Digital Making -Spring 2022

In this course, I have found so many ways to step out of my comfort zone: As a student of information systems and computer science, I have always had a firm understanding of programming and databases work. Many of my courses have helped me think wider and deeper about the implementations of the various softwares (MySQL, MongoDB, Neo4J, etc.). However, the one thing I had never thought about, nor had more experience in was hardware. This semester, I really got a chance to dig deep, get uncomfortable, and learn about a whole new realm I never knew existed. This all helped me come out a much better student, professional, and person in general. At the beginning of the semester, we got to learn all about three-dimensional printing. I had no idea how much programming actually goes into the files, applications, and softwares, well before the prints are even made. 

Learning how to use Fusion360 and Cura was also very challenging for me: I had to quite literally learn how to think in three dimensions. Additionally, learning how to create offset planes, join the different pieces, and assemble things was very frustrating at times when it did not work. Fortunately, all of the prints I put on this semester were successful. Knowing that about one in every five prints ends up failing was something that was important for my group, because our cam for the servo motor was made from that plastic. The fragility of materials, the timing of the project, and the precise measurements needed were some things that I came to have an appreciation for. It is not good enough to simply be close: you must be exact. 

When learning how to use Arduinos and circuits, I was very frustrated in the early stages, as nothing worked the way we intended, and it was hard for our entire group to understand how embedded circuits worked, since all of us are business students. However, it would be an understatement to say that we felt overjoyed when the project actually started to come together and work.

This summer, I will be interning at AbbVie in North Chicago, as a project manager. Some of the most important aspects of piecing together any project are gathering requirements, creating deadlines, division of labor/tasks, allocating resources/funds, and continual improvement. After taking BADM 357, I can very confidently say that my skills in all of these areas have grown quite a bit. We had a tight schedule we had to adhere to, we had to produce an exact bill of materials, provide constant updates on our work progress, and iterate through the kinks and iron them out. This to me is the essence of technical project management. 

When we made our first iteration of the Scanitizer, it was very basic: we stuck a small cube of cardboard, that was supposed to house the hardware, to a bottle of hand sanitizer. This iteration was just to get our idea into a physical manifestation. Our following iteration was much closer to the final product: we used a much sturdier material in plywood, as our cardboard ones were a failure every time. This iteration had a place for the motor to fit in, a shelf for the hand sanitizer, and a place to house the Raspberry Pi. Finally, in our last iteration of the Scanitizer, we add personalization items such as the Illini logo on the top, and an embellishment of our logo with our name. Additionally, we add holes in the back of the box to allow for plugging/unplugging the card scanner and the power source to the Raspberry Pi. All in all, I really loved how the project ended up looking. 

The last thing I want to talk about is the expectations I had coming into the class, the frustrations I had, and the things I took away from a project as rare as this. To start, I expected the course to be completely different than it was. That is to say, I expected us to learn a new technology (3D printing, Arduino, soldering, etc.) and then have mini projects for each of them. I did not expect to go out into the world and solve a problem that students at the university are currently facing. Learning about human-centered design was a crucial part of this process as well. I did not realize how many appliances I use without thinking twice about how they function. Doing an exercise in sense and response, as well as thinking about how people might want to react to a device led us in the direction of the card scanner being the simplest and most intuitive answer. When we were learning how to use the Raspberry Pi, we all struggled. In the first few weeks of transitioning from the Arduino, our entire group was ready to quit. For a while, we thought about alternatives to our hand sanitizer pump as well, because we were unsure of the motor’s strength and ability to push the hand sanitizer. We leaned towards using a pump, but decided to stay the course and push ahead with the current track. This came with no shortage of tribulations: we had to print about four or five cams just to fit them on our motor. Our motor also broke the first time we tried using it, because we did not know how the GPIO looked for the project. When we finally got the correct input/output, our project speed increased rapidly. For the final touches, we tidied up the code, cleaned up the delay between the card swipe and the actual output of the hand sanitizer. When I look back on the tremendous strides I have made, the amount of knowledge I have absorbed, and the ability to overcome so many challenges and obstacles, I am proud of myself and the group I worked with. It helped open my eyes to the fact that I can do anything that I put my mind to, and I now have a great story to tell in the future. All in all, a great class!

– Jainil Modi, Spring 2022

BADM 357 Reflection

Before entering the class, I had no experience coding, DIY building, or designing. From the class description, I assumed we would mainly learn 3D printing and work on 3D printing projects. However, we learned so much more. Throughout BADM 357, I learned not just how to create 3D objects using Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software but how to use design thinking, the iterative process, and basic electrical wiring. 

