_ M1 Ideation

Design ideation can be seen as a matter of generating,developing and commu-nicating ideas, where ‘idea’ is un-derstood as a basic element of thought that

can be eithervisual, concrete or abstract.

- Ben Jonson, 2005

_ M1 Ideation_ Material system and Analytical Drawings

Plastic Bag

The material system that plasic bag related is the

inflate system. Inflate system is a system of which those ma-terials can be filled with some-thing to form another shape. For such materials, they must be elastic to bear with the inflation.

Most of the plastic bag are made of polyethylene,

which is a durable material but very un-environmental friendly. By carrying test to plastic bags, I found out that they are hard to transform their shape perma-nently, but easy for temporary. There are so much wrinkles on it, which shows the compression forces applied on it.

_ M1 Ideation_ Material system and Analytical Drawings As inflating system will change their

shape according to the object that inflates it, 3 distinct objects have been placed inside a plastic bag and the out-come will be analysed.

A Broken GlassActually there isn’t a particular

reason why this would be cho-sen, but just I have broken a glass while I am washing it. However, when I take a good look on it I found that the shape is quite interesting as it shows a surounding shape , like an egg shell. It may be useful for me to relate to the project - the second skin.

Yogurt cupYorget cup, I am choos-

ing it because its shape is quite easy to recognise, cylinder with a round-corner retangle. Its size is quite small comparing to (stand-ard) plastic bag, so the out-come is quite disappointed.

HangerThe third object is hanger. As

hanger also has a easily recog-nised shape, a triangle with a hook. Other than that, it is relatively the same size with the plastic bag, which means it would be nice to show the charactieristics of plastic bag by put-ting it in.

_ M1 Ideation_ Material system and Analytical Drawings

Broken glass - There is a good illustration of plastic bag, as the wrinkles on the plastic bag shows the shape

of the glass. This shows one property of inflatable system: when it is not inflated, it sticks to the object.

Yogurt - Another illustration of plastic bag. When I wrap it, it can be very compact in size, which can

further elaborate to, for example, a small size object sud-denly become big.

Hanger - A good example of how inflatable objects work. By putting a bigger shape object inside an

inflatable object, the outer shape of the inflatable object changes.

_ M1 Ideation_ Idea Development

As mentioned and tried before, there are 3 properties of an inflatable object: when it is not inflated, it sticks to the

object; when it is wraped, it can be very compact in size and; shape will follow the bigger object inside it.

To develope these properties, several illustrations should be done. But first of all, the way that how the inflated object

deal with air is very important, thus insteand of putting other objects inside the plastic bag, this time should more focused on how air will fill the plastic bag and the effect when its filled with air.

_ M1 Ideation_ Idea Development

First thing come to my mind about second skin is ‘protection’. As in some of movie with war theme, the army general always talks to

their soldiers, ‘Take care of your armor! They are your second skin! They will protect you from death!’, and from that, I have an idea of making a shield, as to protect from harm. The shield will go over the top of the body and gives you a lot of personal space, this will gives you personal space but would not affect the way you communicate with others.

As to manage to be more environmental friendly and easier for my-self to control the process, I have used a small scale for illustrations

instead of using the actual size. The outcome is quite nice, as it helps me to know what it actually looks like when it come to reality. But it seems a bit out comparing to the 3D model, maybe later on a full size model have to be done for more information.

In order to see what it looks like in 3D, a Rhino model was made to figure out how it looks. It seems that it is more like a rainbow than a

shield, but it sounds better to call it rainbow though, rainbow more like welcoming others to join in or communicate. Furthermore, a real object should be made to see what this design would look like in reality.

The shield

_ M1 Ideation_ Idea Development

Beside shield, what is classified as a second skin. How about a closer protection comparing to ‘the shield’? This elaborate to another de-

sign, ‘the spiral’. spiral is a shape made up of cueves, each one above or wider than the one before (Cambridge Dictionaries, 2013). Because of the characteristics of spiral, the bottom part would be far larger than the top part, it gives the person inside have a lot of person space.

Again, to manage to be more environmental friendly and easier for myself to control the process, I have used a small scale for illustra-

tions instead of using the actual size. The outcome this time not so good, it is hard to control the actual curve unless frame is added. But overall it gives me experience of how hard it is to make a curved inflatable object, and later on, it will be better on full size model.

In 3D model, the shape of spiral is more significant and clear than hand drawn model. It also shows that it takes a lot of space. On the

other hand, the fact that it cant actually stand by itself in reality unless it is filled with helium, or it is necessary to add some support.

The spiral

_ M1 Ideation_ Idea Development

Porcupine - I didn’t have a actual design of it, it is more like an idea. It is, when it is normal, it appears as a sphere, but when it is needed,

by compressing the sphere, spikes comes out. It uses the phenomenon of fluid, as to have the idea of transforming.

In 3D model, it is very hard to produce a proper design, as

there isn’t really a design come up. But I tried to illustrate how it is going to work. It is normally a block, or a normal shape with hidden spikes. When I compress the block, it shrinks and air flows into the spikes.

The Porcupine

_ M1 Ideation_ Idea Development The Porcupine

In real model, same problem also oc-curs that it is hard to produce such

transformable object, with just inflatable material itself. But attempting is the best way to learn. So a few tryouts have been made...

This is the first attempt. The fair bit pok-ing out is the spikes. It is quite hard to

make a small model as the spikes need space.

The second attempt looks better as I reduces the number of spikes to only

one spike, as I found out that it is hard to make several small spikes on a small model. However it is still very hard to seal the edges, so leakage occurs and this attempt failed.

The final attempt is quite successful, no leakage, transform well. but the

shape of the spike is not desireable. In conclusion, to achieve the design, more material system is needed, and will try out in the following week.

References

Cambridge dictionaries online 2013, Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom viewed 10 Aud 2013, < http://dictionary.cambridge.org/diction-ary/british/spiral_1?q=spiral>.Jonson, B 2005, ‘Design Ideation: the conceptual sketch in the digital age’, Dign Studies, Vol 26, No 6, pp 613–624.