ridgid office - pencil sharpener

After some concept sketching and study modeling I created a physical model of the pencil sharpener from my set of RIDGID branded office products.  One of the primary features that I decided was really important for this brand and the target user was for the pencil sharpener to sharpen rectangular carpenters pencils rather than standard pencils.   I finished the pencil sharpener model around Christmas a few years ago and I took it over to Home Depot to take a few pictures next to other RIDGID products.  The pencil sharpener must have looked right at home because an employee made sure I wasn't stealing anything as I left the store.

Additional pictures after the jump.

ridgid office concept sketches

Here are some of the sketches I did last year when I was designing a series of office products (stapler, hole punch, and pencil sharpener) based on the RIDGID brand language.  I tend to alternate between sketching in orthographic and perspective.  I also tend selectively marker render, I think it is a nice way to add visual interest to the page.

a fully customizable shoe

Advanced Parametric Modeling is essentially equation based modeling.  Rather than just building a model in Solidworks as you go, parametric modeling takes a bit more pre-planning.  You begin with a series of key sketches/dimensions (which you drive) and related all subsequent dimensions/sketches/features back to your driving dimensions.  The big advantage of modeling parametrically is that you can very easily modify one of your driving dimensions at the beginning of the feature tree and the rest of the model will automatically update itself.

I wanted to show the possibilities of parametric modeling by designing a lightweight single piece parkour shoe (one with a split big toe) that automatically adjusts it shape to perfectly fit any wearer by entering a series of foot measurements into a data table including; foot length, ball width, heel width, toe length, instep width, toe spread, heel height, ball height, and toe height.  Theoretically,a company could produce custom shoes by 3D printing a hard mold, and then filling the mold with a flexible shoe material.  Right now this would be pretty expensive, but who knows what the future holds for mass customization.

 A 3-D printed model the shoe which fits my foot is pictured above.    More pictures are after the jump.

mp3 fedora

Following the success of the Keypad Tie, the question was raised "what about the girls?". So we designed and developed the MP3 fedora; a hat that allows you to control basic MP3 player functions via Bluetooth.  Pressing the brim allows the user to play, pause and scroll through tracks.  Swiping across the brim allows the user to raise and lower the volume.  When designing the MP3 fedora, the challenge was to make use of the same 3 design guidelines introduced with the Keypad tie.

More info and photos after the jump.

Keypad Tie Update

Check out the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HGX5V9pnEM

I finally got a chance to take some nicer photos of the Keypad Tie.  Another shot after the jump.

avatar inspired dress

For our last assignment for our fashion design class we were given one week and a movie and had to design and build a dress inspired by the movie  I was given the recent James Cameron film Avatar.  Being an industrial designer and not a fashion designer,  I wanted to stay away from the over the top types of dresses that you often see.  I wanted to create a dress that someone could and would actually wear.

My primary inspiration came form the blues and greens in the war paint the Navi use.  The green stripe was achieved by masking off and spray painting the back side of the fabric.  I was also inspired by the braided headdresses that the Navi wear and integrated it into the strap design.  Drawing from some of my ID experience I molded styrene to form the straps and braided leather over them. The result is a suspended dress   with some unique cut outs.  Because I molded the styrene the dress will hold its shape around the body but is still flexible enough to wear.

More pictures after the jump.

that's despicable

A female friend of mine was trying to decide on a Halloween costume and thought about being a minion from the movie Despicable Me.  She quickly dismissed the idea because she thought there wouldn't be a way to move around in a huge costume like that, not to mention the fact that it wouldn't look "cute".   Although she decided on a different costume, the question was now in my head; "How do you make a cute female minion costume?".   The sketch of what I came up with is above, colored version to come.

It breaks down like this: yellow long sleeve shirt, short overalls, black leather boots, "science lab" rubber gloves, and a yellow baseball cap with a minion eye and goggles on top.