As computing becomes more ubiquitous in our objects, designers need to be more aware of how to design meaningful interactions into electronically enhanced objects. At the University of Washington, a class of junior Interaction Design majors is exploring this question. These pages chronicle their efforts.

Friday, June 13, 2014

Getting started with 3D forms and plastics


Running the bandsaw and manipulating plastics are not core skills that we run into in IxD. so choosing the right plastic or method for getting the results you want can be a little daunting. As with most parts of design, your peers are one of your greatest assets. MAKE FRIENDS WITH THE ID KIDS. They will get you started and scaffold your way through the process. With this class, we learned that most things related to physical prototyping are possible and a lot more attainable than you may initially think. The vacuum form is an incredible tool that will produce a really high quality model in a relatively short period of time. When creating a model to vacuum form ove, Roy and I found that manually creating a model with modeling foam was the most efficient use of time. When it comes to plastics, we worked with Acrylic which turned out to be very temperamental. It cracks easy, has a very specific flash point when vacuum forming and is a pain to cut out. In our project, we settled on it for the transparent qualities and thickness. Doing it over again, I think we would have looked into other plastics that had similar qualities.

- Ian Fike and Roy Kim

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