This week, Robert introduced a project to me that I had actually been exposed to briefly in the GLHT201 course I took last fall: designing a new attachment mechanism for the headset assemblies for Pumani. Currently, the method is extremely simple and cost effective. The tubing is attached to a stockinette hat worn on the baby’s head using two safety pins and a rubber band on each side. Despite the simplicity of the supplies that are being used, utilizing this attachment can be complicated. The process is a little time consuming, and sharp safety pins could pose a slight concern. The method works well at the moment, but we are looking to find a method that is simpler and safer without compromising cost-effectiveness and useability. Therefore, I decided to do some research and looked at what other methods are currently being used for CPAP devices or any sort of headset-like system. Many of the attachments are quite similar to each other: clips, elastics, hook-and-loop, and even the same safety pin system that we are using now. I can’t tell you how exciting this was for me. I was finally able to apply the design process that I so enjoy to my work at 3SD! Starting from research, I then went on to find inspiration from general securing methods such as paper clips or clothing attachments to start ideation. I went through many, many sketch concepts and quickly evaluated them based on the criteria I mentioned above to find around 10 that I felt were worth moving forward with. I haven’t sketched in quite a while, so this was a really enjoyable refreshing exercise for me.
It was really interesting for me to be able to integrate the skills that I’d gathered from my year as an Industrial Design student into a engineering industry setting. Robert and I went through the ideas I’d come up with and narrowed the options down further for continued development. I expect next week I’ll be making sketch models and prototyping these concepts. I will also be choosing a few of them to model in SolidWorks. By Wednesday, I’ll be able to give a quick presentation on my idea: showing what it will look like (to scale and in detail) with my SolidWorks model, and showing the mechanism for how it works with my prototypes. I also came up with a “Bug List” for all the aspects of Pumani that I could see improvement in. For some of these, I could see myself being able to readily address them with some testing in the workshop upstairs. For the more complicated changes, I’ll be brainstorming and coming up with concepts the following week. Again, the creative design process is what I really love to do, and I’m so glad to begin working on potential improvements for the Pumani.
Outside of work, I visited the city of San Francisco this weekend! I walked to the bus station and took the public transport there. After some wandering, I of course found myself at the farmer’s market. My favorite part: free samples! The produce in California is incredibly fresh. I tried a strawberry and felt like I’ve never tasted real fruit before I arrived here…