We started the course by learning about 3D printing, the recent developments in 3D printing technologies, and how people can use 3D printing. These first few weeks were where I learned of the effect that 3D printing technology has had on the manufacturing industry and how it enables flexible production that allows individuals to begin the creation process promptly after having an idea. We also began to get hands-on experience with the CAD software Fusion, where we learned to build items digitally and prepare them for printing. We practiced designing objects such as bottles, blocks, and many other 3D shapes. This process taught me how important the design phase is and how many factors, such as thicknesses, overhangs, and size, must be considered before printing. We also started learning about Arduinos and basic code that would allow the device to receive and send signals using light sensors and LEDs. Knowing this got me more excited about the possibilities that Arduinos offer, and I started to look into how I could use them to make everyday life easier. My research led me to find unique projects that others around the world have built, such as a small heart rate tracker that is super easy to make and costs significantly less than commercial products. This part of the class was significant to me because it expanded my perspective on the use of small electronics, and I learned about how the seemingly infinite use cases for the Arduinos. I also gained valuable skills such as how to correctly wire these devices so that I would not short them and prevent a fire. 

In the middle of the course, we focused on design thinking, where I learned how to ask questions to gain more insight into problems. My group and I decided to look for gym-related issues because working out was something we enjoyed doing. We started by asking ourselves questions about potential ways to improve the school gym experience for our fellow students. This exercise led us to three primary questions: How might we make the gym cleaner? How might we optimize the gym space to make it feel less crowded? How might we get people to take the initiative to make the gym cleaner?. My group and I also brainstormed interview questions that might be important to ask gym-goers and used the information we gathered from the ARC interviewees to help us find which solution might be best. The important lesson I learned from this activity was how to narrow down the scope of a project and focus on a specific problem. 

In the last part of the course, we aimed to create a project based on our research and activities in the design thinking phase. The biggest issue we found through our interviews was that the gym was not clean, which allowed diseases to spread faster. There was also very little access to hygiene items, which resulted in our group deciding to make a hand sanitizer dispenser for the gym. We went through many iterations and prototyping, where I learned that creation is a lot more complicated and time-consuming than I had anticipated. My biggest takeaway from this phase of the course was that it is essential to allocate extra time in case of emergencies or mistakes, as there will always be issues that arise when you least expect them. For example, when we created our first 3D printed camshaft, we realized it was too small and could not push down on the hand sanitizer pump. This mistake cost us 40 minutes because we had to print another design. This experience changed how I look at planning. If we had planned more carefully or printed more designs simultaneously, we would have saved more time. In the future, I will make sure to avoid that mistake by planning better and utilizing more of the resources we have at hand. Another mistake I made during this project was assuming that pins were the same on each Raspberry Pi. When I plugged the motor pins into the Pi, it smoked and broke, causing the loss of a critical component of our project. In the future, I will make sure to double-check what I am plugging into where so that I can prevent another major accident. 

This class has made me more interested in car modifications since it also involves wiring and other small electronics. I have no experience in anything related to cars, but due to this new interest, I have now recently started looking into minor car modifications that require knowledge about wiring and share some similarities with what we worked on in class. To be more specific, I plan to learn the electronics behind my car’s infotainment to upgrade and modify it myself. 

Overall, throughout this course, I developed many skills such as human-focused design thinking, planning for mistakes, and creating a more structured brainstorming session, which are all useful skills that I can utilize in my future projects. The experience of going through designing, prototyping, and iterating allowed me to understand how complex it is to transform an idea into a physical product, even with new technologies such as 3D printing. The class has also shown me how important the testing process is when building a project. Testing can often reveal helpful information about how a product can be improved and is necessary to ensure that the end product meets quality standards and expectations. 

Ultimately, this class has given me many fundamental skills and has made me more excited to learn about electronic components. I am now a lot more appreciative of what engineers do. It has made me more confident in taking on learning challenges, and I plan to utilize these new skills and confidence in my future personal and professional projects. 

I decided to take this course because of the simple fact that it sounded interesting. 3D printing is a large and upcoming area with a lot of potential. As someone who enjoys building and trying out new things, I wanted to learn more. I did not know much about 3D printing at all prior to this course, but was really intrigued by what it had to offer. The course did seem a little daunting in the beginning as well as through reading the course description. Especially because I did not know of anyone who took the course prior, I felt like I was diving feet first into something new. Nonetheless, I was excited to see what new skills I could learn from this course since it was very practical and application based compared to every other course I had taken so far.

