826 Michigan Window Robot

I can not believe I never posted the finished 826 Michigan robot! I just realized that my header image here at A plus D equals Me and my welcome image at my website, umich.edu/~petemh, both use the robot and I've never really shown him here! So, here goes!

Well it's pretty simple all together actually, the robot was made as an incandescent window dressing model to attract attention night and day to the 826 Michigan robot storefront. 826 Michigan is a "non-profit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6 to 18 with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write." After tutoring there a few times for CFC II, I did the robot as way to give back.

Why a robot? Well the original 826 tutoring location in San Fransisco had a clause in it's building lease that they needed to have a store front, so they put up a pirate supply store, kinda as a joke. Except now the store is very profitable and helps to drive the free tutoring programs for the kids. It is now a tradition for all 826 locations around the nation to have a store front, Michigan chose a robot supply store and called it Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair. How awesome is that for kids, get tutoring at the robot store! If you want to visit, it's here in Ann Arbor at 115 East Liberty Street a few blocks away from campus towards Main St.

826 Michigan Storefront

The robot himself (if it was a real robot, it would be programed to be a guy I've decided, a guy robot who waves hi!), was designed in Adobe Illustrator, and made out of 1/4" amber acrylic which was laser cut and then stacked and fastened together. His eyes light up when he is plugged in and his whole head glows! Which, of course, is awesome!





Hope you like him, it's one of my favorite things I've done at Michigan. I mean a light up robot? Please.

Thanks for reading!

myPod Docking Station

For Designer Bootcamp we're designing the standard, the everybody makes one at design school, the ubiquitous iPod dock. This is actually the second iPod thing I've designed, the other was a speaker dock back in mech. engineering (link is to some old concept sketches, the actual manufactured one sucked, my group knew nothing about design, they decided on some super boring design that didn't work). This one is much more interesting. I didn't have to rely on engineers!

I had a few criteria for myself on the dock

-easy access
-display iPod
-charge/sync iPod
-easily store ear buds
-keep the aesthetic of Apple and the iPod
-good design semantics (simple to understand how to use it)

My basic original idea. (out of many, we all had to have several concepts worked out).

The initial foam model, ear buds stored in lower compartment.

The iPod lays down over it all covering up the unsightly ear bud cords, just displaying the sleek lines of the iPod.

Prototype #1 was built with Rhino (the Mac beta! it works well) and Adobe Illustrator, then made with laser cut 1/4"MDF board stacked, spray painted, and then vacuum formed with clear polystyrene over it. The clear material really gives a beautiful shine on top of the red coat on the base.

I learned with the foam model that the ear buds need a deeper cavity to store them with out pushing up the iPod, so, I made it deeper and wider by cutting the back supports for the iPod body into pillars, acquired almost 1.5 square inches!

Of course, it's got syncing/charging ability!

The red color doesn't really hold the Apple aesthetic (unless you look back at those old colorful iMacs!). The next iteration will be white. Also, I want to round out those hard edges on the inside of the dock, give them a small radius as hard corners are rare on Apple products.
I'm also concerned with the bulk of dock, I'm going to look into slimming it down.

Up next, refinement of the current prototype #1.

Thanks for reading!

Laser Cutting 101

Yes, I've had lots of experience with the laser cutter before, but for Designer Bootcamp we're getting some more! Shaun wanted to see where we stood on our thinking in 3-d, so we made 4"x4" cubes and 4" diameter spheres on the laser cutter out of foam core. They had to fit together with friction. It was pretty fun actually, easy assignments are always appreciated!

I tried to make my cube feel like a building with a friction held pillar system.




My sphere, nothing to amazing really. It's a sphere!




We're working on iPod charging stations currently. I'll post my ideas on that soon.

Thanks for reading!

A couple of things first.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Were does the time go?

I haven't posted. Sorry. It's been a bit hectic this semester has (that sounded like Yoda).

When I get free time, I end up doing nothing, resting, not thinking (watching Battlestar Gallactica recently! I know, nerd. Bears, Beets, Battlestar Gallactica).

All I'm doing currently is taking a break from sketching my robot's nemisis. I'll take a picture later. (How many times have I said that?)

On a side note, I sketched dinosaurs and their bones in the Michigan Natural History Museum today. I loved it, felt like a kid again drawing T-Rex in my room. There was a little boy with his mom there who was super cute, he saw some underwater dinosaur and exclaimed, "Mom! It's like a dolphin, a shark, a shar...A DOLPHIN SHARK MOM! WOW!" I can only hope my kids like dinosaurs that much.

Anyway, I'm going to go back to work and leave you with this, take it for what you will, I liked it. It's from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.
Thanks for reading!