Finished Second Year!

So, I’ve just finished second year as you can guess from the title! I’ve definitely had a roller coaster of emotions and feelings of how this year has went throughout the year and various projects. I’ll talk about all of this throughout the post. I#m just going to be talking in a retrospective sense about what happened and how I feel about it all now.

Firstly we had our design for manufacture project, the premise of this was we had to pick a product to take apart, cad the internals and then design a new casing for those parts, all while aligning with a brand. So I chose a drill aligning with DeWalt. My mindset throughout the project went from this is great to what am I doing. I loved the sketching, I really did. I felt like I was developing skills and really happy with some of the stuff I was coming up with and then it came to cading the actual thing I hated it. Now I like cad usually, I’d even go so far as to say its my favourite part of design, along with rendering. But I hated this, I didn’t have the skills and it was really difficult. In the end I got it work but I’m really not that happy with it so its something I’ll be working on over summer.

The next project was my first project from the field module. I felt like this was really a break if anything and didn’t really feel like it was work. There was simply far less workload than we were usually used to, not that I’m complaining! I did a module called sustainable artisan. This was where I had to make a light made of green ash using the method of steam bending! The project was fun but I don’t believe that I learnt what I was meant to. I learnt a lot about the whole design process as Huw (a designer maker lecturer) was talking about how the design process really doesnt have to be perfect and its really what you make of it and its just about doing what works for you in order to get a good final solution.

My next and last field module I did Just Do It, a project where you have to design a product or experience to help new students. My group designed a Kiosk and an app to go with it. First off I learnt some things from our graphics student about Adobe XD which is a program to make prototype apps. Overall though it was once again a large learning experience to do with the design process after numerous conversations with the lecturer about things working and not working for me, which was just really reassuring to hear that thats totally normal.

The last major aspect of the year I want to touch on is our BSc project, we had to design a mars rover. Firstly I was really struggling with anything technical at all, this being code, maths, physics, all of it to be honest. But after some time of going back to my a level notes and text books I was slowly getting back into it and as for the code it was just a slow process of asking my dad for help every five minutes. Overall though the project was really useful and enjoyable. My group intend on making the project a reality soon once all of the covid situation blows over.

Overall, these are the big things that come to mind of this year! I’m yet to decide truly whether I enjoyed the year or not but I have found some direction I think I want to go towards. And that is rendering. I really want to improve and develop my visualisation skills over the summer!

Professional Practises Part 3

Wooo getting close to finishing! The portfolio is done just doing all the finishing touches and collating everything now and have a couple of little things like videos and presentations to do. Super excited for this all to be over and feeling really confident with this portfolio compared to last year, overall I’m happy with the portfolio and how the years gone!

Mars Rover Part 3

Due to the whole covid situation we kind of just stopped working on this so this is the first update in a while. We’re pulling out all the stops at the moment and have nearly finished, just had a mad rush and haven’t really had the time for the blog. The renders are done, code is done and simulations are done!

The maths did come back in the end after spending ages with lots of help trying to find the centre of mass of some components and the code also came back to me which was really fun. I’m just a bit gutted that we couldn;t make a functional prototype in the end but I think my group plan on doing this over the summer and next year anyway.

The final render is below:

I really used this to challenge myself to make an exterior to render which I’ve never really done. I’ve always done interiors but I think this has worked out really well in the end though I do still want to do a bunch of touch ups!

Just finishing it all up now and writing the tech report. Its all just dragging on right now and really cant wait for all my projects to be over right now and just have a summer break. It just all super frustrating at this point but it does all seem to be moving quite fast. The teams work is looking really good just hoping we get graded well!

Mars Rover Part 2

Just checking in. its going well! The maths is really frustrating me! I think its because I’ve forgotten everything from when I was doing maths and physics in school and I just cant remember my techniques at solving things at all. Teksin also thinks in a very different way to me so I really struggle to understand her methods of maths and physics, I’m sure it’ll come back eventually though!

The code is the same issue, I cant remember anything of it because of the gap with field. I really enjoy electronics though so cant wait for that stuff!

Mars Rover Part 1

Mars rover. Feels like that’s way too much at the moment, but given all the lectures we have planned and have done so far it should be okay. Though saying that, even though I did A-Level physics and maths I still don’t understand any of this even though I’ve already done it before which is super frustrating. The code is slowly coming back, like I understand it but am struggling to be able to write it, I’m happy with my group as we’re all friends and are totally happy to call each other out on work and stuff. We’re cracking on and have some ideas. Other than that there isn’t really much to talk about given the project hasn’t really gotten going.

Cant wait to properly get stuck into it.

Professional Practises! Part 2

Slap bang in the middle of it now! Its going well, just cracking on with all the other stuff at the moment and just trying to finish all the other projects to put into the portfolio! Stress is starting to kick in! Just need to fill it all up, below is my front cover:

Really like this cover in contrast to my black and white one I had last year, really feeling playful with the whole thing and I think it all turned out super well!

Professional Practises! Part 1

Here it is again! Its the time of year we do portfolios and all that. This year I somewhat wanted to stick to my simplistic style from last year but try to give it a lot more colour as that was a criticism that I got last year. I’m also having a lot of help as I know many people who do graphics to teach me tips and tricks on InDesign to make it neater and simply make it better. In comparison to last year where I did it on power point it should be much better> I’m just trying to bash out the basic layout before I get stuck into my mars rover project just so I can entirely focus on that for a few weeks to finish it.

Just Do It! Part 3

Just finished this project! So happy that its finally done, overall I really like the project and feel like I’ve learnt quite a bit from it. Mainly to do with group work and my design process or lack thereof. I’ve really found, over the last two projects, that I don’t really have a structure and I really like that! It lets me flow in and out of ideas without being too focused or sucked into any bits of it. I had quite a few talks with Claire about this and it was quite reassuring because she kept saying that that’s normal that things do and don’t work for different people and that’s something we need to learn over our whole careers! She also reiterated something that I heard in the first field module which was that uni is our time to fail, or learn in specific which is true and I had been kind of neglecting and really want to concentrate on learning new stuff. Overall, great project!

Just Do It! Part 2

Just coming back to check in with this! Since the last post the only change is that I’ve realised group work can be such a pain, with team members not showing up which just ups the load on everyone else, other than that we’re still keeping up with it all and cracking on! What I’ve learnt from this is to do with work distribution and specifically what work you give to who, we had some issues with giving people some tasks that because they simply never showed up obviously didn’t do the work which screwed us. Just just a lesson, be careful who you give work to.

Just Do It! Part 1

This is the second module working with other courses called field, in this project called “Just Do It!” we were tasked with designing a service or product to aid new, first year students. We went with a kiosk that helps students with general information and way finding which comes with a software side developed by our graphics student. So far the projects going well! I’m enjoying the focus on service design which is something we’ve never done before! The only thing I’ve learnt so far is that I, unconditionally hate sticky notes, jokes aside, its been useful continuing from Sustainable artisan which has really confirmed that I struggle having a structured design process. I work far better when I don’t have a structure to follow! However, this comes with a caveat that there are certain processes like journey maps that I used and really liked and will be using in the future.