Category: prototyping documentation

As I decided to follow forward with a problem #1, The Carry-on Toothbrush Holder, I started experimenting with some shapes and thinking about materials. As of now I have outlined the main two directions that I based my two prototypes on:

1. folding holder that can be exclusively used when using it when arriving to a place (that unfolds and could be put on the sink)
2. holder that could be also used as a storing space for the toothbrush while carrying it and as a object to put it on the sink.

hence, I had a couple of sketches that represent each direction:

1. 
2. 

I started experimenting with cardboard a little bit, however not sure if I will have actual prototypes made out of them. 

I also had this idea with an origami folding thing, however could not assemble it from using paper yet. 

Some things that I have came up with that apply to both are:

• it should 100% be vertical when using it on a sink as usually there is not enough space to use it otherwise.

In the beginning of the previous week I have generated a couple of ideas that I would like to consider for further prototyping:

• CARRY-ON HOLDER FOR BATHROOM UTILITIES (TOOTHBRUSH, TOOTHPASTE…)

This idea was inspired by my recent arrival to Shanghai and realization that while in the past 6 years I haven’t been living in one place for more than 4 months, this product has always been something I ended up buying on the place and sometimes it hasn’t been easy (I still didn’t buy it here cause cant order from 淘宝). I would sometimes just end up getting some cup to put my toothbrush, but it would often make the cup unusable after a while as the taste of toothpaste would be engraved into it. I am still doing some research about possible solutions for it, however the main problems that I have defined and which I am going to be aiming to solve in this prototype are:

1. easy-to-clean surface 
2. foldable and easy to transport in a backpack (+ weight element)
3. easy to use everyday at least two times (the mechanics should allow easy extraction and insertion of objects 
4. multi-use: maybe something that could allow storing multiple-sized objects (hairbrush? scissors? cotton pads? ear sticks?)

sketches + photos pending….

here, I will try to research more mechanisms and folding structures to achieve the results. going to start with cardboard, but for further prototyping going to have to use materials that won’t break if something moist is interacting with them. not sure what yet. 

• MULTI–USE COMPUTER/IPAD HOLDER

yes, there are so many of them in the market right now, however as I have tried a lot of them, I was able to identify several issues that none of them could address completely and that I will try solving in my prototype:

1. size + weight(most of the holders I tried are very heavy and I just ended up not even bringing it to school with me as I didn’t wanna carry it around)
2. visual appealing + safety (most of them are ugly and pointy and unsafe. I imagine someone tripping over the table and a stand could be the reason for a serious injury)

sketches + photos pending…

again, folding structures. probably going to use cardboard for most prototypes. 

This blogpost will unite all the things I have done through the past two weeks in preparation for the Spaghetti Incident experiment. 

The glue that I had available was a glue gun glue. In the beginning, I had no precise idea of how the bridge is going to look, however I knew that I am going to need some kind of rods as they are the parts that could be easily (relatively) created using any amount of spaghetti (from 1 to basically any number). Plus, as the length of logical to strive and create batches of the different same-length rods (the 1/2 of length could be achieved relatively easy (my tip: break it when creating a plane, instead of trying to break them as a bunch)). After making these pointless (at this time) conclusions I started to actually make stuff.

As for the rods, there was a way to make them that professor showed to us in class, so I decided to give it a try. This way is basically about putting the spaghetti in a row, creating a flat surface. (picture pending) However, it was much harder than it looked as it took me way too much glue gun to do that. Plus, the glue had to almost spread throughout 1/3 of the rod from both sides (leaving only 1/3 of the glue-free rode in the middle), which although made the rod quite stiff, I believe in long-term would result in construction’s weight being like 50% glue. Nevertheless, this first rod inspired me to try and experiment with the amount of glue on spaghetti (and places I put it on). 

