For this project, my classmates and I were challenged to redesign the way we store x-acto knives better in the engineering and design lab. A cafeteria plastic cup was not/ is not the safest way to store x-acto knives, so we were put up into groups of two’s and three’s. Each group was challenged to make a new, unique, and sustainable design to store x-acto knives in the lab.

Process

I was paired up with Dyre (there will be a link to her portfolio below), together we brainstormed ideas about how we wanted our design to look. After discussing various shapes and designs we finally came up with an idea; it consisted of a small rectangular box with two different levels. The top-level would have four holes the same diameter of the x-acto knives, the second layer would have a small rectangular cut out that was the same width of the blade of the x-acto knives. After brainstorming we moved on to prototyping, we started by making a series of files in illustrator and using the website maker case to make our box. After we finished making our files, we jumped on the laser cutter to test out our idea, this is where we ran into a few problems. We realized that the box was too big, and some of the dimensions were not exact, from this first prototype we realized that if we made our design smaller we would be saving material. We also came up with a new way to incorporate each level without using excessive amounts of wood glue by rastering two parallel lines on the two larger sides of the four sides of the box. By rastering out four rectangles on the two sides it created small indents/ ports for the two different levels to slide into.

For our second prototype, we used a recycled piece of wood to cut out our improved files and new idea. After cutting out our design a second time we realized that our design would work better if we made the two levels unison rather than having the top level have circles and the second level having a rectangular slot for the blades. Instead, we decided to use circles for both levels. Another problem we faced while making our second prototype was that the size of the rectangular rasters was exactly 3mm so the wood did not fit because both the port and the wood were the same size.

For our third and last prototype, we fixed the problem this problem by making the rasters .5mm larger so that the wood fit flush in the ports and we also took out the second level with the slot and added four circles to match the top level. After making final adjustments the last step of the build process was to create a box on the website “Maker case” for the blade replacement box. After evaluating the finished product I realize that this project has helped me master the prototyping process.

Final Product

Cost & Manufacturing

Dyre and I decided that the final product would be open and free for the public to use: anyone would print out a file of the design and use it as they please (creative commons)

Link to Dyre's Portfolio: https://sites.google.com/view/dvizcarra-eng/design-it-better?authuser=1