Our presentation on Friday went really well. Marc, as well as the rest of our class gave us really positive feedback which myself, Louise and Billy were all really happy with. Marc suggested some minor changes to make in the product video and the rest was all fine. We managed to get some hi-fi prototypes in the end and it was really nice to see the development that Peggit went through.
For myself, I wanted to learn new programmes and do different things throughout this project. I'm happy to say that I learned how to draw in 3D using OnShape and I how to edit videos using Adobe Premiere. I also feel a lot more comfortable using the workshop in college, having spent quite a few days down there prepping the prototypes.
If I were to do the project again, the only thing I would reconsider is depending on other people outside of my group to get things done for us. Even though we got our prototypes in time in the end, the stress might have been avoided if we choose a different way of making it, or else were able to load up in the objects into the CNC machine. It just happened that our project was at the same time as first year students getting their workshop induction. Perhaps next time even check whether there is anything going on in the workshop and plan our visits accordingly.
Overall, I am very happy with how our project turned out and I think we did the best that we could within those 3 weeks.
Our exhibition set up for the presentation. We are displaying the design principles, product personalities, the tech spec and all the prototype versions our product went through.
Final product video coming soon!
Louise and I worked on putting together the Tech Spec sheet. This briefly outlines how our product would work with the necessary components.
Today was our last full day in college because tomorrow college is closed and we have our presentation on Friday in the afternoon. And boy, did we get a lot done. First of all, after speaking to Ian yesterday, Louise and Billy did some final filming this morning to get those shots that we were missing. I kept working on the process video, filming more shots and putting music in. Louise kept going on the product video which is already looking really really good. Billy was researching sound effects and music to put into the product video and was also finalising some of our products. A CNC-made peg was ready for us this morning so we sanded and spray painted it and that's something that we could use as our final product.
We are hoping to have a wooden bowl and wooden peg CNCed for Friday and to take final product shots. Fingers crossed they're ready!
For Friday's presentation we are aiming to have a deck with product personality, tech spec and more product info, a process video and the final product video. We have split up the work and hopefully will get everything done for Friday!
We are not 100% sure how we are going to present yet, as in, whether we will use everything we have created so far, in the presentation, or else we might keep some things just for our own portfolios. There has been different ideas between the groups as to what each is presenting but we will have time to discuss this before the presentation.
Now I have to go back and finish the process video. Happy editing!
This morning Louise and I headed straight over to Billy's house to do more filming. Once again, surprise, surprise, we had more malfunctions! We didn't leave the battery to charge overnight so when we started filming it was on 2 bars and eventually the red light began to flash. We ended up wasting some time charging the battery twice, but overall I think we were all pretty happy with the footage that we got.
A little sneak peak behind the scenes screenshot... Can you guess what Louise and Billy are trying to do?
We worked on close ups of Peggit, the washing machine, putting the ball into the washing machine and other clips that we didn't get to film yesterday because the lighting wasn't good. We went back to college feeling pretty good with all of our footage. Today we had Ian in who teaches about all things camera, filming and editing related. We had a chat with him about our project and showed him the skeletons of our video and got really good insight from him. He advised us where we couldn't get the glowing effect that we wanted or needed to show our product working, to compensate with sound effects. Ian went through Adobe's Premier Pro that we are using to edit our videos and showed us little tips and trick like how to make objects glow or to give them a colour if we wanted to go ahead with that.
Louise started working on the product video and I was working on the process-of-us-making-these-objects video. Billy is coming up with the sounds that we need and is also putting together a deck for Friday's presentation.
I also drew up a new peg in On Shape, one with a head and body as one piece. We are hoping to have it made using the CNC machine. We might use this piece as a final product that is a little bit more polished than what we have now.
After our chat with Ian we sort of know the clips that we are missing from our video so we are going to hopefully film the rest tomorrow morning and have it all done. So after that all we have to worry about is putting it all together and getting ready for our presentation on Friday. It's so close!