And began that with the experimentation with the ways glue could be put on spaghetti rod (that is just a bunch of spaghetti that create a circular rod) and how it affected construction’s elasticity:

1. the glue is being put solely on the ends
   1. the middle becomes quite “jumpy”. I bends simply, however not too much. Plus this doesn’t involve much spaghetti. Spoiler alert! That is the way I am going to end up glueing those.  side note: if i was still using the rode that creates a plane, the bending would be much more evident, but it would be considerably easier to break.
2. the glue is being put on the ends and in the middle
   1. this way of glueing makes the rod mode stiff. However, as I was applying pretty much the same pressure on the option 1 and 2, turns out, because of those “unglued” parts on the rod, it was much easier to break it, while the united front of unglued spaghetti in the middle and everywhere except for the corners was able to withstand the same pressure. 
3. the glue is being put everywhere. and i mean all over the place. 
   1. surely, this makes the rods much more resistant. However, it has such detrimental limitations as notably increased weight, the messiness and the time it takes to glue it all together. As we are striving to use as less material as possible, not turn my desk into a cemetery of displaced glue, while actually finishing the work in time, this option seemed unreasonable.

so yeah, in the end, the first, and, i would argue, the most obvious way to apply glue on rods turned out to be the most efficient and appropriate. Moreover, for some rods, I kind of twisted the spaghetti around each other, crating spiral-like rod that turned out to be even stiffer than before. 

Moving on to the next stage: manufacture. As I said, I adapted the strategy of created (almost) identical pieces that would later be assembled into the prototype.

For this stage I have been just gluing the spaghetti together into rods (4 long ones a a lot of 1/2 spaghetti ones). Took me a while (mostly because I didn’t have glue sticks for some time in the middle). 

side note: i lied. for the long spaghettis (as they are the main parts and need to be v stiff, i both twisted them around when glueing + added some glue in the middle and all over.)

so now as i had quite a bunch of them (in the picture i have like 1/2 of them or less), I moved on to the actual assembly. 

basically I adapted the triangle strategy for the base (at is it of high importance to make it as unmovable as possible). However s for the rods that hold on to the upper frame, it wasn’t really working out as intended: the rods turned out to be uneven. So, I improvised. The construction in the photo endured 1.5 liter water bottle and even more. I will probably experiment a bit more in the next two or so days. But I believe this is quite successful. I still don’t really get how are we going to apply pressure (on which spot) during the experiment, but I hope to find out that soon.

_______

Nope, still no test. Just a couple of days before the experiment I found out that my bridge is too short (not to self: read the instructions, don’t skim). Anyway, in light of that, I decided to create a new bridge cause there was no point in trying to prolong the one I had as, firstly, I didn’t really have much faith in it as I saw hoe the experiment is actually going to be conducted, and secondly, creating a new one will all the experience I have now seemed like a better idea. And I was write. 

As I am now quite profession in gluing spaghetti, I decided that I could revisit the plane-rods idea as I could create them with less material (hence less weight) per piece. So I started my bridge vol.2. 

created bout a million of those. 

found out a perfect way of breaking spaghetti: using table as a “cutting corner” when being the spaghetti. This time, my rods looked better and neater. So there was a certain advantage to my bridge vol.1 failure! 

So, after about 6-7 hours, I had this in my possession: 

Yes, big change from the last one. This one looks more promising. 

Some details about construction: 

a lot of horizontal half-pieces that prevent the first level from bending. + “2 rows of cables” that hold “towers” together. 

There are also some strengthening rods that presumably will save my bridge during the experiment. i attached a rope on the base indeed looks promising. Waiting for the class to begin and find out!

________

Experiment went great! The set up was perfect (thanks a lot to Andy). My bridge endured ≈ 4088.1 grams with ≈ 271.1 grams of its own weight! Hence, the efficiency ≈ 15.08.

I was very glad and, to be honest, somewhat surprised it handled that much! I thought the max is going to be like 2 kg. 

Anyway, I am very proud of it, however, of course there are some things I would change about it (especially given the way it broke down). These are the pictures that show how it got broken:

As it is shown, it kind of tilted and then crashed right in the middle. If I was creating the bridge again, I would have probably tried to substitute the plane-rods that I used for the towers with the bunch-of-spaghetti-rods to make it a bit more stiff (however, as I think about it, it would probably been hard to attach other rods to them. Also, I would probably make a bit more precise cables as they weren’t really symmetrical (thats way it was easier to tilt and crash). So yeah, a couple of things could be done differently, however I am still very proud and happy!

Plus, it was a lot of fun to test and very nice to see as much people in person as possible from our class! Again, thanks to our Prof and Andy for organizing all this!

