Priyank Sagar |Autodesk India Design Challenge | January 1, 2017

Hoverboard bag PROJECT ABSTRACT

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Introduction

Everyday college students commute intensively within the college campus and

there’s no ideal solution for everyone as such. In this project I try to understand

students’ needs, their visual language and assume technological advancements

that’ll be available by year 2025. I try to incorporate all these aspects together to

develop a personal mobility solution that competes with the technology but is a

product that goes with students’ visual language at the same time.

Design Process

CREATING A PLATFORM

So I decided that I’ll build up on something that follows language of Aston Martin’s V8 series (just

because I like it). I’ll take it as a base for my form factor. So to understand the language of Aston

Martin’s V8 series, I made several sketches of various such cars; saw how they evolved over decades;

noted down what all is common in every car.

Why sketch? Because it helped me with in-depth observation of the car.

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DECIPHER THE SKETCHES

There were many elements that were common to all models. Whereas there were ones unique to

model too. I decided to pick few common features:

The curvy rear of roof.

The side vent.

And the kind-of-oval Headlights.

USER RESEARCH

Further, I used various methods to find out exact needs of the user group (here being students of

IIT Bombay).

Surveys

I conducted surveys on approx. 50 students. The methods were: devising a questionnaire that

points towards exact thing I needed to find out. For example, to find out the color preference I

showed them color swatches instead of asking color verbally because same color verbally may have

different shades for me and user.

Observation

Simply observing the user helped a lot.

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Casual chats

Simply talking to the users gave a lot of insights since they became quite frank and point out

towards problems more openly.

Making student image board

Then I made an image board that describes the target user group. Plus I took a note of the way of

talking in campus: The IITB lingo

Arbit – (dim. of arbitrary) means nothing in specific and everything in general. e.g. arbit

grades (as in labs), arbit babes (as in IIT), arbit fundaes (as in all of you). Bunk – (orig. lectures) Cut lectures and do what you would have done in the first place….crash! Cogging – (1) Exercise of the neck causing eyestrain (2) Replication of any old ghoda’s assignment. Cracku – What every IITian aspires to be, maybe in the next semester! Daya – the word itself is self-explanatory!!! Despo – (dim. Of desperate) Situation in which the Al is with respect to grub, babes, money, everything. Fart – any comment, not even vaguely related to the point of discussion. Fukka/Furra – A major accomplishment, especially as it is rather difficult in IIT. Give up – used in the sense give up hai tera or give up maar de meaning good for nothing and actually GIVE UP in real sense respectively. Grub – Euphemism for offal served in the mess. Huggoo – Antonym of cracku, in all respects. The ‘so near, yet so far’ case. Intro – A freshie’s inaugural address and he better make it long. Junta – Group of Al’s. Also plural of panchhi. Lab – Also a torture chamber equipped with modern technology. Lukhagiri – Any of the several delightful ways to waste time.Used more often than not to

avoid mugging. Major – (pronounced ‘may-jhur’) an adjective meaning big, as in ‘major cracku’. Muggoo – Synonymous with N.B.D.u, an accusation which every IITian stoutly denies. NBD – Nervous breakdown. A state that occurs before, during and after every quiz and test. Nightout – A one night stand, a last ditch effort to salvage the semester. Open notes – What helps the Xerox shops to mint money and gives the Prof. an excuse to set a tense paper. PAF- Performing Arts Festival. The annual cultural extravaganza in IIT. Panchhi – Individual form of junta. Park – Do nothing, wait for the end of the world. Poltu – A breed of netas in the insti. RG – (1) Any cracku or muggoo. (2) Any practitioner of closed door tactics. Schol – Stipend for Comfortable and Happy Overseas Life. Also variously spelt as ‘skoll’ and ‘scoll’, but that way it doesn’t mean anything. Scope – No way, nothing doing, go to hell. No scope! YP – Wonder why it’s called that. Zeneraal – The IITian way of saying ‘general’, Zenerally.

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Analyzing user research data

Benchmarking products

I looked up on internet for various well designed products, something other than a vehicle, so that

I’m able to understand exact features that user group likes.

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I showed them around 20 different visually appealing Bluetooth speakers, each of them having a

unique character. Then I asked them to pick up their favorite one and asked what did they like

about it. I also provided a list of adjectives that helped user pin point the characteristics they liked

in their favorite speaker.

Based on the data I collected I found out few major keywords that are preferred by students in a

products visual language. I will be using these keywords as main Building block for my design

language:

Simple

Minimal

Futuristic

Different

Further, based On IITians’ preference I made 2 different color palettes that will be preferred by

target user (these were based on favorite colors of 50 people).

IDEATION AND CONCEPTUALIZTAION

Then I moved on to making ideas and concepts based on what user likes and needs and assuming

technology that must be available by 2025.

I ended upon the idea of designing a hover board that can be attached to a bag (that

follows similar design language) and can be easily carried around anywhere (in

class, around campus etc.)

I used Autodesk Fusion 360 to make my concept and render it.

Following is a W.I.P. model of my idea:

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Challenges:

The technology part of it is something that I’m skeptical about. I hope something like a hover

board gets commercial soon. The technology part of my concept is hugely inspired from Lexus slide

project.