Our last week of working on My Friends & Other Things project. We are about a day behind our planned schedule so today was a day for making up on lost time.. and I'm not sure how well we did?
The day started off well. We had the 3D printer printing off the 2 parts of the big ball. Up next was the peg head. Even though Billy had made a wooden bowl for us we decided it might be good to have a white 3D printed bowl too, just to have the choice between 2 different designs. I also ended up drawing the peg body in 3D - another choice to have if we preferred it to the wooden one. The big ball and peg head were finished and ready for their close up when the printer decided to have a meltdown and stop working. After wasting some time trying to fix it we thought it be best to leave it and roll with what we have. We wanted to start filming by the end of the day so we had some footage to work with on Tuesday when Ian is coming to help us with the editing software.
The days tasks were divided. Louise was looking at the tech and Arduino aspects and going over the storyboard and adding more detail so when time came to start filming we knew exactly what we were doing. I drew up the body of the peg in 3D and looked at the sound that we need for the video, e.g. vibration, washing machine. Billy was in charge of finalising the product and making it look nice. The day started off well but as it went on every little thing that could be going wrong started going wrong.. But we tried to keep our heads high and work with what we had.
By 4 o'clock we thought we were more or less ready to start filming, so we gathered our equipment and headed over to Billy's house, which is our set.
The rest of the evening we spent filming! It was a little crazy and pretty funny. We did some close up shots of the peg in the ball. Something I didn't mention.. We made the ball with 2 parts. When it was printed, it came out a little uneven for whatever reason (I'm blaming the machine). We can't exactly close the ball smoothly, the parts don't close very well at all so it leaves a gap that we have to disguise as we film. By the way, we would reprint the ball but as of right now, we do not have enough time to do that.. And the fact that the 3D printer isn't printing. So that was fun to film with to say the least. We had to get the ball to roll around the bowl (magic!). The LED's didn't fit as well into the ball and it was hard with the gap to get it at the right angle so you can't see the gap OR the millions of wires running from the LED..
This was our set up.
Don't forget this was after 4 o'clock in the afternoon so the sun had begun to set and we were racing against mother nature. We managed to get some close ups of the washing machine and some shots of Billy on the couch, with the peg on his jeans. All in all, after having another eventful day when things weren't going as smoothly as planned, we still got a good bit of work done. Filming will resume tomorrow morning, hopefully along with some editing. Just hoping that things might be a little bit easier next time!
So many hopes were had for today. We planned on getting our objects 3D printed/ CNCed first thing this morning, but when the workshop opened it was so busy that Gerry, who works in the workshop, didn't have time to start prepping the CNC machine for us.
After lunch we got more and more worried that nothing would be done by the end of the day. So we began to look for parts for Plan B. As in parts that we could use for the video, that look like the real thing, and then use After Effect to put all the 'magic' in.
So not to waste time, Louise kept on working on the Arduino part, getting the RGB LED to turn from one colour to another, Billy started making 2 pegs using the lathe machine (which turned out AWESOME) and I was running around looking for plan B parts and filming "in production" footage of all of us working.
These are some screenshots of our 3D objects. This is the ball from the top with the opening for the peg to be placed into.
Same part but looking at it from below, here you can see the part where the peg goes into.
Bottom half of the ball part.
This is the bowl or dock that we ball and peg will be kept in to charge.
A side view of the bowl.
These are the pegs that Billy was working on which turned out really really nice.
Am image of me in the workshop filming Billy making the pegs. We are hoping to use the "in production" clips to make a short video of our making process.
In the afternoon we got really good news that the 3D printer was printing our ball and the CNC machine was finally ready to make our objects too, so we were finally getting somewhere! Still a long way to go until we are ready to present but the making of these objects is a big start. Below is a short video clip of Billy using the lathe.
