Category Archives: Sketches & Model-Making

Mobile phone dock with speakers: Part 2

Following this, I made some revisions to this rough model by drawing over photos taken of the model. This was helpful as it was easier for me as the sketch model helped me to visualize these changes in real life.

I thought about going with either a very rounded feel (by rounding out the corners of the base and beams), or a more angular, sharp feel, with the tips of the beams being slanted at an angle. I also decided to have the beams be wedged instead of pierced through after referencing actual boat docks.

 

 

 

 

I also decided to slope the latter part down, after looking at the ramps on boat docks above.

On to the making of my model!

I first cut the shapes using a template for both sides, and sanded it down with sandpaper blocks. I was really happy with how clean I managed to get right angle cuts, and took extra care with the sandpaper to make sure the surface was completely smooth. I made two of these bases, with one spare, because I still wanted to see whether longer or shorter beams would be better, and didn’t want to accidentally dent the foam when working with it.

 

I then decided to experiment with the lengths of the beams. I decided to go with the longer beams in the end because they just looked better. The picture on the left below has the longer beams, while the one on the right has the shorter beams.

 

The longer beams with the rejected shorter beams.

Then, I measured the distance of the beams apart from one another, adjusted some measurements, and got to marking the actual foam model base with it.

 

 

 

 

After that, there was a lot of filing down and cutting. I also found out during the review that I wasn’t actually supposed to use the yellow-handled tool for wood, it’s for foam (oops).

 

 

 

 

After I had pasted all the wood down, I had to decide on the width of the planks using ice-cream sticks of different widths. Purely by aesthetic, I decided to go with an in-between of the thick and thin ice cream sticks as neither were fully satisfactory to me. I also decided to make the spacing between them larger.

 

 

 

 

Finally, I decided to let the speakers go down the middle like a ramp.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Here’s the final model!

 

 

 

 

During the review, Ms Pari mentioned that I could have had the speakers go in between the planks so that the planks can maintain their integrity, and I agree! I did a mock-up of that to visualize how that could look like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall, I learned a lot about working with foam and wood, and how to sand effectively and well. I’m glad I got to work on my ideation and model-making skills ٩(◕‿◕。)۶

Mobile phone dock with speakers: Part 1

I started with by doing mind maps with associations to the words in the prompt. Then, I came up with more ideas through emotive keyword association and unrelated object association, which are two out of the four methods we learned previously in Week 3.  I also made some small icon-like sketches just based off things I like, like animals and mushrooms. Eventually, I decided on going with a mobile phone dock based off an actual boat dock, drawing a parallel to how charging your phone (energizing it) and letting it rest is akin to how boats make a pit stop at docks.

My ideation pages can be found here: Ideation

These are some interesting mobile phone docks I found beforehand. I really liked how sleek the first five phone docks here are, and I tried to emulate some of that in my ideation with emotive keyword association. I also really liked how warm the wood feels in the last four mobile docks, and wanted to use wood for my final piece.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the ideation, I tried to decide between the bed-like dock (for your phone to rest while you lay in bed and rest too, as most people charge their phones when they go to sleep), and the boat-like dock.I eventually went with the boat-dock idea because I realized that it had the same rest-for-your-phone connotation like the bed-dock too, on top of the the terrible pun (and also because I’m a sucker for bad puns).

On to making my first model!

I first cut out the “planks”, and then the beams, I sanded the  beams down to misshapen cylinders, too – I didn’t make them very well but I figured that I did not need to strive for complete perfection as this was just a “first draft”. The photos that are thumbnail sized have a smaller phone foam block for a relative size comparison to an actual phone.