This week we worked on testing out a few ideas at the pool and then moving forward with what we wanted for the final design.

Since we test every Tuesday and Thursday and we had the day off on Monday for the 4th of July, we worked really hard on Friday of last week to work on the the two prototypes that we used to test out various positions and materials. Please see the post “Prototyping” for more details.

Using the pros of the Teton/Saddle design (Prototype #4) with the support and security of the mesh seat (Prototype #3) we created a fifth prototype that had a mesh seat in an upright position. See image below.

The advantages of this device was that it had the security of #3 and the vertical positioning of #4. Unfortunately the mesh seat we had been using had a wire around it which made shaping and positioning the mesh very hard. Luckily we had already ordered another mesh seat which allowed us to continue with the design. The blue mesh seat design (prototype #5) was a very rough prototype we made at the pool. We generally get our best prototyping done while at the pool because the water creates unique challenges that are hard to anticipate.

This is our rough prototype of the green mesh seat. For this prototype we also had other users use the device so we could get feedback on how the device operates from an outside point of view. The advantages of this design allows us to have a much more shaped device than the blue mesh. We also changed the shape of the PVC from a bar across the front to the U-Shaped design shown here. The advantage of that is that when in the device the user can see more and the user has no chance of hitting his or her head on the device.

This is a much more refined version of the current prototype. It has adjustable, sewn straps that allow us to cutomize the position on the device, which will allow for rapid prototyping.

Moving forward we only have a week and a half left of the internship. We are testing with other users next week and testing with the goal user the week after.