Make Something to Sit On

Today's challenge was to create something to sit on. The added bonus of having it potentially count as a lab 2 got us all motivated to go hard and I quickly reunited with some friends from EDSGN 100H to complete the challenge.

I have to admit that I was intimidated by the task ahead of us. After seeing the chair Matt made using compliant mechanisms, we felt we had to make something that was not only functional, but also aesthetically pleasing. Early in the process, we had a lot of trouble communicating our ideas. Someone in the group would start to describe their idea while all of us would look at them blankly. Then, someone else would chime in that they understood what that person was talking about and suddenly it didn't matter that no one else knew what was going on. I found myself nodding along without really getting what someone's idea was. I initially thought sketching our ideas would be a solution to this issue, but I quickly learned that our group was not super good at sketching either. Once we got the actual wood in our hands it was easier to show the other group members what our ideas were, but I think going forward, we need to spend more time in the early part of the process making sure everyone knows what the idea we are considering actually is. If we understood what each of the other people was proposing, we might have been able to better build off each other's ideas and come to a better design idea.

Our chair!

After several ideas, we settled on a stool that was ridged on either side. We started making the chair, but again, communication issues made it difficult for multiple people to work at the same time since we still didn't all have a sense of what was going on. Stephen ended up doing most of the building work while the rest of us supported him by retrieving supplies or haggling with other teams to get more wood. While this system was probably more time-efficient, I think it went against the nature of the task and I think we would have gotten more out of the experience if we shared responsibilities while making the chair.

We finished the chair with 30 seconds to spare only to realize that it was really high off the ground, so that only someone as tall as Matt could sit in it. Also, because we included no back support, I doubt anyone would have decided to sit in it for very long. In this exercise, our group focused more on what we thought would be aesthetically interesting than what would be comfortable. In doing so, we made an object that was pretty uncomfortable. This leads me to my first takeaway: be careful when prototyping for one specific quality (in this case aesthetics) because you may sacrifice other more desirable qualities. Also, if we had conducted more user research, we might have learned how much we should value aesthetics over ergonomics.

Trying out the stool

My second takeaway was: there's value in building an interdisciplinary team. I immediately gravitated towards the engineering group because I had previously worked with (most) of them before and I figured we would have a better shot at getting the lab 2 credit if we worked together. But, the whole point of this class is that having different perspectives makes you a better designer. The members of our team all had depth in engineering, but not in architecture or art, which could have been helpful when designing this chair for aesthetics or comfort. Going forward, I plan to make more of an effort to get to know (and work with) the students in the other departments.