Foosball is a great sport and coincidently a sport that goes great with drinking beer. The problem was that our foosball table didn't have any cup holders, and playing an intense match without a properly secured beverage could lead to a rain delay on the field.
I built these cup holders for my Advanced Wood Production Class. Both pieces were cut by a CNC Router from a 2'x 4' piece of wood and fit together without any glue or fasteners. The cup holders are designed to easily fit a beer bottle, those red plastic cups or the hundreds of glasses that we have from Sweetwater.
Last year I had the unique opportunity to take a module on yacht design. It was a very intensive 5 week class that took me from knowing almost nothing about boats (except for port, starboard, bow and stern from my rowing days) to designing a yacht of my own. My yacht is 48' long and based on the Wally power yacht aesthetic and has some really cool features including the light wood decks and contrasting green cushions. The main feature that makes this yacht special is the large sunroof located on the fore deck which provides natural light to both the galley and master bedroom below. Aside from that I spend a great deal of time exploring the deck layout so that it would provide enough seating options in both the sun and shade that you could easily entertain a large group while still providing areas for quite solitude or private conversations.
Also I have to say how happy I am with the yacht model. I put it in the water having no idea if it would even float or not. Turns out, not only does it float but its center of buoyancy is almost exactly where I intended.
Orthographics after the jump.
Last Semester I took a class at the Georgia Tech Advanced Wood Products Laboratory. Our first assignment was to build... something... out of wood which incorporated some wood joining method. I picked the dovetail joint and designed this wooded gun around it. The gun makes a neat little toy. By attaching a rubber band and sliding the top of the gun back along the dove tail joint it makes a nice "Clack".
Alright, I've been trying for about a year now to make an action figure of myself that I can hand out to people as a business card and just haven't found the time to do it. So as an interim solution, I created a card that looks like a figure behind a blister pack. The "Sparky" action figure even comes with a jetpack. Why? Well I see the conversation going like this:
Me: Oh let me give you my card...
Them: Oh cool it looks like an action figure! Haha! Why do you come with a jetpack?
Me: Well two reasons. First jetpacks are awesome! Second the jetpack is a perfect metaphor for my mix of design and engineering. The jetpack lets you explore the blue sky but you have to have engineering know how to get it of the ground.
Them: Oh yeah that's really cool! Let me offer you a high paying job.
Me: NICE!
Regardless it is still not done. I haven't had time to create the back and the line work and colors need some work. Oh and he needs a katana.
I got a sewing machine for Christmas, so naturally I started to think of things I could make with it. Then I started thinking about the possible new Ghostbusters movie and how that could lead to a new GB cartoon and new toys. Then I thought, 'Wouldn't it be great if kids who were afraid of the dark or the monsters under their beds to be able to use their GB equipment to not be afraid?'.
I'm going to take a break from adding items from my archive to show off something that I'm currently working on. Our studio is working in conjunction with a computational media class to develop a modular outdoor play structure that may be showcased in an Atlanta park. We were broken up into teams and last week proposed our designs. For the first round of competition my concept was chosen for further development.
So many of the early posts are going to be archive stuff, all the stuff that I've done in the past year and a half or so. Not necessarily in chronological order.
My name is Jonathan Spoerke and I'm a masters of industrial design student at Georgia Tech with a background in mechanical engineering. So, why the jet pack you ask? Well the jet pack is the perfect metaphor for my combination of industrial design and engineering. A jet pack allows you to explore the blue sky, but it also requires an engineering know how to get off the ground. Pretty creative huh?
