VSCM 221 - Concept Generation!

As a refresher, we are designing an object to prolong the heat of coffee or tea so that the temperature lasts longer and doesn't get cold faster.

Since last week, as I was designated with the role of material research and had to start coming up with thumbnail designs, I decided to start my search in Home Depot. I checked out a lot of different metals and prices. I also checked out cooking thermometers that we could possibly use for the circuitry or wiring if we needed to go that route. After getting some ideas I got lost in the various rugs and kitchen appliance sections. Riveting stuff, I know.

(photo creds to Michael Doborski)

So below are my sketches and research notes that I had to send to my group! We are meeting later today to discuss the selection of materials and processes and overall design concept. 

Some major problems that our project inherently deals with that we have to keep in mind when thinking about materiality with this project: 

-heating

      -melting points of materials

      -construction (ie. possible wiring and circuitry, or 

-compactibility

-versatility of shapes and sizes of mugs

-reusability (must be easy to clean)

So here are my design thumbnails/roughs that offer a wide variety of different materials so that we could pick and choose which one we wanna go with. 

On a personal note: 

In this group of 5, being the only solely object design student and not being in the other class kinda sucks, I find myself quite isolated. As the other four are all in a class together and have their class time period to work, I am kinda left out. I am trying my best to keep up with everything but it is very difficult because there is that barrier and it seems that I have to compromise a lot more of my time outside of class just to make the same amount of effort as every one else. We are meeting face to face today so I will mention it to them then probably. 

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Okay so after the meeting we resolved the design problems! We came up with this design:....

Overall, it seems that I had a good handle on leading the meeting and we assigned roles and we are ready to start prototyping! Jon and I will get that done hopefully before class on friday and then we can start digitizing the processes.