1) Materials: The most important constraint for this project is whether I can procure the correct materials. Hopefully, I can find a derelict shipping pallet, but if not, I’ll have to build it all out of wooden planks. I am confident in my wood working skills, so the latter would not be a huge issue….
Currently, my top five constraints in the design of my final project are as follows: Constraint #1: I will use only neon colors; no purely primary colors. Constraint #2: I must design my hologram for an apple product. Constraint #3: I am limited in the size of my hologram by the size of the device…
For Our team’s aesthetic of design game categories were the modern style aesthetic and LAMPS. The essence of modern style is to use angular, geometric shapes with swooping curves, and simplicity. We know that there are other possible definition, but these were the key aspects of the design that we were trying to capture. The…
Starting out with the cost of the project as seen in Table 1, the total price to complete this project came out to be a little over $160 dollar. My budget that I set out for this project was $150 dollar, but one thing to take into consideration is that I did not use all…
Just got back from spring break, and the project is coming along slowly. I went to McGuckins Hardware Store to collect several “solar powered hobby cars” to collect small plastic gears and metal parts to build a prototype of my design, and then salvage the parts for the final design. I also bought spring steel…
Why and What’s Next? Much of my intention for this class was to construct pieces which were art in themselves. While, the electric hourglass does not function to serve any purpose other than visual art, I believe it conjures an interesting aesthetic space. The design is far-fetched in nature but provides depth for further contemplation….
The wind-up spider toy is off to a rocky start! There have been a few issues related to collecting my materials through online distributors, because some particular crucial components for building sets of 125 plastic gears only cost $13.oo but two months to ship from China. These gears would not arrive at my apartment until…
For my design, I will need to fabricate both a wood structure for my hourglass and a light installation to go inside. As of now, I am not settled on the details of my light installation so I will focus on fabricating the wood base. Taking inspiration from traditional hourglass forms, I want the wood…
Boom! A block of the finest Silver Maple- so fresh, it’s still kind of damp, and has wax sealed sides! This was an unexpected extra step; I definitely wasn’t planning on having to spend time drying out (“seasoning”) my wood. This block was purchased from an exotic woods dealer online. I picked this silver…
Progress! After receiving all the parts, I spent 6 hours straight soldering. The board arrived blank, with a bag of components- all it took was some caffeine, and one late night! I’m really excited with how these turned out! While I was debating on a case at first, I’m really glad I decided to work…
My project is heavily inspired by 20th Century Design Influences. I really wanted to mimic this modern look: Straight sides, sharp corners, constant finish- this is the goal of my nixie clock. I was very inspired by a lot of furniture from this era. This is another piece I really like: Simple…
Dang! Didn’t see this up, so I wanted to add it to the Aesthetics Game section. Ashley Zimmer, Dennis Can, Yusen Ji, and I had “Post Modern” and “Office trash receptacle. These are the two designs we came up with! The right-side-up one is a curvey, three-piece set that nests together, and is made…
Background and What’s To Come I chose to pursue this project because of my overwhelming fascination with ferrofluid. It is such a unique liquid that typically is used in automotive applications where normal oil will not hold. The magnetic attribute gives it an advantage in industrial applications, and a pleasing look. I wanted to take…
I have spent the past week attempting to make the ferrofluid glass encasing completely sealed so the ferrofluid has no chance to leak (that would be bad). It has turned out to be a significantly more difficult process then i originally thought. The silicone sealant I am using requires at least 12 hours to cure,…
Fortunately, my project does not involve too much machining. I will be able to get away with a few laser cuts and 3D printed parts. The only complicated fabrication piece will be cutting the glass encasing. Below is a layout of my current schedule for fabrication and assembly. 14 February – Acquire and test ferrofluid…
Why and What’s Next? I began this project with the intent to build a minimalist styled alcohol stove and for the most part I would say I achieved my goals. I started with the idea of making a stove that had a built in pot stand, variable temperature control and some sort of external fuel…
Introduction I created an alcohol backpacking stove following a minimalist aesthetic. The stove uses denatured alcohol for fuel, features legs which function as a built in pot holder, and has a “simmer ring” to control temperature. Concept The general concept of how this style of stove works is illustrated well by these two images….