As for the course contents itself, it was extremely fast paced. Basically on the first day we started playing around Fusion 360. This was particularly difficult for me to get a hang of because 3-dimensional geography and calculus, spatial thinking, has always been more challenging for me. Understanding the planes, how they connect, and how something can be constructed on them took a while for me to get the hang of. We then went onto the micro-controllers and circuits which was also a huge learning curve for me. Coming from a very small high school, I had no prior knowledge to anything related to ECE. Therefore, it took a while to learn why certain wires were connected in such a way, and the importance and layout of each pin and breadboard.

I entered the class thinking it would be strongly centered on 3D printing and making, with small passion projects that particularly interested us. This was definitely not the case as we started the course with brainstorming and the ideation of a project without fully knowing that this would be something we would be working on for the rest of the semester. My team ended up picking a very technical project as a result. I personally found this to both be an asset and liability to the learnings I was hoping to gain. On one hand, I learned about code and circuits, even more so than my ECE 317 class, but missed out on developing more advanced skills in Fusion 360. There were a lot of frustrations throughout the class as prints did not develop properly, or wires came undone, but nevertheless, it was one of the most influential classes I have taken this semester. I learned basic skills in Fusion 360 which I think will be applicable in the long run. I also learned more about Arduino and breadboards, enough to understand and build my own circuit, which was an area I had very limited knowledge on before.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the guest speakers and tours we had within class. They opened a lot of creative doors for me, and showed me areas I may have never seen otherwise. I found the SCD Shop to be particularly interesting as they had a number of machines and equipment I had never seen before. It allowed me to see the endless possibility of creating, even just within a university. Previously, I figured only large companies or manufacturing facilities carried such equipment, but it opened my eyes to the work students are doing for classes.

I think the skills I developed in this class are those that will be very applicable to the types of jobs I want to do in the future. As someone interested in product development and design, I was able to get a better understanding of going through iterations and building out a tangible item. In a lot of other Information System classes, we are taught about what it means to go through an iterative process and how to think about UI/UX design to make something more human centric. We even work through projects on this. However, this was the first class where we put all of those skills to a real-life, tangible test. As a result, I gained a lot of patience and respect for product design and iteration. It allows me to look at objects in different ways and understand why certain elements are made and placed the way that they are. These learnings are incredibly important for me as I would like to build on these skills within my own professional career. I have always found product design interesting and this class has added new tools in my tool kit to doing just that.

This summer I will be working at Medline as a Product Management Intern. This was the type of role that I had been looking forward too since I started recruiting with companies – an application based, product design role within the healthcare industry. As excited as I am, I realized that a may not have the best expertise to apply to the job. However, after taking this course, I learned a lot of valuable insight that I can transfer over to my internship. I now know how to better prepare in the beginning of project planning to make sure things go smoothly later on. For instance, for an inexpensive material, it does not hurt to buy a back-up in case the first does not work. Secondly, I also learned to importance of allocating tasks and working through small iterations. Not every step has to be a great leap from the previous one, it just has to be a step in the right direction. Lastly, as mentioned earlier, it taught me about patience within the innovation and development industry. It is important to take things slow and understand everything, both holistically and granularly, to make sure the project is heading in the right direction. I am now better prepared to take on an even more challenging and technical project. What’s the next thing I hope to learn? The next biggest, most innovative, challenging technology for design, whenever and whatever it may be.

Written by: Amy Chen

In parallel with a rise in today’s technological advancements – often referred to as the third industrial revolution – 3D scanning, modeling, printing and prototyping is rapidly becoming prevalent across industries utilized in product development and design, as well as general manufacturing and production. Throughout this past semester, the Digital Making Seminar course (BADM 357) has been a monumental learning experience for me. Across the span of sixteen weeks, the course encompassed many topics, spaces, and skills that ultimately pushed me well out of my comfort zone. This Spring 2022 semester will end with a gained experience in and comprehension of several completely new skills in design modeling/printing tools and machines as well as multiple workshop and maker spaces available to students across campus.