Everyday it's getting closer to the deadline (which is next Friday) and myself, Louise and Billy get more stressed out and more motivated to get as much done as we can. Right now we are working on finalising the design of our product which includes materials, and today I began drawing up 3D models of the peg and ball in order to get them printed by the CNC machine or the 3D printer. Billy was down in the workshop making more rough prototypes, trying out the different wood that we got. Louise was working on wiring the peg and ball, using the Arduino and an RGB LED. We also really need to come up with branding for our product.
So I spent all day using a programme called OnShape to draw up the models. Initially I tried using CAD. Having come from an Architectural background I have experience using CAD but have never drawn in 3D. Because I knew I was under pressure to get these drawings finished as soon as possible to print them and see if we are happy with them, I didn't get on too well with CAD so I moved on to OnShape. Its an online based programme and is simple enough to use after watching some tutorials and getting help from classmates. I still struggled with it because I think it can be a lot more straightforward than it is. I got the drawings done for the ball and gave them to the workshop and they should be made in the morning. All that is left to do is the head of the peg and the bowl that the big ball goes into, its base. I eventually left college because I got too frustrated not being able to do simple things, so the rest will have to be finished at home for the morning. It would be great to get everything drawn up and printed by tomorrow evening. Here's to hoping!
Today we made a list of all the things we wanted to do during the next couple of days and divided up the tasks between ourselves. Billy took charge of looking at the material the ball and peg will be and how we could possibly make them. Louise concentrate on making a hi-fi product personality, personas and design principles. I focused on the storyboards that would help our video and also the video formula, as in looking at how to structure it, taking scenes apart, where to put text etc.
Slack has been one of the platforms that we have been using a lot throughout this project. This is a screenshot of a conversation Louise and I had today about our product and capturing emotion.
Some sketches done by Louise and Billy, looking at objects, shapes, forms, finishes.
Billy went on a mini shopping trip to see what materials he could find for inspiration. He came back with a few goodies.
He actually ended making a prototype from the things that he bought which was great. This was the first time that the product actually began to come to life in my opinion. He got some white shiny plastic and bent it around the ball so we got a taste for what kind of material we would like the ball to be made from. But unfortunately we also have to think realistically about the materials which are available to us, that we would be able to work with. We loved the white shiny finish so are hoping to get something like it tomorrow to make the ball with.
This is the storyboard that I came out with today. There were a few different iterations done in the process. The storyboard is almost a script for the video for us, it shows different scenes for us to consider and it also helped us think of how we want to edit the scenes after we film them.
The storyboard goes through what the problem is, what the solution for this problem is and what the experience of the user using this product is.
The storyboard is hung on a wall right now and we are using it to write any tips that we have for the edit or the filming process in general.
With our Salt & Pepper concept beginning to take shape, it was a good idea to start looking at what Salt & Pepper could possibly be. Myself and Louise turned to Pinterest and Google for inspiration. Once we had a chat with our tutor Marcus, we started to sketch some of our own ideas.
We came together as a group and listened through each others ideas, and what we got from this was that we wanted the object to be in the shape on a ball, something like an Echo Ball that you throw into your washing machine with your clothes. This ball will have an opening that a peg-like object will go into. You cannot pour the laundry detergent into the ball without removing the peg first. This ball would live either on top of the washing machine or else in its own base. Until the ball is united with the peg, the ball will keep moving around in the base, or if without the base, it might fall on the floor and roll around, annoying the inhabitants. I thought, what if the only way to balance the ball and keep it still is to put the peg into it? That way they HAVE to be reunited and it would be something that would annoy the user - having the ball on the loose. So that is something we will have to look into now, how to make this object and how to make it balance. Billy looked at designing the peg in such a way that it almost represents a little person. Its arms open and close almost like a wine opener, demonstrated in the sketch above.
Myself and Billy went down to the workshop in the afternoon and made a quick prototype.
Tomorrow we will concentrate on the form of the objects as well as any mechanics that will have to go into them, a tilt sensor for example, if the ball is to be able to detect the movement of the washing machine.
On Monday we wanted to have a finalised concept by the end of the day that we could continue working with and polishing, but something concrete that we knew wouldn't change. Toby the clothes horse and Tubs the washing machine were the first version.
