Archives for December 2021

First we met with the commuinty committee members, Mr. Hu and Ms. Wang, who informed us about their work each day and led us around the community for inspiration. In the process, we learned that there are volunteers who pick up trash around the neighborhood every morning, and the tools they use are not as effective as they could be: they have three pairs of garbage tongs, one is heavy and too short, one is heavier and too long, the third one is not as long but does not work properly

In the end we decided to make them a new pair of custom-built (thumbs up) garbage tongs.

1. Making the Raw Material 
Marterial: ABS tips.
Steps:
1. We tested a couple different weights, eventually we ended up with 800g-1000g. We can either shred them or not, depending on the outcome we want.
2. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C, then put the ABS tips in.
3. Arrange the tips to form a roughly board shape. 
4. Leave them in the oven for 10-30 mins until they melt.
5. Put the spacers(about 1cm thickness) on the oven. Then press.
6. Repeat the last step if needed.
7. Fold it if needed.
8. When its done, put the ABS board between two wood boards and press again. Leave it there for a whille to let it cool down.
9. When it get to the normal temperature, it's ready for CNC.

1.1 Solve the length problem
One issue that kept bothering us was the length problem. We tried many ways to solve this issue, as I mentioned in the previous post. We tried heat shrink plastic bottle to connect two pieces; we tried cover one piece with another melted piece. All failed. At the end we decided to screw them together.

Like this.


2. Design and Evolutions
During the whole process, we have design and made 8 products. Here's the design graph.

Here's our First Prototype

Here's our Second Prototype

We showed the community our Second Prototype, overall they liked it, but they wished it could be longer.

So, we made our Third Prototype

 

Very shortly, after we got feedbacks from the community we made our Fourth Prototype, which was our first ABS version.

Soon we found the problem, which was the wobbling issue. So we chagen the tip design, and here’s the newer version.

Fifth Prototype

We showed them 3, 4 and 5th prototypes, and they said they actually liked the original-design handle. Even though we liked the newer design and think that is better. 

We decided to increase the width of the piece, to increase the stability, although it will increase the weight. And here comes our Sixth Prototype.

This one I tried to cut out the tips to increase the friction, it didn’t really have other difference from Sixth Prototype, but let’s call Seventh Prototype.

This version of the design solved the wobbling issue! and we could almost ignore the amount of weight that increased. We were happy about it.

We quickly organized the ideas that we generated during the whole process, and kept the good designs, and made our Eighth Prototype, which is our Final Product. Here’s the video and pictures of our baby!

 

Team member contribution:

Steve: Mainly in charge of all the CAD design on Rhino and Illustrator as well as fabrication processes, assisted in the documentation processes, partly involved in the whole design thinking and generating ideas for iteration over prototypes, partly involved in engaging with the community.

Scarlet: Mainly in charge of organizing the ideas and keeping clean and complete documentation. Assisted in the fabrication processes, partly involved in the whole design thinking and generating ideas for iteration over prototypes, partly involved in engaging with the community.

Max: Mainly in charge of testing small ideas quickly and helped prune some weird design choices. Assisted in the documentation and fabrication processes, partly involved in the whole design thinking and generating ideas for iteration over prototypes, partly involved in engaging with the community.

 

3. CONCLUSIONS:

• How does your work align with them? How do your project results not align yet?

The work that aligned with them was we designed and made the product that can solve their issue, which is providing them a useful and handy Garbage Tong. 

The result that did not align was probably they actually wanted to have the wood-made tong, haha. But our purpose was to use recycled materials to create a product, and fortunately they liked our product, too.

• What about the project makes you feel more proud about the work you did this semester?

First of all, I’m super proud of my teammates and our teamwork, they were so awesome! No one tried to find any excuses for not working, we all did what we could do to contribute. Secondly, I’m proud of how fast we took care of our community’s feedbacks, and improve our designs.

• What difficulties did you encounter creating this project?

We met plenty difficulties during the process, for example: the wobbling issue; the length issue; the weight issue and the appearance issue. I’m also proud that we solved(or at least improved) those problems, we never tried to give up or avoid any of those issues.

• What do you take away from your failures and accomplishments? Not only in the design, but also working in a team and working with the community members.

