Above is my design loop reality. In retrospective, I should have gone to the laser cutter first to see the approved materials list. Waiting until the last minute put me in a bind and although I am happy with the final product I believe that the design could have been more elaborate with the aid of…

My ideal design process was clean and simple, but in real life it got a little messier. The metal I originally wanted to use was far too thick, it would have been much more obvious than I would have liked. Then, the 26 gauge steel that I used was just thick enough to weld, with…

Within the past week, I have settled on an idea for the Upcycle Project: a used wine cork lighting fixture. This idea originated from several ornamental cork balls I found online, as shown below the images below. I like the spherical organic shape with the different coloured stained wine corks. The addition of a light…

I will be making some sort of Q-Tip sculpture for my project. I will most likely be imitating something organic, such as a tree or a human skull. I’m not 100% sure on exactly what I’m doing or what aesthetic I will be aiming for but I have collected materials (Q-Tips, superglue, and markers). This…

I knew that I wanted to approach the Upcycle design problem with something that achieved both form and function. Following my design loop, I researched sustainable materials that could achieve such a thing. Initially I wanted to build a piece of furniture, however I realized quickly that finding strong upcyclable material such as wood, discarded…

For the project of creating a desktop sized mountain bike using paper clips soldered together, the process has been largely trial and error. Once I got the idea, I researched online, seeing if other people had attempted similar ideas. There seemed to be a decent amount of information regarding soldering paperclips, but this application seemed…

My design process so far has been conducted in stages—idea, planning, preparation, etc.—each with a different type of evaluation or self-critique (see Fig.1 above). My original concept of aluminum sheet modeling was scrapped due to difficulty and cost in the early stages, while my current subject of jar terrariums has progressed smoothly to the preparation stage (see Fig.2 above). Ideation is…

What I have learned from my upcycle project design process thus far is the following: It is never too late to make iterations. Don’t get too attached to one idea. Let your constraints inspire you. Let me start by explaining how my upcycle project has progressed from start to finish.  As illustrated in my diagram,…

Even though I had a frustrating start to my design process, struggling to decide what to make and what to make it with, I had a fairly straight forward design loop until I hit a dead-end. I had decided to use cardboard as my raw material. I settled on the idea of making a piece…

The design process for my homemade guitar is almost done and I have started taking measurements for a more precise model. When first starting out with the project, I drew a picture of a basic electric guitar and tried to identify all of the essential parts. For each one, I had to figure out exactly…

It has been mentioned in a few other posts, so I suppose I can say it again: the hardest part was picking an upcycle concept and material. Once I had a few concepts on paper, the design started to flow pretty naturally. My design loop began with inspiration from a gift I had received from…

It took a long time for me to finally decide on what I wanted to make for the upcycle project, but once I found what I wanted it was a fairly smooth  process to complete. I decided to make something called a fidget spinner. They are typically made out of a bearing housed in either…

My project started out without any set goal or a direction. After taking tedious classes which requires planning just shy of a German train schedule. It was much more tempting for me to remove the cobwebs out of the creative thinking section of the brain and let those neurons loose. Luckily for me, being a…

For my upcycling process I am working on making reusable glasses and shot glasses from beer bottles. The design process that I have been in has been a circle. I started with an idea, and from the idea, I designed an aesthetic that I thought would be exciting for a beer bottle glass. Then after…

My upcycling project is making a woodwind instrument. The hardest part of the project is calibrating pitches and this involves a lot of experimentation. I was originally going to use metal piping to get a more vibrant sound but soon realized that this would take a long time to machine and making mistakes could become…

The design process so far has been frustrating: I have looped back to previous steps several times so far. My project is an electronic project, but given the nature of the Upcycle project all the components have to be scraps discarded from other projects. These parts are very difficult to work with, as I don’t…

I’m a guess and check kind of lady, and I learn from my mistakes. I made a prototype plastic bag sandal that turned out super small and trashy. There was no way I could turn in these shoes for a grade. I’m not even going to show a picture of them on this blog post,…

I started the upcycle project thinking I would carve a specialized and unique hockey stick out of wood. However, when I Googled, “Homemade Hockey Stick,” I was inspired by what I saw. Ever since then, I’ve been working on making something out of broken hockey sticks. The key constraint has been the number of sticks…

I went through a frustrating design process creating my upcycle project. I knew what material I wanted to use, and I knew the general theme of what I wanted to make. However, I ended up throwing out a lot of ideas after I tested them for feasibility. I knew I wanted to make something I…

The design process naturally varies from project to project. For this project, I spent a lot of time thinking about what to make. I wanted something useful, and that I could use on a daily basis. At first that does not seem like a tall task; however with the limitation that it had to be…

Brainstorming for an idea is the hardest part. Once you get pass that, everything starts to fall together. I sketched out some ideas of what I wanted to cast. After that, I found out that silicone molds are relatively cheap to make and they can withstand heat. This means that I can safely melt down…

I do not come from an engineering background or area of study, so a design loop is kind of new to me. I do almost all of my creative work digitally through programs like Photoshop and Illustrator. So when I envision something I want to create, I kind of just jump in after some brainstorming.…

For me the process of design is all about constantly going back to the drawing board. For our upcycle project I have had to do this with the design I intend to create using a mosaic of blank CD pieces. It is very hard to cut CDs with scissors and especially to make clean straight…

I decided to scrap the idea of making a skateboard rack due to my lack of access to woodworking tools. Instead, I’m creating a steampunk chest/trunk with cardboard and duct tape. This is far more feasible and allows me to express my artistic talents better. My design process included ideation, sketching, gathering materials, preparation of…

For my upcycle project, I will be melting down brass shell casings and casting a new shape using the lost foam method. I began the iterative design loop with this idea in mind but there so many different possibilities for where I could take the project. Sketching a few shapes I thought would be cool to…

For my upcycle project I used the design loop above. It started really with choosing a material and then using the internet to find inspiration and ideas about what I wanted to make. Once I knew I wanted to make some type of statue, I began sketching it out using the “beer cans” I chose…

For my upcycling project, I am melting the leftover waxes from other candles and putting them into one big glass vase for aesthetic appeal. Although this will obviously be an aesthetic project, I hope to also make it functional by adding string to the middle of the molten wax so that I can light the…

For my upcycle project, I am building a projection stage, which is essentially a scale model of a large electronic dance music stage. It consists of three-dimensional platforms which create space to display projections, as well as an area where a DJ booth would be placed. The entire stage is made out of cardboard and printer paper. My design loop…