"Tubs doesn't like being left feeling full and bloated. He is a bit shy and doesn't like complaining. He is great friends with Toby. He gives John, his owner, very subtle hints and would rather rely on his pushy friends to get things done."
"Toby is lazy and gets irritated. He only wants to put minimum effort into things. If he doesn't get his way he will have a tantrum. Toby is loyal to his friends."
Through these little personalities we were able to do some storyboards. The storyboards actually helped us to think through the scenarios. They also helped us develop our product further.
Our first storyboard, drawn by Billy, is a story of John putting on a load of washing, not having realised that his clothes horse, Toby, is full, and so after the wash is done, Toby annoys John, and becomes almost violent with him, until John HAS to get up and get his washing out of Tubs. After drawing this out, myself, Louise and Billy all agreed that we wouldn't be able to live with this object if it gets this annoying and aggressive. There was no subtlety. Although Toby might annoy John enough to get the job done, we decided that it didn't seem to be the most pleasant or enjoyable experience.
Storyboard 2, drawn by me, had a more organised John who took his washing out of Tubs as soon as he was finished washing it. This storyboard didn't bring about that much excitement and for something that we will have to film later, there wasn't a lot of content to it. So we tried again.
The third storyboard was a winner. Drawn by Louise, it had a slightly different concept. We scrapped the Toby and Tubs idea for a minute, and rolled with something else. We called this "Salt & Pepper". John puts his clothes into the machine and grabs Pepper, while Salt stays with the washing machine. Salt can tell what stage the cycle is at and lets Pepper know when the wash is finished. So John goes out about his day, he goes into town, meets some friends, and while he's still out, Pepper gives him feedback that the washing machine is ready to be unloaded.
"Salt is ready!"
After some time John is ready to go home. As he gets closer to his house, Pepper can sense that he's getting closer to Salt and gets excited. He starts jumping up and down, once again, reminding John that the washing is done and ready to be hung up to dry. John ignores Pepper and forgets about the washing. After a while he notices that Pepper is sad so he makes sure to bring him over to Salt, and take out his wet clothes from the washing machine. Salt and Pepper are ecstatic to be back together. They are only ever really happy when they are together. The end.
We wanted to explore different objects and shapes that we could use as Salt and Pepper so we went down to the building lab and starting making. These are some of the objects that we came out with.
Like the Yin and Yang, Salt and Pepper go hand in hand, they fit together perfectly and they like being together rather than apart. We thought it would make sense to have the part that stays with the washing machine, to have some sort of use, and the thing that came to mind was a scoop or cup for the washing powder/ liquid. So that was one form that we aimed for. The other part that you take away with you would have to be something small enough so you can carry it around, or else something like a peg, to clip on to your clothes.
After we got some feedback from the rest of the class, we decided to go with the Salt and Pepper idea, and the forms would be some sort of object to hold laundry detergent, that has a peg element that the user can take away with them.
On Friday we did a lot more in depth brainstorming of the washing machine idea. We also came up with a list of design principles that would help guide us to design a product with the right qualities for our chosen behaviour.
Our problem statement
To encourage efficient management of the laundry cycle.
Design principles
Our product will be:
- Helpful but not nagging
- Intelligent but not condescending
- Caring but not clingy
- Subtle but not beautiful
- Simple but not childish
Our users will feel:
- Connected
- Unburdened
- Organised
- In control
- Personal satisfaction
We also came up with some things that we as a group want to achieve, what we want the product to portray and what we want the user to experience. We felt like that was important because it might help us visualise what we want our product to be like and what we want to get out of the project.