While thinking of a design movement to report on, I wanted to choose one that reflected the aesthetic intent of my project. I had difficulty narrowing down the aesthetic of my project since it is meant to create a more personal experience than convey a certain aesthetic. However, if I had to decide upon a…
As mentioned in my last update, my initial concepts of incorporating a plasma globe or electric arc were dissuaded against by Tim May. Moving forward, I am now focusing on creating a light display through use of a centralized object and light source. I intend for the central element to produce an interesting ambient lighting…
In my previous post, I described the process I took to bring this project to completion. It involved the design and assembly of a number of different pieces, and helped me grow my skills in woodworking, electronics and painting. But aside from seeking to sharpen these skills (and complete the assignment for class), I had…
The final product, as you can see, is a custom made longboard, optimized for cruising. Aesthetically, the board maintains a classic beach wood look with curvyness. This is both designed as a functional athletic piece of technology and as an art piece. Moving forward, this board will make its way to New York City/…
Lazy Susan Kitchen Device (LSKD) I am not sure if this is needed or not, but here is a link, just in case you need help finding my page.
Introduction: For my final project, I created a set of wind chimes played tuned to play notes in C major. I felt that I could mold a set of wind chimes into the aesthetic that I wanted, specifically a mix of engineering and naval aviation. To accomplish this aesthetic I wanted to use an…
Inspired by nature I tried to create a piece that accurately mimicked a thundercloud. Much like the organic design movement took inspiration from different aspects of nature. I think the results were successful. At expo, the light fixture was received well by the public! Many comments were made about how realistic the lightning flashes…
Looking back over my posts from the start of this project to the end there is a very clear connection and for the most part I accomplished what I set out to do. This project began with inspiration. For me it was images of guitars being smashed and burned as well as those with custom modifications….
Description Just as a brief recap to my project, I created a 3D printed bladeless fan. The design is inspired off of the Dyson fans, but on a smaller scale. My product was designed to be handheld, and portable. One of the major design aspects of my product is the removable head. I wanted the…
Overall, I was fairly pleased with the final product that I was able to produce. It didn’t quite live up to my expectations, in terms of what I thought I was capable of producing the first time around, but I have a lot of notes to take forward with me when I do decide to…
Why this project? I didn’t have a lot of experience with electronics in the past. So I think it might be a good chance for me to play with some electronics in this class. So, making an infinity mirror becomes a great choice for me. Public reaction A lot of people are attracted by this…
The barn door likely would never have happened if not for this class. In our day-to-day lives there are always things vying for our attention – classes, family, homework, housework, and work-work; not to mention all the things we do on the side to have a well-balanced fulfilling life: exercise, reading for fun, time with…
My journey to building a desktop radial engine was a challenging one, but one I am very happy I completed. I went into this project with very limited machining skills and only classroom knowledge of design for manufacturability and assembly. I knew the aesthetic I wanted to achieve, but doing it through new mediums would…
Final Project Report Continued: Why and What next? Reflection on the semester. Compare your original project intent to what you ended up with. How did the public react? What did you learn from your project, and from the class? What will you do next with the project? What do you wish you had done differently?…
Ultimately I was very happy with the result of my project. While it had its up and downs, as with any project of this magnitude, the end result was something I was truly proud of. I was able to get much more out of this project than I had initially expected and have found a…
Looking back on the project, there are a few things that I’ve learned. It turns out that I really enjoy working with clay. It is soothing and relaxing, and being able to see something take shape in 3D is exciting. I also gained a lot more experience with 3D printing, especially with trouble-shooting. I really…
I initially set out to make a café racer style bicycle, using among other things the Joe Lewis Detroit fist as my inspiration. After spending quite a bit of time in my friend’s shop trying to perfect my welding skills, I bailed on this idea. I did not feel confident enough welding the thin walled…
I am really happy with how my project turned out. Finally the long hours of prototyping payed off. I think people at the expo liked my project. I am glad I build a wooden frame to go around the glass it really made a difference. What it means? I thought of what this means for a while…
