I want to spend a few minutes talking about prototypes and prototyping. I define prototype as an approximation of the artifact on one or more dimensions of interest. Prototypes are used throughout the design process. There isn't a specific prototyping phase, because prototyping is a tool that's used in problem definition, in exploration, in selecting a plan. So, Let me just illustrate with an example some of the ways in which prototypes are used over the course of the development of an artifact. Remember that I told you about the discovery of piveten pipe seen concept which occurred serendipitously when my seat post binder bolt broke while out riding my bicycle. I was out riding with this product which was existing artifact that I was trying out. I was excited about the possibility of a pivoting bike seat. And when I got home from that ride, I immediately began to create a prototype to test that basic concept. I took a, this was that prototype. I took the base from an existing bike seat. I attached it to a scooter wheel, which gave me a pivoting mechanism. I attached the scooter wheel with some screws to a piece of plywood. And then I took some foam rubber and some fabric, and stapled it to the bottom of the plywood. I then put some spring action in the seat using a piece of rubber tubing. I was actually able to ride this prototype for several days, long enough to verify that the basic approach had merit. My next prototype was something that I. That was about the right size, and that I thought would have the right dimensions for the, for what could eventually be a refined product. And, I made this out of a block of aluminum, that had two rails protruding from it, that could attach to an existing seat post clamp. And I made it so that I could attach different shapes of, of saddles. A foam profiles to the seat to try out which shape would work best. I was encouraged enough by that, that I decided that I need to answer the question of whether I was the only person out there, who thought this was an interesting idea so I made ten, what I would call, alpha prototypes, which were prototypes that I felt I could actually give out to some other people to try. And I made these out of, these were all custom designed parts for the purpose of the prototype. This was not, This was not a production intent design. So for instance you'll see that I. Built the seat structure out of. An assembly of glued together pieces of plywood that had been laser-cut. And. There's some short cuts for sure. For instance, the saddle material itself was a piece of fabric cut from an old wet suit that I had. Because I thought this nylon coated neoprene would make a good saddle material. Nevertheless, it was good enough that I was able to give ten of these Alpha prototypes out to my friends. And enough of them liked it that I was encouraged that maybe this could become a real product. . I designed the actual production intent artifact, and I then used a process called stereolithography to make a 3-dimensional model of the plastic parts. That I intended to eventually be injection molded. And those are shown here in this photograph. And 3D printing of which stereolithography is one example. Is a relatively inexpensive, quick way to make a plastic part from a computer model of a design. In order to verify that the basic geometry and function will, will work. So I, I, I made some. 3D. Printed parts. Tested those. And you'll note in that photograph also, that even the parts that I intended to be made of aluminum, I went ahead and, and printed in plastic, just so I could verify the geometry. That led to being confident enough, confident enough that I went ahead and spent the money to. Build an injection mold out of manufacturer, in order to actually make the, so called, tooling that's required to produce the artifact in higher volume. This was the first sample that came back from the manufacturer, and it was pretty good. It had two problems. One problem was that the adhesive, Didn't work very well. So, you can see I cut some holes here, in order to explore why the adhesive wasn't sticking and experiment with some other adhesives. I also didn't like the shiny staples here and so asked that those be changed to black. That then led to the final production product, shown here in its final packaging. The product I ended up calling NexRide. And it's always an amazing thing, a very exciting thing when you get the actual product in its finished packaging, ready to sell. So, if you look back here at what's happened, we had, let's see. One, two, three, four, five, six cycles, six iterations involving prototypes that got us from the initial concept through to a product available for sale.