As a business major studying Information Systems and with an interest in user design and user experience, BADM 357 piqued my interest greatly as an opportunity to  return and develop further my interest in more technical manners. I aim to pursue a career in the scope of UIUX and have taken several courses in the field that focused more on user design as a whole, the design process, and ideating prototypes. Each course prior to BADM 357 was limited in scope in that projects usually ended right before the physical prototype phase. Thus, when I was signing up for courses, the opportunity to learn about 3D modeling and printing in a beginner friendly, structured manner appealed to me greatly. It was especially encouraging to know that business students were encouraged to take the course, as I have always wanted to gain more technical skills but could not find comfortable, foundational ways to do so. I came into the class with the assumption that we would learn about basics on 3D scanning, modeling, and printing tools and technologies. I expected lots of playing around and open design as well as prototyping. I also assumed there would be several guest speakers based on the class description similar to past UX Design courses.

Once the semester started, we kicked off with an overview of 3D printing and learned the basics of Fusion360 and Cura. Starting with the basic nametag file, we gained a feel for just using and manipulating models in the Fusion360 program as well as how to move the model onto the printer using Cura and physically initiate a print. From there, we continued with creating models from scratch with the guide of tutorials like the lego brick and the whiskey bottle. This was very fun for me as I enjoyed being able to really understand what I was doing and being able to actually output physical objects within a couple weeks – especially starting with zero experience or background knowledge. We touched upon human centered design and the design process early on as well, going over key elements to the design process such as research, ideating, How Might We questions, user journeys, brainstorming, and so on. We also explored other maker spaces outside of the Maker Lab in the BIF like the Shop in the Siebel Center for Design and the FabLab. These were spaces I had heard about and seen before, but never knew were open to all students. I had never had the confidence to ever explore or learn about the spaces before this course. In the SCD, we had hands-on experience with the Arduino open hardware and micro-controllers that we conceptually were introduced to in the class prior to explore the concept of the internet of things. We worked on coding and wiring a functioning light sensitive photodiode, contained within a laser cut wooden box. Creating the box was also a first step toward using new machinery and maker tools like the laser cutter. This was a great introduction to Arduino as well as the tools available in the SCD workshop and opportunities available to us as students in general. Thanks to these tours and guided experiential learning sessions I will be utilizing these maker spaces and machines throughout the rest of my college career for future classes as well as personal passion projects. I am very keen on laser cutting custom charcuterie boards and 3D printing Spore figures in the FabLab.

Continuing into the semester’s projects, right before spring break we began to funnel these skills and ideas into product ideas. We reviewed the design process and ideated as a team, finalizing one idea to work with and making a preliminary design prototype. Coming back we began with a project proposal and subsequently continued work and iterative design on progressing toward a functioning product. My team – 3Gies – converged upon an idea to improve upon the dining hall cleaning process, ideating a squeegee wiper system that would wipe the table, pushing debris into an end table trashcan when a pushbutton is pressed. We went through several obstacles and interactive designs, often having to backtrack and restart to get over hitches in the design process. Having team work both on physical assembly and prototype design as well as the program coding and wiring was very strenuous and completely new for every member of the team. We had to work hard to plan out the schedule, allowing room for error and revision, as well as schedule time together as a team outside of class to complete this project. This is the first time I have completely gone through the entire design process as previously I would not go through the prototype, test, and iterate phases. Thanks to this experience, I am much more prepared to go into the real professional world and work in a design team – relying on teammates to complete key components of a project while responsible for another. 

Overall, within the span of ten weeks, I have gone from base zero knowledge and experience with electronics and computer software design to having a general, productive understanding and capabilities with the moving, microcontroller prototype to prove it. As I move into the future toward design and user experience from the business aspect, I will be able to better hone these skills and hopefully apply them professionally. I definitely will continue to play around with and learn design modeling – I hope to branch out beyond Fusion360 and Ultimaker printers into more advanced programs and machines. As a hobby artist, I love to draw and create on paper, and in addition to professional application, I want to continue to learn in order to eventually be able to create more complex models and designs. Lastly, in addition to 3D modeling and printing, we were exposed to other methods and machinery that can be used to prototype and create. Through the course I have gained a general exposure to all these options and through my team’s project I have gained a deeper experience with 3D printing. However, I have yet to truly explore woodworking, laser cutting, and other production tools. This is something that I plan to continue learning about and experimenting with. In conclusion, while there is plenty that I plan to continue to build upon after taking this course, from this moment on I am much more confident pursuing a career in user design. Post graduation, I can go into the design field with a foundational understanding of the technical design process as well as how to utilize basic design tools and production machines. Thus, I will be able to communicate, create, and collaborate much more effectively and be able to better contribute to whatever future teams I am a part of – as well as contribute to my personal and professional goals and passions.