Week 6: Finalising the cart and planning the event

Designers: Ranga Bhave, Fangxue Chen, , Effy Liu, Parth Loliyania, Zhe Lou, Ava Shepherd, Kristen Sullivan, Jacob Tomes, Ella Wilson

This week was all go! In preparation for our event next week everyone began working on their own section of the project to ensure we would have time to finish everything.

Testing of co designing a pub sign

Effy and I decided to start the week off with finalising the plan for how we would encourage people to co design a pub sign. To do this we tested the two possible avenues we wanted to explore. The first was the idea that we create one large shield that people have the freedom to add to as they choose. The second was that everyone gets their own individual tile to decorate that will then piece back together to make one collective sign.

Classmates Sofia and May testing our two prototypes

When testing the prototypes we gave participants a prompt to 'design something with the idea of community in mind'. However apart from that there was no perimeters. They could use a variety of pens and stickers to create whatever they feel like community looks like to them.

Final image of prototype where people decorate one shield

After testing both prototypes, we realised that what we actually wanted to do was blend the two models together. People enjoyed being able to see what other people had already put onto the large shield and would often build on top of what others had already done. Which to us seemed to really capture the essense of community we were looking for!

However while people liked seeing others work and building on-top of it to make it cohesive, people also expressed that they did not want to ruin what others had done and would chose to create their designs in the surrounding empty spaces.

From this feedback we decided that our best approach would be to blend the two ideas together. Therefore for our final event we will create one large shield that people can co design with. However we will etch out mini squares on the shield so that people have their own designated area to design if they want, but are not limited to only that.

Making a decorative shield

This week, as the cart was becoming more real and near finalisation, we began to think of different ways we could decorate it and add our branding. One idea was to turn the shield design I made the other week into a real shield to go on top of the cart as a signifier.

Therefore later in the week I headed to the 3D Workshop and used the laser cutting machine to create a vinyl shield. I really enjoyed making this! I had very little experience with laser cutting and learning how to turn a digital image into something real was really exciting. While it took me a long time to create the appropriate files and calculate measurements etc it was a really great learning opportunity and taught me a lot about about how laser cutting works and the possibilities of what you can make.

Stages of putting the shield together

Helping to finish the cart

Finally when I had spare time during the week Effy and I would help Jacob with building the pub cart. By the end of the week when the structure was coming together we decided that the best idea would be to add small wheels to bottom of the cart for transportation purposes.

Building cart in 3D Workshop

Once the initial structure was build we were also able to start visualising how all the different elements were going to come together. This was really exciting as for the first time we were beginning to actually see all our hard work from the past semester turn into something real.

Reflection

Overall this was a really productive week and I feel really good about how our project is coming together. While I know the next week is going to be very busy organising our final event, it is nice that it is all finally coming together. The creation of the cart has pulled the whole idea together and given us the hope that what we have designed will be successful.

Additionally, I really enjoyed learning how to use the laser cutter this week. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed creating the shield and learning about how to set up the files etc. This is something I would like to explore again in the future and maybe use for my FMP.

Next week: Week 7: The final event!