​P3 | APPLIANCES & DOMESTIC ROBOTS

OVERVIEW

This assignment will take students through the process of creating a
2-pt perspective grid to be used for designing a domestic appliance along
with developing corresponding/supporting orthographic views.

Today, robots are everywhere, from our domestic spaces to industrial applications, they are no longer only in heavy industry, but work along side us, from vacuums to lawn mowers, bar tenders, and more, the landscape is more diverse than ever.

Domestic Robots already exist, from Sony's robot dog to the Rumba vacuum, there is an enormous market about to emerge as the technologies become faster, smoother and more adaptable than ever. There are currently robot kitchen concepts, robots mixing cocktail drinks, robots that can perform aerial acrobatics for Hollywood stunts, robots that can do Parkour, Asimo from Honda, and the list goes on. Many are being geared for industry, healthcare, military, but we will focus on the domain of domestic space.

​TYPOLOGY

First, focus on a very specific task.

NO DISHWASHERS OR REFRIGERATORS, ETC.

Appliances which fit on the countertop, or things we use around the home are ideal, such as like mowing the lawn or vacuuming. Mundane routine tasks for which a simple 1-purpose assistant would be useful.

DO NOT TRY TO DESIGN SOMETHING THAT DOES EVERYTHING.

DO NOT BE ABSURD.

Styling Language

Students MUST have a specific design source for an AESTHETIC LANGUAGE inspiration, ie. an SR-71 Blackbird, a Sunflower, Steampunk, Retro Arte Nouveau, a SPECIFIC  architect's signature aesthetic language such as Zaha Hadid, etc. Print and mount on a separate 11 or 14x17" sheet of Bond paper a minimum of 6 - 5x7" (min.) images to use for styling cues.

Geometry

Your designs will need to incorporate and/or be based upon the basic primitive geometries: Cube/block, Spheres, Cylinder Vertical, Cylinder Horizontal, Pyramidal and Conicals.

​Brands

Some familiar DOMESTIC brands:

Alessi, Bella Dots, Black & Decker, Bodum, Bosch, Braun, Breville, Bunn, Cuisinart, DeLonghi, Gevalia, Hamilton Beach, Holstein, Kenmore, Keurig, KitchenAid, Krups, Lavazza, Melitta, Miele, Oxx Coffeeboxxx, Panasonic, Rowenta, Smeg, Sunbeam

Any domestic appliance brand would be a good place to start. Westinghouse, Alessi, Black & Decker, Bodum, Bosch, Braun, Cuisinart, Kenmore, KitchenAid, Miele, Panasonic, Smeg, Sunbeam, Dyson,

or robotic manufacturers currently such as Sony, Honda, Boston Dynamics,
or another you discover.

Students are not tasked with inventing the company, though you may invent a product name for your robot, such as "Asimo" for Honda. Be original.

This assignment may introduce students to Mech Design, though it is not required for all, only those interested.

Remember, you're the designer, not the technology inventor. Your job is to provide a look and feel, possibly a persona to the technology. Don't get lost in the woods. Have fun, explore!

 

A few more influential designers, with unique design styling:

• Michael Graves design
• Philippe Starck
• Kees van der Westen for Mistral
• Mark Newson
• Jasper Morrison
• Dieter Rams

​PROCESS / METHODOLOGY

All assignments depend on strong application of the following:

Base Construction System. 2-pt or 3-pt Perspective, or
3D Modeling Software (such as Sketchup) for Base underlay.

Details. Articulation of and Scale via the human figure.

Rendering Values. Various techniques include cross hatching in graphite, pen, and/or in marker,
rendering with color pencils, rendering with marker and pencils.

NOTE: Your development process should follow:

1. Exploratory Sketches >
2. Refinement Design >
3. Finished Presentational Work
   (includes Emotive or Persuasive Rendering)

 

​Exploratory and Analysis Sketching.
By drawing, you are thinking about a problem and considering as many possible solutions as possible while not jumping to first-thought solutions, which may be strong, or may be lame, but drawing helps to discover what you know, and don't know and can do more research and development of. Use drawing to better understand.​

​REFERENCES AND INSPIRATION

See

• Construction of 2-Pt Grids

• Materiality Matrix for material rendering inspiration

http://www.dezeen.com/tag/coffee/

Tesla charging snake prototype

Google Search

Entertainment design, Star Wars androids, BB-8, R2-D2, etc., Wall-E (2008), Chappie (2015), Robots (2005), Short Circuit (1986), Robot and Frank (2012), etc., many others

​DELIVERABLES

4 Sheets (11x17 or 14x17)

1 - Brand Identity & INSPIRATIONS sheet

1 - Exploratory sketches sheet. Pen ink.

1 - Orthographic, technical drawings, "unfolded" sheet. Ink pen, monochrome or minimal rendered only, preferred cross-hatch values in ink only.

1 - Emotive / Hero / Persuasive Rendering. Fully rendered

All layouts may be pulled together using Photoshop (or similar design layout program) or hand rendered and pasted up images directly

​

STUDENT LEARNING OBJECTIVES (SLOs)

Upon completion of this project, students will have learned:

1. To gain understanding of a perspective construction system,
2. Ability to use a system for form scale and relationships,
3. Introduce students to basic rendering principles,
4. Prepare students for composition

​

GRADING AND EVALUATION RUBRIC

The Syllabus Rubric will apply in assessment of the student's work product, presentation, and/or process.