Vacuum Forming Mk1

These are a few images of the first attempt of the vacuum forming. This plastic insert piece will be used as part of the button mount that will be placed on the back side of the product.

Lesson to learn from this, reduce the radius on the plastic, because the foam will be cut with as straight edge as possible the plastic should match this. This is very simple to implement as the reason for the radius is the thickness of the material and me not allowing for it also.

Foam Model Mk1

I asked if engineering could make some prototypes for me in blue foam to give me an idea of scale and form for my model, having decided with advisement from Pete that a foam exterior may be wise. So not knowing which material i will be using, blue foam can provide a good compromise and is very similar weight for now.

What i did was, went to the computer suites and made up my parts in solidworks and saved files as .SLDPRT files. Then received the request for technical help from engineering sheet from Sean and then fill it out, stating material, production method and any other important details. It also helps to go and talk to the engineer who will be doing the work so they know exactly what you would like done. In this case Dave King was the man who did my parts in the Mori Seiki machine which is a milling machine.

Layers

I have made a very simple prototype to illustrate how i may use layers in my product to make allow for ease of assembly. This one show the use of three layers, one for a front which will act as a mounting layer for the screen to be pushed through the gaps. There is a middle layer that will be a spacer for PCB board, wiring and power supply to fit in, while also providing some structural strength. The final layer would be the back in which the buttons will be mounted in.

Play Crit

Here are images of the model i completed for the PLAY Crit, It will be powered by power pack. The reflective surface behind the LED's is tin foil. The wiring in the model is very busy and ideally i will make a PCB similar to those we made will Lyle Mitchell last year in engineering. Jon seemed to like the switches, simple but effective.

Positives to note:-
- Form works well, Similarities can be made to the I Phone.
- Interaction is good due to its simplicity.

Issues that were raised were:-

Power:- What power supply am i going to be using?
Material:- Which material would be best for the football stadium environment?
Flexibility:- How important will flexibility be in the product? Initial thoughts is very important.
LED's:- Need to be much more bright!

Button Prototyping

So here are a few images of a the prototype i produced before the PLAY crit. It looks extremely rough with all the wires, i found it very difficult to follow where each wire belongs even after colour coding and numbering wires. In this example buttons are placed on the back of the object and once pressed they light up and the corresponding section on the front as well.

Lessons to learn from this prototype is, to remove all excess wiring, and to eventually get a PCB board in. Brighter LED's is also going to be a focus for the future.

Rendering

So these are some varying images of the sort of quality of rendering i have been producing during my project, some of these are simple of the product and some are of more specific elements such as Battery compartments and letter selection.

Single Light Cell

I have abandoned this blog for a while, these picture are around 5 weeks old (sorry).

So this some of the things i have been trying when considering how a single section will be. Frosted plastic will be the best idea as it will allow the light to fill out the section screen more, i was also playing around with the lighting, whether to use strip LED's or to use single almost bulb like LED's.