Week three was a fun and informative week for me in the Digital Making learning process.  Week 3 brought Design For America to our class room to put us through a workshop on design.  Before last Tuesday, I didn’t have a particular way of going about design, or a process of thinking about it.  The workshop broke down the design process step-by-step, through brainstorming, communicating, visualizing, and realizing the design.  The idea to our design workshop was “eliminating distracted driving”.  My group and I brainstormed and determined limiting cell phone communication while driving was our best solution.

We came up with a steering wheel adaption that holds your cell phone, and provides hands free calling and texting through voice communication.  Our design ended up in model form, with a slot for the cell phone in the steering wheel shaft, so the driver cannot see the phone.   In addition to that, the car will be programmed with the phone to only run if the phone is in the slot.  Our design brought in usability along with safety.  Overall, the design workshop taught me a better approach to designing and taught me the most efficient ways to go through the design process.