WEEK 1.
4/4.7.11/2017
INTRO.
After going to the Child Study Center, I decided to focus on the cubbies because of my interest in furniture design.
The problem with the cubbies was that the 3-5 year olds need help to reach the top part of the shelf. I spent the first week researching and sketching easily.
IDEA PITCH:
The first idea was to built a stool on the side of one of the cubbies and have a scissor-lift looking system so the stool can be lifted up and also to the left and right so that it would be for two cubbies.
The feedback/control would be that, after the children used it and properly put it back a LED on the front would light up.
Also a possible way to add mechanics to this design was (instead of using drawer rails,) to make the side of the stool in a gear tooth shape so it can slide against a gear. (Which I thought was unnecessary but very cool to make. just an idea. )
EXPLORATION:
BRAINSTORMING + FIRST SKETCHES.
FOAM-CORE PROTOTYPING:
Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos but I made a foam-core scale-down version of two of the unique foldable furniture idea that inspired me.
One of them was the drawing above with the three pieces of wood and string. I initially liked the idea because of how thin it can be folded to which would be easy to hang from the side of the cubbies and also because only wood and strings are used. However, the structure allowed the children to easily snap their fingers while unfolding it. Also, I couldn’t get the prototype to work smoothly as the photo and sketched were showing.
The second foam-core prototyping was with a origami structure. Which is this design.
It was satisfying to make and I liked the innovative design very much but it wasn’t exactly close to what the Child Study Center asked for and it was more like a personal exploration for foldable furniture. Another thing that would be difficult to figure out is how the hinges worked. And also making it out of wood would make it a lot heavy which isn’t ideal since it is for children to fold/unfold.
However I did spent time how it would work and thought about the actual scale and it was my initial idea.
DECISION:
At this point there were two options for me.
1. Make a foldable stool that could be hung on the side of the cubbies.
◯ Also can be used as a chair/stool for other purposes
◯ Less material and low cost would be needed
◯ Can make a simple/stylish well-designed furniture
× Not much efficiency because the children would need leave the cubby, go and grab the stool, and put it back
× What if many students need to use it at once?
△ If it’s foldable, will the children snap their fingers?
2.Built in a foldable stool within each cubby.
◯ Very useful and goes along with the initial idea that Tracy suggested
◯ Easier to plan out since I won’t be making a new furniture from zero
× Because it needs to be installed in each cubby, more work/cost if installed
Comparing the good◯ and bad×, I decided to go with the second idea, to design a foldable stool that can be installed in each of the cubby.
And then I had two options from here.
1. To make it one for each cubby and using a slide rail.
2. To make it one for two cubbies and using the scissor-lift system to go both left and right and upwards.
I ended up going with #1 because of 3 reasons.
1. The scissor-lift would take a lot of time to figure out the dimensions and I only had three weeks.
2. The scissor-lift system is usually used to go up and down and it may be easy to adjust in the vertical direction but not left and right at the same time and I was skeptical about whether it could hold weight from upwards when its built.
3. Are children good at sharing? Would that cause a problem?
I would have to end up choosing one of the two cubbies for installing and would it be fair to the children?
So at the end of week 1 and beginning of week 2, I decided to go with the sketch below. (The messy numbers are the measurements…)
