PortfolioProduct Design Technology Industrial Placement 2015 - 16

Ying Yeung Cheung

This portfolio consists of the projects I have worked on during this industrial placement (2015 - 16). I have been working with two companies, both settled in the Incubator of the Bristol Robotics Lab at University of the West of England.

Mind Sketch is my placement company. It has a team of two, my manager and I. My manager takes the leading role and I have the supporting role. While working with this company I have led and participated in a number of projects, as follows:• Business Card Dispenser• Jonathon Simmons’ Kinetic Sculpture• Reach Robotics’ Display cube• Potato Masher• Smartbot• Bristol Model Project

I have also been working with OmniDynamics on its current product, Strooder, and helped with developing its projects as follows:• Strooder (Manufacturing)• Spooler• Re-Strooder

Project - CompletedDesign an interactive business card dispenser for Mind Sketch to display and use at events. The dispenser needs to show off the company’s value and brand and also be able to collect visitors’ business cards.

A set of planetary gears and an iris was used as the foundation of this design. By adding quirky structural supports to create the steampunk theme, this represents the company as technological, practical, quirky and precise. The user can sweep their hand over the dispenser to trigger the Arduino to move the gear via servos. Furthermore, the Arduino is programmed to safely stop the iris from closing if any object is dected by the light-gate. And has an automatic function of dispensing business cards when one is removed.

Role-I was the lead designer of this project, responsible for the designing, developing and making of the dispenser.

Reflection / Achievement-It was a very interesting experience designing gears with the advice from my manager. Programming an Arduino was very challenging due to the number of sensors were used for safety measures. Also tolerance issues such as material thickness, component alignment and edge profiles are troublesome but are able to overcome with practical skills (wood working) and time.

Business Card Dispenser

Potato Masher

Project - OngoingTo design an easy clean potato masher to be taken to Kickstarter for crowdfunding. The project is a means of marketing for Mind Sketch and a good experience for their intern. The potato masher is intended to be playful and have a friendly appearence, encouraging the user to display it when not in use.

Role-I am the lead designer of this project. Whilst my manager provided guidance on the development on the project. Additionally, I am also in charge of the marketing side of the potato masher which includes producing marketing contents such as renders and collecting contact lists

Reflection / Achievement-The project was originally planned to launch the crowdfunding campaign between January and March 2016 but due to the number of projects and contracts Mind Sketch have assigned to, this potato masher project has been delayed. This project was very different to any other projects I completed in the past because it includes crowdfunding and marketing which I have never came across before. Spending time researching for marketing strategies and methods have taught the me the importance of online marketing for Mind Sketch.

Project - CompletedOmniDynamics is now setting up their product, Strooder, for manufacturing. They are manufacturing 50 units for the first batch and the process requires an assembly instruction document to show the workers in the manufacturer (iPRO Solution) regarding the step by step of the assembly. This project also requires visits to the manufacturer to help them understand the assembly and requirments.

Role-I was responsible for producing the assembly instruction and took part in visiting the manufacturer. I helped the company by on making the assembly more efficient in order to save money.

Reflection / Achievement- It was difficult to produce an assembly instruction because it has to be very detailed to minimise any error, especially when recording the wiring to the PCB, however, reverse engineering a Strooder can help in understanding the assembly process.The visit to the manufacturer was an eye opening experience, I saw and experienced the process of manufacturing a product. There were a number of issues raised regarding the assembly time and laser cutting and material costs. The company is now considering producing Strooder using sheet metal to lower the costs, nevertheless, there are other factors to consider such as user experience and safety regulations.

Strooder (Manufacturing)

Spooler

Project - OngoingSpooler is one of OmniDynamics’ project that is currently in development. Spooler is a automated filament winder to roll a neat spool of filament alongside Strooder. The Spooler can be divided into 3 sections listed in the following. The brake beams are to measure the “droop” of the filament to know if the motor is running too fast or too slow. The cooling system is there to cool down the hot filament from Strooder and is then pulled by the tensioning system to fill a neat spool.

Role-I am the lead designer of the latest version of Spooler. I had to enhance some of the existing designs, experiment with different cooling systems and different tensioning systems to develop a reliable product.

Reflection / Achievement-There were a number of people working on the Spooler before I picked up the project therefore I could reuse most of the existing design to develop the latest version of Spooler. I was able to undertake experiments to create both a cooling and tensioning system using copper tubes as rollers, I used multiple rollers, sliding filament around them to create tension, also copper acts as heat sink to cool the hot filament. Having the rods set at different height varied the tension for different materials. The project was fun and very experimental.

Project - OngoingThis project is a collaboration of four individual companies in the incubator of BRL. The plan is to use the Drones from DroneX to scan the Bristol city; the data collected will be processed by Altitude Technology for 3D printing and projection. OmniDynamics will be managing the websit and supplying the 3D printing filament. Mind Sketch is managing and setting up the display exhibition. The project is currently at the stage of applying for funding and an exhibition will be staged at the final year show in R-block at UWE to show the idea and model, in which they will be displaying the R-block building itself.

Role-My role for this project so far has been mainly to creating the exhibition setup in Solidworks and produce digital renders to help visualise the exhibition in R-block. However, I am also involved in splitting the CAD files and processing them for 3D printing.

Reflection / Achievement-This project has been growing for the past month; people from different fields are getting involved in this project including: architecturers, projection mapping engineers and researchers. This project allows me to see the collaboration between different companies, not only we are assigned different roles, but we are also supportingeach pther when callenges occure

Bristol Model Project