Trinity

Design manager

As the design manager of the Blockle Group, I am in charge of designing the shape, dimension, and color of blockles, ensuring that we make the best building blocks for the new generation.

Action plan

Why we chose TinkerCad?

Blockles are manufactured by 3D printers. We used TinkerCAD to build our 3D models because it is an easy-to-use design tool and it turns our idea into a CAD model for 3D printing. TinkerCAD allows us to export our models to STL file which can be used for 3D printing. Look at how we make our models in the videos below!

Try out TinkerCAD!

TinkerCAD tutorial for complete beginners

I made a YouTube video talking about how to make simple models using TinkerCAD. This video covers the basic operations and tools that a designer must know in order to build 3D models in TinkerCAD. In this video, I demonstrated the technical skills involved in model making such as navigating on the workplane, changing the view perspective, scaling the objects, moving the position of the objects, using keyboard shortcuts in TinkerCAD, using the grouping tool and changing objects into holes.

How I make our Blockes with TinkerCAD

In this tutorial, I demonstrated how to make one of our blockles using TinkerCAD. In addition to the tutorial for complete beginners, I demonstrated more advanced technical skills in this video. In a nutshell, I talked about how to change the unit of the workplane, how to utilize the group button and the hole button, how to align two or more objects to where I want, how to prepare the file for 3D printing, etc.

Design tinkercad tutorial script

Tutorial script

To make the tutorials for how to build the models in TinkerCAD, I wrote a script for both my videos which you can see on the left. To make my videos, I used iMovie to edit the screen recordings and then add voiceovers and background music for them. I exported my videos from iMovie and then uploaded them to YouTube so that there will be autogenerated subtitles on YouTube and auto translate for those who need it.

Using iMovie to edit the tutorials

I have been using iMovie to edit my videos for a long time, so I'm pretty familiar with all the tools in it, which allows me to make my tutorials more efficiently. Some technical skills I used when making my videos in iMovie include importing media, splitting clips, trimming clips, recording my voice, reducing background noise, editing the speed of the clips or recordings, adding titles/transitions, etc.

Making our commercial with iMovie

I also used iMovie to make our commercial video. I utilized the picture in picture feature in iMovie to overlap one picture on another screen, which I used to put our logo in the video. I used several types of title effects in the video to add animation to the texts.

Drawing with Procreate

For all of my drawings, I used a digital drawing app called Procreate.

Clipping layer is one of my favorite tools in Procreate because it references the drawn area on the layer below so that the selected layer is only displayed within this area. I often use clipping layers to add shadings.

How I draw my designs in Procreate

Procreate has many features that allow me to draw effectively. I had this digital drawing app downloaded on my iPad. With an Apple Pencil, I can start drawing my designs in Procreate, which I used to draw the schematic diagram of blockles, the packaging design, the logo and the finalized version of our blockles model. One very useful and important tool that helped me when I was drawing is the Drawing Guide (see picture above). When I turned on the Drawing Guide, there will be a 2D grid in the background, which makes drawing straight lines much more easier. Another technical skill worth mentioning is creating layers on the same drawing. I usually create an individual layer for the sketch, outline, color, shading, and annotations. This helps me to separate each layer so when I click on a specific layer, the edits I make there won't affect the drawings on the other layers. Sometimes, I also group several layers together to edit them all at once. Creating multiple layers lets me make changes and edit my design very efficiently.

If I am not satisfied with the colors I already drawn, I can select protect alpha lock. Once the layer is locked, I can only paint inside the area that already has paint on it. The transforming tools in Procreate comes in handy when I want to move my drawing or to change its shape.

More Procreate Tips

Using Canva to create our guidebook

I used Canva to design and create the guide book for our product. I also have lots of prior experience in using Canva. I used Canva because it is great for making customized graphic design without extensive photo editing knowledge. I chose a three-fold booklet template to start my design, and I started to import my own images to the booklet. I like how there's a feature called photo frame where you can drag and drop photos in the frames and then the photos will fit perfectly in the shape.

Reflection

How we made our product

Due to COVID, we had to make changes to our plans and learn to adapt to the COVID situation. Once we moved on to Criterion C, we took the 3D models we made and printed them out using the 3D printers at school. Because for the first few times we were not familiar with all the settings of 3D printer such as temperature controlling and changing the density and wall thickness of the models. Through trial and error, we figured out the optimal settings to print high-quality blocks, so we managed to print out our prototypes and a set of final product right before we switched to distant learning.

How we made our commercial for blockles together as a team

Joanna already filmed some videos of our product at back before when we were still at school, but we didn't record the talking for the commercial. And switching to distance learning means that we couldn't film it all at once but have to find a way out to combine our individual work together. Therefore, after we started having distance learning, we created a group chat on Instagram for us to discuss our design project and how our team would distribute our jobs. I suggested that since Rhys is the promotion manager, he could do voiceovers for the videos Joanna filmed, and I will do the editing. We all agreed to this plan, so Joanna sent me all the videos and pictures she took during the manufacturing process and a video of Rhys playing with the toys. Rhys recorded himself talking about the toys blockles. I imported the videos, images, and recordings into iMovie and I also looked for background music for the commercial. We all did our jobs and contributed to making the promotion video.

How we created our guidebook

We planned to print out 40 blocks in total, but unfortunately all of the 3D printers and materials we need were at school, and we could do nothing about it. However, we tried to make as many items as we could like we planned in Criterion B. Since I'm the design manager, I designed and created a guide book for our product using Canva. I put our logo, some pictures of my drawings, how the blocks are made using 3D printers, and how the blocks really look. We came up with activities for our learning manipulatives and brainstormed ideas for how we could do the commercial together.

Our strengths and weaknesses

I think that we all did well on our roles: I, as a design manager, drew our blocks and logo using Procreate, designed the guidebook for our product with Canva, building the models with TinkerCAD, did video editing for the commercial with iMovie, and designed the themes and colors of our website. Our greatest strength is that we were able to communicate effectively with each other and decide who will do what based on his/her role, and we were flexible in change. I think our weakness is that we didn't really follow our action plan to finish our product and this website. We kind of did all the stuff in the last few days, so I think we definitely need to work on our time management skills.

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