Overall, I’m very satisfied how the project turned out, though if I were to do it again I’d definitely do a few things differently. First, I’ll focus on what I think was accomplished in the current version. Functionality The music box plays, and even plays a tune, though not very loudly. I learned…
Why this project? My love for art began many years ago when I took my first jewelry class as a freshman in high school. I considered going to art school because I got a full ride scholarship. Because this class offered so much freedom, I knew from the start I wanted to do jewelry. I…
The journey of designing and manufacturing this digital display was both frustrating and time consuming, but there were a lot of good lessons taken away despite the troubles. Wanting to pursue a cheaper option for manufacturing but also wanting to learn a new fabrication technique, I found tutorials online on how prop makers work their…
The desk garden is currently a nice addition to my desk. I made it because I like plants and wanted to start keeping some. My desk is a little bare, so the desk garden livens it up. Originally, I thought I would use a square footprint and that the planter would have an overhead watering…
When I started this project I had a pretty good idea what I wanted my final product to look like and what kind of experience I wanted the viewers to have. It’s supposed to be cool, fun, entrancing, and interactive. At this point in the process I’m sad to say that the product is still…
Overall I am extremely pleased with my final design for this class. Building a bike is extremely time consuming though, especially without the proper tools and garage, so I wasn’t able to finish it to my final desire. This was expected though and I believe I did enough to change the overall aesthetic of the…
During the expo the Wine Knife was displayed, and the comments were generally positive, there were some sharp corners and potentially hazardous edges that will round out with use, as well the material selection for the foil knife was a concern, 6061 aluminum is a bit soft for a blade, however as a prototype the…
When I first started this project I had a very strong idea of what experience I wanted the viewer to have. Throughout the process of creating this piece of art, the actual design has changed multiple times, but the original intent has always stayed the same. When I set out on the project I had…
I originally wanted to explore the construction of carbon fiber spoilers and splitters on race cars. I thought a fun way to do this would be to build a skateboard using a similar construction method. This project served to practice my carbon fiber fabrication skills, which I’ll definitley be using more in the future. After…
INTRODUCTION: This is the first part of my final report blog, and it will cover my inspiration behind the design, explain the aesthetics in greater detail, walk through the dynamic components of the spider toy’s drive train, fabrication of the overall design, and the mishaps that happened along the way. The purpose of this report…
Reflection Overall, I believe that the two best things about going through the experience of this project were getting practice at thinking creatively and solving problems. No aspect of this project had an easy answer and it was up to me to find a solution that would work. Sometimes these answers were harder than others…
I believe I accomplished the main intent I was going for with this project, but it didn’t turn out aesthetically exactly how I had envisioned it to. This was due to a combination of lack of skills and money. I had very ambitious goals for this project and wanted to create/design something I had never…
Inspiration I really like making music in Ableton Live. I’ve wanted to buy some MIDI drum pads for a while to use when making music, but I haven’t been able to justify the cost. So, I decided to make my own (hopefully for a fraction of the cost). When I began work on the MIDI…
Reflections: Simple is better: I really struggled with my Arduino code for a few weeks trying to get the sensor to work. I kept on adding more into the code, running it, and then the problems only seemed to add up. What worked out better was to first take a step away from the project,…
Here are videos of a few of the class projects presented at the Engineering Design Expo last Saturday, April 23 2016, and at the ATLAS Expo, April 27:
I really liked the pace of this project. Whenever I had enough free time I could devote hours to working on this project then set it aside for a while once my other classes started to require the majority of my time. This down time gave me the opportunity to reflect on my current progress…
How did it turn out? Overall, I’m pretty ecstatic with how this project turned out. Amazingly, my scope and vision turned out to be nearly identical to my initial idea and conceptual design. However, the way that I executed that vision (internal components) turned out to be quite a challenge and rather unexpected. I ended up…