For this part I will directly quote from my last post

”

The strengths I learned about myself were:

1. I’m apparently a very talkative person, I’m not scared to ask for opinion  or help from our community or someone out of our class. I actually enjoy socializing.
2. During our team conversations, I can often come up with creative ideas toward our project, yet figure out ways to let them work. Also because I have two awesome teammates, my ideas were often inspired by what we have said during the conversation.
3. I’m very action-oriented, as soon as our team came up with an idea I will get my hands on it immediately. 

The weakness I learned about myself were:

1. I can be super impatient, for example I often pull out the material from the oven even though it wasn’t completely melted. 
2.  I’m not as fluent in the software we used as Steve is, I wish I could have learned more about those skills so I could have done more. 
3. My time management can be horrible sometimes, for example we were supposed to meet at 5pm and I probably will be late for like 30 minutes. Also thanks Steve and Scarlet for always forgive me and being patient to my nonsense! Lots of love to y’all!” (Sun)

 

• What would you like to change about your final results? Or what would you improve if you had more time?

Something I would like to change would be the preciseness of the pieces of each pieces on our final product. For example, I wished that we could have more time to sand each piece and make them perfectly smooth, and make the small pieces to be the same length and width. Also probably experiment with different thickness of the raw material board, so that we might just can make the tong even lighter. 

• What would be your advice to other students working on a project like this?

1. Listen carefully to the community. If you don’t understand what they are saying, nothing is going to work.
2. Be creative, don’t set limitations for yourself, don’t be scared to share your ideas with anyone. 
3. Don’t ever stop thinking, keep thinking about how you can improve from where you are.
4. Get your hands on it as quick as you can, because you actually don’t as much time as you think you have.
5. Last but not lease, have respect for each other in your group and the community, don’t think you are smarter, everyone has their own expertise and can make contributions.

Here’s the link of our Final Presentation Video:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hw62HojS1B-d1Fu2bpggLkJu7COKYgoN/view

Huge thank you to:

Marcele, Andy, FuZhu Community and Stave and Scarlet! y’all are awesome! This project can never be what it is now without anyone of y’all! It was a wonderful semester! 

.

 

 

Personal Growth: what strengths and weaknesses did you learn about yourself? How are you different now?

The strengths I learned about myself were:

1. I’m apparently a very talkative person, I’m not scared to ask for opinion  or help from our community or someone out of our class. I actually enjoy socializing.
2. During our team conversations, I can often come up with creative ideas toward our project, yet figure out ways to let them work. Also because I have two awesome teammates, my ideas were often inspired by what we have said during the conversation.
3. I’m very action-oriented, as soon as our team came up with an idea I will get my hands on it immediately. 

The weakness I learned about myself were:

1. I can be super impatient, for example I often pull out the material from the oven even though it wasn’t completely melted. 
2.  I’m not as fluent in the software we used as Steve is, I wish I could have learned more about those skills so I could have done more. 
3. My time management can be horrible sometimes, for example we were supposed to meet at 5pm and I probably will be late for like 30 minutes. Also thanks Steve and Scarlet for always forgive me and being patient to my nonsense! Lots of love to y’all!

 

 

Civic Engagement: what did you learn about the approaches of working on a project? For example, teamwork, communication, understanding needs, etc.

The thing I learned was understanding our client’s needs is the most important during the whole process. If we never figure out what their needs are in the beginning, we will never be able to produce products that will satisfy them.

As for the team, I think it is important to have respect for each other. We need to understand that each one of us has our own expertise and specific strength, no one is above another. Only when we all contribute our strength to our project we can accomplish it.

For the communication, I feel that it is important to stay in touch with the community, and get their feedbacks timelu. We won’t be able to keep improving our product if didn’t regularly talk and visit our community, also thanks to the community for always responding to us rapidly. 

Academic Learning: where did the community experience align or not align with the academic content? What have you learned as a result? 

i could be wrong, but I felt like they actually want the wood-made tong more than they want the ABS-made tong. They cared more about whether the tong can pick up the trash, but what we learned in the class is we also need to use recycled materials to make the tong, but the community probably didn’t care that much about if it was made by recycled materials. Anyway, I learned that we need to combine our client’s need with our deisgin ideas, and even give up something from our side.