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!
First 3D print during Week 4 
Understanding our project vision in Week 5 
Learning more details of Fusion360 in Week 6 
Going to the FabLab with class for the first time in Week 7 
Creating low-fidelity prototypes in Week 8 
Finishing our arduinos and watches in Week 9 
Iterating designs in Weeks 10-12 
Iterating designs in Weeks 10-12 
Iterating designs in Weeks 10-12 
Creating a prototype during the Make-a-thon with a new approach 
Having Jenna test our final prototype!
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