What we want to achieve:
- Better management of washing clothes
- Encouragement to take out washing
- Manage a washing cycle more efficiently
- Eliminating clothes sitting in a machine for days
- Clear and simple way of remembering to take out the washing
What we want the product to portray:
- Organisation
- Part of an eco-system
- Authority
- Encouragement to get the task done
- Simplicity
- Subtlety
- Beauty of nice aesthetics
- Intelligence
- Care
- Helpfulness
What we want the user to experience:
- A good relationship & connection
- Encouragement
- One less thing to think about
- Takes the burden away
- More organised and on top of things
- Makes this task less of a chore and more enjoyable
- Trust
So having all of these points in mind, we began to design a solution for our behaviour. We also had a chat with one of the tutors and he recommended that we stay away from screens i.e. mobile phones, or putting another screen on the washing machine.
This side of the blog is dedicated to my journey through the major project or final year project process. The highs the lows (which I have already experienced when trying to figure out what it is that I want to do for my major project).
So before today I have already submitted 2 different assignments dedicated to my major project, one about some ideas that I had and another one was a proposal of what I could be doing. The proposal wasn't a definite proposal just because it was too early on in the year to know for sure what I wanted to do in the summer. They spoke about big data, future cities and also about how might interaction design/ technology lead the way for architecture and whether that guides certain behaviours or activities of people.
Today we had to do a 5 minute presentation, telling the class about our starting point, where we are now, what our thoughts are, ideas, what we want to be doing in the summer, what he hope to achieve etc. In the end I decided to go for something a little different, but now after saying my idea out loud, I am not sure its what I want to go with. I spoke about how many residential homes have stairs, at large scale buildings like shopping centres and galleries, colleges, all have stairs and people walk up and down them throughout the day. We generate kinetic energy through movement. My thoughts were about harnessing that kinetic energy and putting it back into the home, the college etc. But after getting feedback from my tutors Marc and Emma, I realised that it would be heavily based on engineering and physics. I would obviously have to get in contact with people who have been studying this field and hopefully they could help me with the project. I actually didn't think about this side of things before so it threw me back a little, and even though I think it could be a really exciting project to do, I am not 100% sure that it is the right one for me.
All that I can do for now is to immerse myself with research, not necessarily about harnessing kinetic energy, but research in general, to hopefully get more ideas about what it is that I want to do for my final year project.
Today was sort of the "first" day for our actual project idea to start forming. We started the day off by making note of all the behaviours we already had, and then we added other behaviours that we have come up with meanwhile. This is the list of behaviours that we came up with:
- Putting the bin out on collection day (which we already covered yesterday with Bob the Bin)
- Off-peak electricity usage
- Eating unhealthy food
- Waking up without an alarm
- Sitting down for too long
- Using phone while driving
- Boiling the kettle after someone else just boiled it
- Cars splashing pedestrian after it rains
- Not closing a pack of biscuits
- Iron
- Organiser-shelf system in the bathroom
- Buying too much unneeded food
- Forgetting to take clothes out of the washing machine after a cycle
- Multi-screening
Because there are 3 of us in the group we decided the best way to pick would be to cast 2 votes each. The topics came in the following order:
- Forgetting to take clothes out of the washing machine after a cycle
- Buying too much unneeded food
- Using phone while driving
We also wrote down some emotions, functions and behaviours that the object or design would have, put them in a pile and picked one out for each topic. So with everything in mind, we began to brainstorm and think of concepts for each one.
The washing machine concept had authority, it reminds the user, and there is also excitement involved. We spoke about things like having the door of the machine pop open as you walk past it as a "gentle" reminder and the longer you left your washing in the machine, the more "aggressive" the door would get. Or else at some point the door would pop open to remind you and you wouldn't be able to close it until you took all the clothes out. What if the machine was able to throw your clothes on to the floor if you didn't take them out fast enough? What if there was a longer washing cycle next time you put on a wash, almost like a "punishment" for not respecting your clothes the previous cycle. There was also an idea about having your washing machine being able to communicate with the clothes horse/ drying rack. So if you have clothes already drying, the door of the washing machine would be harder to close, as if its telling you, "Maybe wait a couple of hours to put on the next wash?". Or if the clothes on the drying rack would start to fall off once they got dry, a reminder to take them off in order to free up space for the next load. This kind of communication would allow a synchronisation between the 2 objects and might help the user be more organised too.
