Category Archives: Technology

Gadget prototyping tools

Posted on by
Reply

Prototyping is an important part of the product design process, it is used by designers to test and get feedback about the use and response regarding a new product or concept. Here I present a few tools used to prototype electronics and gadgets.

Arduino

Arduino is based on open-source hardware and software, it’s easy to use and cheaper than other non-open-source platforms. The Arduino programming language is based on Wiring, a programming environment started at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea in Italy and farther developed at the Universidad de Los Andes in Colombia.

You can basically prototype everything with Arduino.

Arduino LCD Prototype

An Arduino prototype using LCD display to blink a message. Picture by mbiddulph

Open Softwear Book Cover

The Open Softwear book is the result of a research combining Arduino and the fashion industry. As the authors say, this book could be useful for students and professionals trying to enter the field of physical computing from the softwear perspective. The book is available for free here: http://softwear.cc/

Bug Labs

Bug Labs is another open-source system like Arduino but composed by several modules that don’t need to be soldered. With them, it is easy to create mashups to prototype future electronic device designs. There is a LCD module, another one for audio, another one for motion sensing and more.

Bug Labs Prototyping Modules

Picture from Bug Labs

Shapeways

If you don’t have access to any 3D printing facility you might want to give Shapeways a try, a 3D printing service that delivers in a few days the 3D parts you upload. The website has its own community, thing that it could be helpful in some cases, for example if you are looking for other designers’ opinion. It also has a 3D parts database that you could use for your prototypes.

USB 3D

A user uploaded a 3D model of a USB memory stick to get it printed a few days later. Pictures from user psau3 at Shapeways

USB Prototype

Check-list for finding the right rapid prototyping technology

Posted on by
Reply

We can shortly define layer manufacturing (or more commonly known rapid prototyping) as a group of technologies which are able to:

  • build a part directly from 3D data
  • within hours
  • without using a mould or a specific tool

Due to their high costs, these technologies are rather used for prototypes, though they are slowly entering the low volume production parts market.

Whereas 10 years ago this technologies were still in an early development stage, nowadays we have a wide range of established machines in the market. Each system has its own characteristics and the available materials go from plastic and  resins to even metal.

The question for most of us designers is: how should I have my model built to have a good result? which of these technologies meets my requirements?

 

picture from rootoftwo

In the web we can find plenty of comparison charts and information sheets, but the ones I found are mostly focused on technical aspects and not in the result that comes out of the machine.

Here is my attempt to synthesise the basic factors in a check-list:

Material: The available colours and textures for plastics and resins are limited, and technology dependent, so this is one of the issues you should first look into if optics is your priority. To build your model in metal will cost in layer manufacturing in average 10 times more as other materials. I would recommend for medium – big sized metal parts to use CNC milling.

Size: this is a decisive point; layer manufacturing processes are additive, and this means the bigger your part the more expensive it is, and in a rather exponential factor. Each machine has also its maximum buildable volume, so if your model were bigger you’d have to build it in several parts, adding a good bit of work to the model.

 

picture from Wizard23

Part stability: if you need a functional model, you should go for a material with good mechanical properties. all materials look similar but you bet their properties are very different from one another.

Part geometry, detail resolution and accuracy: layer manufacturing processes work till some extent like printers; when they have a rough definition it is not possible to draw fine details in the model. You can also have a machine that can draw very fine details but that is not accurate and has a big tolerance. You should check the minimal feature size a machine can build and how accurate it can be. These factors are important if your model is part of an assembly and needs to fit into other parts.

 

picture from superrune

Surface finish: each machine and material provide their own surface. In all layer manufactured parts you will be able to recognise the layer structure, either like steps or as a non uniform roughness. If this is an issue for you it is always possible to apply a finishing to the part but this could turn into the most expensive and time consuming factor of all, so look carefully into the finishing before building your model.

You have to put  all these issues on a balance, set your priorities and have a look at as many parts as you can, to get a feeling how yours is going to look like.

 

E-paper Concept, More than a Device

Posted on by
Reply

In the last years there have been a lot of buzz around the electronic paper technology (or epaper, for short), specially after the introduction of the Amazon Kindle. At Design vs Art our motivation for our last project was the fact that, aside from ebook readers, not many devices have been presented using the epaper technology.

In order to discover opportunities we went through a whole design process: defining the problem to solve or motivation, looking for a strategy, ideation, prototyping and explaining the idea.

 

Designing with Post-it

Designing with Post-it is always fun

 

For us one of the most important features about the epaper technology is the possibility of creating a whole system around the device. Data on the display could come from different sources and the epaper device could communicate to a variety of other devices and to gather information from its environment creating a whole information ecosystem.

 

Epaper billboard with Paperspot logo

Electronic paper billboards are one of the faces of our last project, Paperspots. See our project page on Designvsart.com

 

Once we decided to develop an advertising system, it was clear for us that we would need more than a device if we wanted a good user experience; so we designed epaper billboards and a whole information system including the necessary interfaces to manage it.

We also imagined the way the user would intereact with the billboard and how the service could add value to customers.

 

 See how the Paperspots system works

 

Of course traditional paper billboards already work in a system; but the digital nature of the electronic paper could revolutionize the business.

At Design vs Art we do product ideation and concept design, starting with a motivation and following a whole creative and design process.

If you are thinking of a new product or service focused on users or if you are interested in any of our concepts you might want to contact us. Here is our contact information.