Tag: fieldtrip

Chen Yue & Matthew – Field Trip

In order to better develop the design for the pedal boat, we went to Sports Hub for a field trip to experience the ride.

Below is the image of the boat that we took, which allowed 2 people to pedal at the same time.  The shelter was very simple and it was still very bright and hot when in the boat.

^ Close-up photos of the pedal as well as a simple 3-way control of the direction. (L-left, straightforward, R-right)

v Two propellers at the bottom of the boat to move the boat forward. We were told not to pedal in reverse as it would harm the mechanism. 

There was a simple mechanism that allowed the user to move the seat forward and backward to find a comfortable distance.

We also tested on how the boat can make a U-turn and here is a video on it:

The boat wouldn’t be stuck but could turn even at a very close distance to the floating ball as long as we pedaled.

We also looked at the different platform on land and floating and considered what possible solutions could be used for our design.

Overall, what we concluded from this field trips are:

The boat moves at a very slow speed and it was quite exhausting to move around in the lake in sports hub and thus we felt that the size of nanyang lake is just nice for a casual and relaxing ride.

The boat could get stuck when moved near plants in the water therefore causing unnecessary trouble. This issue would be resolved if  the boats are tied to a pulley system on a fixed route.

The shelter needs to be more further developed so that it works better to shed the sunlight. The material needs to be more durable as well to withstand the weather. 

The pedal seat didn’t allow adjustment to the inclination of the seat and it could have provided better back rest.

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Besides, we also measured some dimensions of both the exterior and interior of the boats, which could be used in the following process when we go into detailing of our design.

We will develop our design based on observations made from the field trip and also implement an interactive feature into the boat system.

 

 

Trip to Harvey Norman

Observation from the field trip at Harvey Norman…

The first things we noticed were the pastel-color retro toasters and misers just like many posts by the class mentioned. There were quite some interesting details I noticed.

The Coffee Machine

Although the placing and removing of the bottle wasn’t easy and it felt a bit awkward, there was this nice little detail. The small black cover that could be closed. For Food related product, having a nice appearance was one thing, but to have consideration for hygiene was rather important.  This applied to especially for some products that look fabulous with details and gaps that ended up catching many remaining of the ingredient.  Therefore, I believe kitchen products were more function-based and then emotion.

 

Design Trends

As many of us noticed, there were actually many retro-looking products. They had the big radius the bulky form and very vibrant domain color. For example, the iron shown in the above image. It was modern technology concealed in the retro design, bringing back the nostalgic feel of an iron. Looking at it sorted reminded me of scenes I saw when I was kid and my mom was using a traditional iron.  This trend ,in my opinion, was driven mostly by emotion.

Another trend was pretty obvious through the Dyson products here. Thanks to the development of technology, designers were given more and more freedom to design the form of products. Creative and unconventional-looking products like the hair-dryer and the fan immediately caught our attention. They both have used magnets as a connection media to reduce unnecessary details. This is a cleaner and a LESS deisgn trend, a futuristic one in contrast to the one above.