My project was a Modern kitchen appliance; it is supposed to be both functional, and aesthetically pleasing. People should like at it and think that it looks like it would be nice to have in the kitchen not only because it holds spices and paper-towels, but also because it has a Modern look to it; thus…
Introduction I created a thundercloud light fixture. It contains many LEDs that flash randomly like lightning. It is made to hang from a ceiling. I was inspired to create a light fixture that mimicked something in nature. Materials Polyfiber pillow stuffing LEDs 100′ 22 AWG White Wire Arduino UNO Mux Shield II Small breadboard…
Project description I decided to make an infinity mirror because it can not only give me some chances to playing with some electronics but also creating some really cool optical effect after finishing this project.Why can the infinity mirror creates “tunnel” effect? The secret is that the infinity mirror actually contains two mirrors with different transmissivity…
First Impression The goal behind the ferrofluid sculpture was to have it capture people’s attention. The way ferrofluid moves around a magnetic field has a certain appeal to the human eye due to its ability to flow and transform shape. Using an all glass case would add a sharp edge to the display by making…
Description The LED Orb is a device that spins three LED’s (one red, one green, one blue) at very high speeds in three different axis with varying flash rates to create a cool light effect. I was inspired to make this after I saw a video (linked in the references below) of the first LED…
Somehow I forgot to post this, so here we go! The last and final update! Now that all of the lace and brown dye have been applied to the parasol, all that is left is painting on the design. However, testing the lace with extra scrape lace showed that I would not be able to…
Introduction This project I chose to do was a backlit panorama. I wanted this project be reminiscent of a static art piece which would slowly over time change lighting in the background. This report serves to discuss the more technical details of this project. Inspirations The inspirations for this project come from a variety of…
Results Despite demoing the project at the design expo, I was unable to get the levitation audio visualizer to work as originally intended. The original idea for the levitation audio visualizer was to read in audio and change the height of levitating ping pong balls/color of lights to visually display the music. Although I was able to get the audio…
Recap I am building a bladeless fan, similar to the Dyson fans but on a smaller scale and it is wireless and handheld. The whole frame will be 3D printed. The head piece will be removable and different designs will be made. Progress My prints have come completed and I am quite happy with the…
The divider wall is complete, and has been installed in the ATLAS Black Box theatre for the production run of Quantified Self. I am pleased. Here is a report of the process. After presenting my initial plan for the construction of this project at our PDR, I set to work on modeling the major wood…
I made a desk garden. I wanted to work with water, plants, and light, and while it took me a very long time to settle on something, I finally did. I want a nice looking, modern planter for my desk. Here’s an image of the CAD for my final design. I really didn’t want to make…
I wanted to build a table top stirling engine for my project. I’ve been wanting to make one for a long time, but never got around to making it happen. There is a lot of documentation online on how people have made their own using a variety of designs and materials. My goal was to make…
The CAD went through some minor changes since last time. Here is what it should look like in the end according to the CAD. It is finished and looks similar to this. The CAD does not include a drawing of the bearing since I used a mock bearing from McMaster Carr to fill in my…
Introduction This will be the first installment of a two-part report, chronicling the design and production of my final project for Aesthetics of Design, the Personal Tattoo Machine. Within this post, you can expect to find detailed explanations of the decisions I made over the course of this project, in addition to how I produced several…
I initially set out with the intention of building a speaker into an electric guitar in order to allow the user to have the guitar’s sound amplified to listenable levels without the use of a typical amplifier. This problem is often solved using mini battery powered amps that can clip to the users belt. I…
For this week, I mainly focused on building the tattoo machine’s circuit, which turned out to be a somewhat insignificant amount of time. With the senior design expo being this week, the vast majority of my time was spent in preparation for the expo. But I was able to design the simple circuit to be…
Blog: Final Project Report: What and How. Overall description and photos, then details of what you have made: CAD drawings, fabrication description, costs vs budget, etc. The frame is finally all assembled. At this point, all the remains before it can be built into a operating bicycle is curing of the epoxy, some finishing…