So, after the last week’s failure, I decided to implement a technique that i have seen all across the Web: the paper straws. Of course, we are not allowed to use the actual straws, however we are allowed to use paper. So, given that, I have created a new sketch of the prototype:

the idea behind the mechanics of the prototype os basically the same as the one behind the failed one, however this time it seems more reliable: the bulging parts are meant to absorb the shock energy, while the box is not supposed to even touch the ground. 

the straws seem way more reliable as they were much better attached to the box (the attachment was solid, unlike the crumbled paper). plus, the straws are not easy to bend, which also seemed like a green flag. 

the first assembly looked like that:

it had three vertical and three horizontal straws that with the box summed up to 8 pieces of A4 paper and much less tape than the previous try. the idea was to add as much straws as needed for a box to not touch the ground at any position after falling, as well as making sure that the energy absorbed by the straw will not transfer to the box in even larger pressure (as the area of their intersection would be smaller). as seen in the picture, the prototype looks promising. so, I decided to try it out:

and it worked! I was very excited. the bad thing about this prototype though is that i have to butcher it every time to show the egg. but it is alright. as the technique is repeatable, I will assemble it again, for the challenge on the lesson.

p.s. so, i am pretty happy that the previous idea didn’t work out as I probably wouldn’t have any particular idea on how to assemble something like that again. 

IDEA 1 & FAILURE

This week as i was traveling a wasn’t able to post the blog on time. However, as I was unable to do actual experimentation, I only worked on my ideas. I developed some new ideas that I most certainly will incorporate into my final prototype. 

• After some googling i realized that there is not much options for me to create a parachute from paper. I had no idea how to do it so that i won’t use all 10 allowed A4 papers, so i decided to leave this idea for later, if the others won’t work out. 
• I decided that i will put egg in a box. I learned how to do a perfect box from 2 paper sheets a while ago, so I decided to implement this skill here. I decided to do so mainly because it would be much easier and effective for me to attach (using tape) the other parts of the construction (the ones meant to absorb the energy from the fall) to a paper box than an egg (due to symmetrical and larger shape. that is how two paper boxes look together (there is where i put my egg in. it is not exactly stable there but i thought it is not a big deal as it was my first experiment anyway). 

p.s. my personal record of folding a box reached 3 minutes. (the first box I folded in 7 minutes…..)

• When surfing the Web, i encountered with way of folding paper (like accordion basically) and it seemed quite “jumpy”. I thought i could use it to create a “jumpy” construction by attaching it to sides of the egg’s shell   So i decided to check it out. In the video below i am demonstrating what this material is capable of, which, spoiler, was not exactly what i was looking for. 

as it turns out, this accordion style only works it falls exactly on the right spot for it to fold. plus, i didn’t really know how to attach it to the box (or anything else) using tape to reserve the jumpiness, so i decided to move on from that for now. 

• I also was thinking about crumbled paper as a material to observe some energy. and as i already had the needed materials and knew how to attach it to the box. So I went for it and created a sketch of the prototype.

the idea is to shell the box with the egg with multiple “balls” of crumbled paper (numbers 1-4 are created from the A4s, while numbers 5-12 (8 pieces) created from cut in half A4s) + the box, for this prototype I used up the total 2 (box) + 4 + 4(8 halves) = 10 a4 papers. which is the maximum. I know. But it is my first prototype that I decided to actually assemble so I believe it is fine. 

the final piece looked like this: 

yes, kind of messy. To be honest, the messiness came when I realized that attaching those crumbled pieces to the edges of the box (which I thought will be easy) turned out to be impossible using just one piece of tape. so, here we go. plus, i added some tape to stick the box’s parts together as well. halfway through I started revolving the construction around to check what places of the box still can potentially touch the paper. You can see it on the video as well. Also, in the video below I am showing how I was trying to increase the effectiveness of the attachment of the crumbled paper by creating this space for the edge to kind of fold into. didn’t really help but should count as a valuable attempt. 

I couldn’t wait to try the construction out already. So I did it. And it failed me.

I was kind disappointed but wasn’t really surprised. The construction involved too much tape for it to be viable and cool. I have some other ideas left, but about that in another post.