Table of Contents
Assignment 2: Kristin's Tea Cup
Since I've spent time in Russia and love tea I wanted to create a model that would appeal to different groups of tea drinkers in Russia.
Description of design drivers / goals
- New Russian - For the young, hip, and completely capitalist club hopper in Moscow, I created a martini tea cup. The drivers are style, stability, and accommodating to hot liquid.
- Child - Originally I wanted a Saturn-inspired space-y cup, but the CAD creation of a wrap around handle like Saturn's ring proved too much for my new CAD skills. I still kept the original shape. The drivers are fun, few spills, and not necessarily hot liquid.
- Elderly - Originally I had a more Japanese-inspired, angular design, but it did not lend itself well to morphing into the other designs. Instead, I took my inspiration from a classic Russian glass for drinking a shot of wine, which older people commonly do, especially when the company is family, with both men and women. Drivers are traditional look, easy to grip, and hot liquid.
Logic diagram
CAD models
Here is a link to my model.
Parametric variations: Images
Here are some examples of what happens when I vary the parameters….
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Lessons learned
- First, CAD is hard!! I have no experience with this software and starting from scratch was difficult. Especially difficult was having to scale down my original designs because I made them too complicated in realtion to my lack of experience with the software.
- Thinking the “CAD” way: originally my designs were not all intended to morph into each other, so working on the parametrics concept was new; also, my designs had things rotating on different axes. I tried to do that on my own, but the model just got really really weird.
- Creativity needs planning
- Logic diagrams help, especially to make sure your paper design will model well into different configurations
Discussion
Help! when I try to upload my screen shots, after a really long time it says that upload is forbidden?
You are probably trying to upload large .BMP images. Try converting them to .jpg with an image app of some sort (Photoshop, Imageready, XnView, IrfanView, Gimp, etc)
A suggestion: Try downloading and using yEd to do your diagrams]]
Kristin,
I really appreciate (and empathize) with your CAD struggles. I feel like the design process could be much more freeing if the program were more drag/drop based and you could create a shape, form it and reform it, and then create parameters more intuitively. (CAD monkeys out there, I know these things are possible, but I stress the “intuitive” in said sentence). Anyway, I'd be curious to see sketches of your original designs because from what you're saying it seems like they'd be totally (and perhaps moderately easily) parameterizable with more CAD experience.
I must say though that I was impressed by the level of variation you were able to achieve using your parameters. The adjustments in the curve along the side of the cup have dramatic results that not only explore the needs and desires of your 3 consumers, but also explores and highlights the arbitrary attributes that we all as a society assign to different cups. (much like the way that different angles on glasses create looks that we universally or intuitively agree on as angry, school marmish, etc.). You've managed to do a study of the tea cup in which you create a martini tea cup, a wine-like tea cup, etc. all through parameters. Very cool. It's just very neat to see that such different designs (so different they invoke the notion of other types of beverages) can come from the formulas and relationships you created.
Would be great if you could post your logic diagram to the wiki as an image