The next topic, buying too much unneeded food, was honest, he wants to stop and could get angry. We realised that buying unneeded food related to waste and cost so those would be major factors hopefully somewhat influencing the user to stop doing that. The idea we came up with was to have a product range consisting of a shopping trolley, a basket and a shopping bag. The shopping bag might have a weight sensor at the bottom and you might be able to preload the shopping list so that the bag knows approximately how much it should weigh and if its heavier then it gives feedback through the handles by making them uncomfortable to carry etc. We also thought about having some sort of notice board at home, or a white board, where you can write down your shopping which sends the information to the bag or trolley but something that would also be small enough for the user to take with them. The shopping basket and trolley would too send feedback to the user if they pick up items that were not on their list, and would suggest healthier foods to buy.
The third topic, using the phone while driving was annoyed, it detected movement but it was also cute. Somehow all of the emotions, behaviours and functions that we picked randomly from the piles, seemed to go so well with each topic!
So for this concept we thought about having a cute stand, a "house" where the phone lived in the car. Every time the user would get into his/her car, they would have to place their phone into his home (this arose the question of what happens if you don't have your phone with you?). As a group we thought that social consciousness and social awareness would be the best ways to encourage the user not to use their phones. What is overtime you used your phone while driving it sent a message from your social media sites saying "Hey, John is driving and using his phone at the same time. Not keeping his eyes on the road!" Naming and shaming would probably be the best ways that we thought of, to get drivers to behave. Then we had a bit of an issue of answering or making emergency phone calls. which could potentially happen. We didn't want to lock the phone away while the car was moving so we thought voice recognition (along the lines of Siri) would be the best solution.
In the end, after going through the 3 topics (btw we did about 10 minutes on each), we noticed that the mobile phone was quite difficult and not a favourite within the team because there is some much more to it like the law and lots of what ifs, and it involves driving unsafely. So there was a mutual decision that out of the other 2 left, we would go with the washing machine idea.
The next topic, buying too much unneeded food, was honest, he wants to stop and could get angry. We realised that buying unneeded food related to waste and cost so those would be major factors hopefully somewhat influencing the user to stop doing that. The idea we came up with was to have a product range consisting of a shopping trolley, a basket and a shopping bag. The shopping bag might have a weight sensor at the bottom and you might be able to preload the shopping list so that the bag knows approximately how much it should weigh and if its heavier then it gives feedback through the handles by making them uncomfortable to carry etc. We also thought about having some sort of notice board at home, or a white board, where you can write down your shopping which sends the information to the bag or trolley but something that would also be small enough for the user to take with them. The shopping basket and trolley would too send feedback to the user if they pick up items that were not on their list, and would suggest healthier foods to buy.
The third topic, using the phone while driving was annoyed, it detected movement but it was also cute. Somehow all of the emotions, behaviours and functions that we picked randomly from the piles, seemed to go so well with each topic!
So for this concept we thought about having a cute stand, a "house" where the phone lived in the car. Every time the user would get into his/her car, they would have to place their phone into his home (this arose the question of what happens if you don't have your phone with you?). As a group we thought that social consciousness and social awareness would be the best ways to encourage the user not to use their phones. What is overtime you used your phone while driving it sent a message from your social media sites saying "Hey, John is driving and using his phone at the same time. Not keeping his eyes on the road!" Naming and shaming would probably be the best ways that we thought of, to get drivers to behave. Then we had a bit of an issue of answering or making emergency phone calls. which could potentially happen. We didn't want to lock the phone away while the car was moving so we thought voice recognition (along the lines of Siri) would be the best solution.
In the end, after going through the 3 topics (btw we did about 10 minutes on each), we noticed that the mobile phone was quite difficult and not a favourite within the team because there is some much more to it like the law and lots of what ifs, and it involves driving unsafely. So there was a mutual decision that out of the other 2 left, we would go with the washing machine idea.