4.7 Building Stuff

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From the course by University of Pennsylvania

Design: Creation of Artifacts in Society

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University of Pennsylvania

Design: Creation of Artifacts in Society

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This is a course aimed at making you a better designer. The course marries theory and practice, as both are valuable in improving design performance. Lectures and readings will lay out the fundamental concepts that underpin design as a human activity. Weekly design challenges test your ability to apply those ideas to solve real problems. The course is deliberately broad - spanning all domains of design, including architecture, graphics, services, apparel, engineered goods, and products. The emphasis of the course is the basic design process: define, explore, select, and refine. You, the student, bring to the course your particular interests and expertise related to, for instance, engineering, furniture, fashion, architecture, or products. In prior sessions of the course about half of the participants were novices and about half had prior professional design expertise. Both groups seem to benefit substantially from the course. All project work is evaluated by your peers -- and indeed, you will also be a peer reviewer. This format allows you to see an interesting collection of projects while getting useful feedback on your own project.

From the lesson

Week #4: Concept Selection and Prototyping

This module was created to help you understand the selection process so that you can choose one design for prototyping. You'll learn key techniques for evaluating your design concepts, including the selection matrix, and the scoring matrix. And once you've selected some designs, you will also learn the uses and value of prototyping. You'll explore how prototypes are used to answer questions, to communicate and to distinguish milestones in the design process, and you will also work through the prototyping process so you can begin building your own, which you will submit for peer review. By the end of this module, you'll have selected one or more design concepts for prototyping, built prototypes, and received feedback on them from your peers. You'll also get to see some of your peers' designs as well.

4.1 Intro to Concept Selection3:57

4.2 The Concept Selection Matrix12:31

4.3 The Concept Scoring Matrix4:21

4.3b Concept Testing12:19

4.4 Introduction to Prototyping6:12

4.5 Prototype Framework6:17

4.6 What are Prototypes Used For?9:18

4.7 Building Stuff5:20

4.8 Scoop Example - Making Prototypes7:38

4.9 Scoop Example - Testing Prototypes7:01

Meet the Instructors

Karl T. Ulrich
Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship and Innovation
The Wharton School

We're finally ready to get started actually building some stuff and trying

out some of these concepts that we've developed and selected.

And, I can't possibly cover specific prototyping techniques for all possible

domains. Those of you doing fashion apparel are

going to use sewing machines. Those of you working on software or going

to write code. Those of you designing websites might use PowerPoint to, to

create prototypes. But, I do want to say a few words about prototyping for products.

First thing I want to say is, be very careful, alright?

Even hand tools can be quite dangerous. I don't want anyone cutting themselves or

losing a finger, or poking out an eye, so be super careful.

So, make sure that you are wearing protective eye wear, then you're keep your

hands away from sharp objects, and then, you know what you're doing with tool that

you're using to make a prototype. The second thing that I want to say is

that while some of you are highly skilled at making things, and while skill is

certainly valuable and useful in product design, don't be afraid to, to dive in

and, and build prototypes even if you don't have relevant skill or expertise in

making things. It isn't that hard.

Your goal here is to learn and there's no reason not to just dive in and, and try to

build some things. I'm going to try to apply the discipline

here in showing you some prototypes of only using hand tools.

And so the tools that I'm going to use are, I've got a hammer,

I've got a, a metal clipper, a shear. I've got a box cutter or utility knife.

I have a little file, I have a screwdriver.

I have, what in the US is called a coping saw,

But it's a saw for cutting wood. And, those are the tools that I'm going to

try to, to use in, in creating these prototypes.

I guess I've got some sandpaper here, as well.

And, you don't need much more than that to make simple prototypes of most physical

goods. Let me also say that in terms of

materials, you want to make resourceful use of found objects, of things that you

have lying around or things that, that you can easily get for not much money.

So, for instance, I'm very interested in the, the notion of,

of a punching action for an ice cream scoop. And, I've got to thinking about

that and started to think about how I might prototype something like that and I

came up with the idea of using a tomato paste can as the, as the cylinder for, for

doing that punch in. I thought well maybe I can cut out a shape

out of that can. So, that is a very inexpensive product.

I even reused, I even saved the tomato paste to use in cooking.

So, for almost nothing, I've got a nice cylinder here that I can use in a

prototype. My older son is a baseball player.

We have a lot of broken baseball bats in our house so I took some baseball bats

because I thought these might make nice handles for an ice cream scoop, so I took

those objects. I had some sheet metal lying around.

Again, if you didn't have any pieces of metal, you could use a can to cut some,

cut some steel or aluminum out of, out of a can.

And then, I just have just some pieces of wood lying around that I figured I could

reuse or recycle in order to make some of the handles,

And so forth. So, found objects, simple hand tools, can get you quite a ways.

I guess the other thing to say about, about resourceful use of existing objects

is, It, it's, it's going to be hard in some

cases to replicate some of the complex geometries that you might need or want in

your prototype. And so, for example, in ice cream scoops that the whole scoop

shape recurs repeatedly in the concepts that we're looking at.

That's actually a pretty hard shape to make with hand tools, but there's no

reason I can't take this product that I paid about $four for and cut it up in

order to use it in my prototype that I'm using just to test an idea.

So, making clever or resourceful use of some existing products to adapt them to

one of your concept is totally fair. It's very common.

Finally, let me say that what I'm doing here is standard professional practice.

That is, just because it's hand tools found objects and done very simply,

doesn't mean its amateur. This is the way prime designers everywhere mock up or

experiment with fiscal goods. So, what we're doing in this course and my

emphasis here on simple approaches to prototyping is very standard practice.

Because your goal here is for you, as the designer, to be able to learn and explore

without incurring a lot of time or expense using professional or elaborate production

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