Interviews About Our Prototype

After making the final prototype we set out again to find out what the opinion amongst the students was about our light. Adjustments made to the bike included being lighter in weight, more energy effecient, and brighter. Amongst those asked, common responses were:

“I would buy this product...”

“...convenient and useful.”

“A better product than the original...”

By eliminating the problems with using the clamp and light output, the opinion of the light was changed.

Interviews About Our Poorly Designed Object

In order to get a general idea of what the public opinion on our poorly designed object was, we conducted interviews asking KU students what they thought our object was, what they thought about it, and how they would improve it. Common answers included:

“Its really bulky.”

“It isn’t bright.”


“I would make it more easily attachable to the bike...and lighter.”

From here, we were able to refine our ideas into where we wanted to spend most of our time and how we were going to address each problem.

Group Dynamic

As a whole, our group worked great together. Throughout the process of redesigning the bike light, we met multiple times outside of class in order to further the design of the product. As a summary of the dynamic behind appropriation of work, each individual project was generally undertaken by each member of the group. However, once it came time to execute our plans for each task, one specific group member would take it as their responsibility. For example, everyone in our group contributed to the design and prototyping of the product, but I was given the responsibility of constructing and painting it. Zach, Morgan, Liz, and I worked great together and I would work with them again on another project as well.

Storyboard Inspiration

After reading the chapter from “Understanding Comics” I felt inspired by the narrator to create a simplified version of myself in cartoon form, to be the narrator of my storyboard. The image on bottom is of my preliminary sketches of what I imagine myself to be like if I existed in a similar plane to the narrator from “Understanding Comics”.

Final Storyboard

The reason I chose this as my final storyboard was because I believe it had the most interesting presentation. Each window describes a stage in the process of redesigning the bike light.

Storyboards

Poster Preliminaries

Design Prototypes: Make It Better

      After deciding which were the best, we began to build prototypes. Images one and two are prototypes similar to a design I posted under "Make It Better: Design Sketches and Function". Only, in the design to the left, the facets of the bike light come to a point in the back. The anatomy of the crank light, which can also be found in "Make It Better: Design Sketches and Function", would be placed in the cavity of the model along with an LED light and a lens. Image 3 is of another prototype of the same design, this one also having a stronger depiction of the lens shape.

Make It Better: Design Sketches and Function

   Before beginning the process of making a prototype of our redesigned object, we needed to create sketches of the new designs. The image to the left contains drawings of both a preliminary design and the final design as well. One of the first designs that I had come up with utilized the technology behind a crank powered flashlight. In this design, a fixed position (charging unit) was set over the axis with cranks attached to the spokes. As the wheel spins, the cranks would begin to generate a charge and power the light.
    The image on the bottom is of the design which our group settled upon. This design takes advantage of the crank powered light as well, but in a slightly different way. Instead of having a fixed position and spoke attachments, a rod is placed through the axis of the wheel and connected to a belt. The other end of the belt is attached to a separate rod which is set into a rotating wheel. This secondary rod (and wheel) lay within the bike light and are a function of the power source. The secondary rod is also attached to another rod and wheel via another belt. A small brush touches the belt, collecting the static electricity, powering the light.
    So, as the wheel spins, the rod in the axis rotates, causing the belt and secondary rod to rotate as well. Once the secondary rod begins to rotate, the belt within the bike light begins to, as well. As this belt spins, the small brush absorbs the electricity and powers the light.

Make It Better: Mind Mapping

       At this stage of the process, my group began mapping our ideas with different techniques such as: mind mapping, concept maps, and word association exercises. The image to the left is a list of the many different issues we planned to resolve by redesigning the light. The second image shows one of the methods which we used to help create new ideas. This technique is known as a Mind Map, it helped to give physical structure to our ideas. With this mind map, we generated different ways to charge and mount the light. The final picture is small section of a much larger Idea Map. Here, we utilized Post-It notes in order to quickly write down our ideas for different techniques to generate the electricity needed to power the light. 

Final Object

   


  The object which my group chose to redesign is a basic, mounted bike light. A few of the issues with this object which we hope to eliminate by redesigning it are: poor light emission, weight, weak mounting mechanism, aesthetic design, and energy source.
   

Make It Better: Preliminary Objects

   
     At the beginning of this module, titled Make It Better, we were asked to find objects which we found poorly designed. The end game of this project is to build a replica/prototype of a redesigned object of each group's choice. Along with the physical model, we will produce a poster and PowerPoint Presentation covering the process of redesigning our object.
     A few of the objects which I chose were a water bottle, a lamp, a screwdriver, a water pipe, and a wall plug-in. In order to familiarize ourselves with our objects, we were then asked to sketch our objects from many different angles. As previously mentioned, each group then selected which item they will choose to redesign. In the case of my group, we chose to redesign a bike        light.