Product Design

Made during an engagement course at University of Michigan called Change By Design. The object of this assignment was to pair up with a random student in the class and get to know them for one week then design something thoughtful and personal for them based on what you learned. 

After spending the week getting to know my partner, I designed an interactive wall piece for him. I learned that his friends were very important to him, and he loves to learn from them as well as stay active to balance out the stressors of school. He also said he lived with multiple roommates but wanted something that could be in his living space but not be bulky or distracting. 

I came up with an idea to have a wall piece that was also a keep sake of fun notes, memories and activity ideas from his friends. That way they can contribute to the pile and if he needed a distraction from school he could pull out a tab and read it, he could then keep the tab or put it back in from the top. 

I designed the piece to also serve as a nice wall decor that represented my project partner. I laser cut corrugated cardboard to build the frame and used design details to reference his favorite place, his home town near joshua tree, as being all the way in Michigan often makes him homesick.

Below are products I have developed for my intro to product design course.

Intro to product design

During this course we learned the basic understanding of product design language and processes, ranging from theories of design to a multitude of prototyping skills from hand carving, wood working, mold and cast making as well as digital rendering on Rhinoceros and the processes of Digital Fabrication to both prototype and produce finished products. 

Potato Peeler

For our first project we were prompted to design a very common house hold product, the potato peeler, with the intension on applying cultural context and ergonomic design for our target market. We iterated across different prototyping processes starting a sketches, then wood carving, and mold making to produce multiple to alter and ended the project in its final form as 3D printed. 

river Floating cover

For this assignment we followed the state wide Water related design competition, M Design. We could choose from different subcategories of Water. I chose recreational, however included sustainable features. I decided to focus on a common past time for most Michiganders, floating down the river. It is a very popular activity in the summer that involves groups of people floating down the rivers in Michigan which often involves music, snacks and beer. A big issue with this family favorite activity is that there are pounds of trash left behind each summer. I designed the cover to fit the average rental tube to have two cooler pouches, one for fresh food and another for trash (or extra cooler space), a cup holder so you don't lose your can in the water, and a water proof pouch for electronics and speakers.

Below are projects from an intro to wood and metals mini course. The first project is an over the lap laptop table. The second project is a kaleidoscope.