creating a product that will support the prosthetic leg in yoga, I feel like rock climbing at the ARC will be a great way to experience balance. Like how yoga uses the user’s entire body to balance the user, rock climbing also uses the user’s entire body to climb up the rocks. I feel like this way you can find a new view on your project.