Author Archives: Yuanzhen Zhu

Design Thinking Week 3

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Innovation is so crucial for the success of any company while successful innovations are difficult to create. Design thinking is a revolutionary designing methodology that attempts to inspire the essential factors of creativity, the ability to take an abstract idea. The Hasso Plattner Institute of Design Standard University defined the concept of “design thinking” a human-centered, prototype-driven process for innovation. Comparing to the original design that aims at designing the craft more visually appealing, design thinking focuses on user-centric. Design thinking requires the designers to prioritize the demand of users first and then consider the other important factors such as outlook and cost. Similar to what Neil Stevenson stresses is that design thinking starts with empathy. Meanwhile, design thinking isn’t one thing, but a bundle of mindsets.

More concretely, the structure of design thinking introduced by Dr. Weightman consists of four pillars, desirability, viability, feasibility, and responsibility. Designers should understand the desirability or the demand of users before worrying about the viability, feasibility, or responsibility of the project. Thus, designer should conduct as many ideas as possible at the start of designing process. Then, designers will create many low fidelity prototypes and test the viability and feasibility of their ideas. Finally, designers should consider the responsibility or the environmental influence that might be caused by their products.

This week, professor Sachdev invited two members from Designfor America and they gave us a presentation about design thinking. To help us embrace the idea of design thinking, guest speakers asked us to think about the problems faced by our grandparents or other senior people and conduct solutions to help seniors solve the problem. At the first stage, we came up with ideas such as Generation Connect( An app connects seniors and youth), Wrist band Stabilizer, Robot (Artificial Intelligent), Teaching Kindergartens, and keychain messenger. After considering the viability and feasibility of our idea, we selected Generation Connect as our optimal choice. When presenting the idea of Generation Connect, we displayed our storybook. Basically, seniors can help young people solve their problems through the platform Generation Connect. This platform can help seniors feel they are respected and needed by others. On the other hand, young people can get good advice from people who have already experienced similar problems.

 

Storybook:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0PlDuRzfAznYk8ycVgwZURuWGc/view?usp=sharing

 

Our team logo:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0PlDuRzfAznQ2RpeVM0czZZUzA/view?usp=sharing

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0PlDuRzfAznNlVoMnlCZFBxUzg/view?usp=sharing

3D Printing

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Last Monday, we are fortunate enough to have Jeff Ginger, the director of CUC Fablab, as our guest speaker. Jeff gave us a short but comprehensive lecture of 3D printing and its applications. Personally, the most memorable words Jeff said was “Instead of doing it yourself (DIY), we need to do it with others (DIWO)”. 3D Printing helps people to make a lot of things without going to a supermarket or ordering them on Amazon. However, we could still seek help from others. More specifically, we could use the blue print designed by others to make things by ourselves. Accordingly, we could foresee that if 3D printing technology becomes much more affordable and mature in the future, manufacturers might sell the design of their products instead of selling products directly.

 

After the lecture, professor Vishal started to show us how to make things by downloading other’s design from Thingiverse.com. The object I chose was a batman model. Because the whole model would take around 10 hours to print, I had to print partly for the sake of time. It was so self-satisfied just by looking at the printer printing the object, although the batman was my second 3D printing object.

 

Four Things

Save Pangolins

This object captures my attention in the first second I see it. Personally, I hold the impression that 3D printing object was static. However, this printed pangolin could be placed into different poses and displays the flexibility of 3D printing object. Moreover, pangolins are in danger of extinction. This objects can reminder us to take care of other species. Currently, I have no opinion to improve the product. I like it so much.

Modular Castle Playset

I believe my niece will love this castle playset. All the walls, towers, houses, animals, and props are designed so precisely and vivid. My niece is very picky of the toys my uncle buy for her, so I think the 3D printed castle playset might be a good one. I would suggest the designer to make all the wall, towers, houses have common units like Lego does so that children can make different project with their imagination.

Caliper Case

I want to buy a case for my laptop. However, the brand of my laptop is not as popular as Apple or Dell. I cannot even find a single case seller for my laptop on Amazon. This Caliper Case fits the specific caliper and saves the trouble for its users to buy one case. Improvement: I would suggest designer to allow others to adjust the size of the case so that more people will use this design.

SD Card Storage Box

Hum, I think this Box might be useful for prof. Vishal. We use SD card to export the design into the 3D printer, so a storage box can place all the SD cards together. Improvement: It would be better if users can set the capacity of the storage box manually.