Physical Computing - Inspiring Arduino Projects

If you're still wondering, what is Physical Computing? Piaz gives a good introduction for designers.

Inspiring Arduino Projects 
Bot Blows Really Big Bubbles - Bubbles!
Arduino Based Self tying automatics shoe laces - cool.
Secret knock-detecting workshop door
Tangible Controller for Angry Birds - Actually Play angry birds 
Glove-Mounted "Sonar" - Product design students often propose this kind of thing for blind people, lets make one.
Arduino-Controlled Bubble Bot - More bubbles 
Smoke Ring Text Generator Scrolls Vertical Marquees - Sending smoke signals
DIY Air quality monitoring
Arduino-Based Curtain Automation
Wave Simulator Draws Realtime Data from a Bouy
Many more projects at instructables 
Even More at the Arduino Playground

Arduino Robots, 3D Printers and Fabbers
Arduino-Based 2-Wheel Balance Bot - make a mini Segway  
Arduino based delta robot
DIWire Build Plans Available  
FischerTechnik Milling Machine - There are a lot of arduino based CNC routers David Henshal has made a Mantis 9 CNC router 
Piccolo, a Mini CNC Artbot

Arduino How To's 
Going from Schematic to Breadboard
ASK AN EDUCATOR – “How do I make things move with an Arduino?”

Physical Computing & Arduino links 2

Fashioning Technology
Wearable Technology Pintrest page

Introduction to Arduino Comic  - basics
Adafruit - How to make things move with an arduino useful
Piaz introduction to Physical Computing
To be continued...

Previous post on Physical Computing in design

Neil Gaiman Addresses the University of the Arts Class of 2012

Neil Gaiman Addresses the University of the Arts Class of 2012 from The University of the Arts (Phl) on Vimeo.

Neil Gaiman (sandman, Corroline, Stardust, Mirrormask etc) Gives an inspiring talk to Graduates on life, art and work.

Behind the Scenes Injection Molding

Open Beam - behind the scenes, gives a quick overview of the manufacture a new injection molded plastic part. This is what would be needed to realise many of your second year DFM projects. 
Open beam is a construction kit of parts aimed at the maker community, it successfully achieved Kickstarter funding  earlier this year.

John Cleese on Creativity

Former Monty Python, John Cleese explaining creativity and how to become more creative. Aimed primarily at a business audience, the background of his lecture is scientific, the guide based on his own experience. (35 minutes long, but worth it.)
Interesting stuff, plus play features heavily.

Prototyping: Thinking and Making with your Hands

An Interesting article over on Core77. It is part of the Rethinking design education Series, which is definately worth a look.

Industrial Design of Bicycle components SRAM red

Bicycledesign.net has a great post detailling the design and development of SRAM red 2012 high end bicycle components. Showing the prototypes, style guides and technical development.
Recommended reading for design students who want to see an example of the design process in the real world.

Physical Computing in Design - Examples

(Above video contains brief nudity at the end as part of a Fashion show so here's your NSFW warning.)
Last week a second year PDT student asked for example of Arduino and physical computing being used in "real" design projects.
Sketching in hardware an article on Core77 explains how it is changing design.
IDEO labs blog shows some of the stuff that top design consultancy IDEO have been playing with.
Nike + Fuelband - This could have been prototyped and the user interaction developed using Arduino and a PDT student could make that working prototype with arduino.
Prototype Tranformer dresses - above.
A working prototype sonar glove, to help the blind navigate instead of a walking stick.
An experimental prototype interface for CAD modelling.
Add touch screen to your prototype products.
Ride the current wave of wearable electronics.
Prototype the house of the future - this one opens curtains.
For more, look here - Partucularly the "top 40 arduino projects" post, than that hit up google for words like "arduino" and "product design" there are a lot out there, these are just a few that tickled my fancy .

Frequently held false beliefs in product design

A great post over on Product Design Notebook on commonly held falacies in Product Design and Engineering.

The Portfolio Handbook - UCID 2012

The UCID Class of 2012, created this excellent portfolio handbook with the goal of guiding first year students in the process of building their first portfolios. It's superuseful for all students and young designers for advice on putting their portfolios together.

We planned, wrote, and styled the book over the course a 10-week summer quarter. It captures all the knowledge we've learned over the years about creating portfolios. This was a great opportunity for us to give back to the program that has given so much to us as designers. We wanted to help strengthen our design community at DAAP and in the process we ended up creating something that we want to share with the broader design community.

Grab the PDF download, and make a donation $5 donation to their graduation show.

Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip - Get Better

It's relevent to today's crit.

You don't have to toe the line and just, float with the flotsam...
The system might fail you, but don't fail yourself, just...
get better.

OK, so Thou shalt Always kill is a better intro to the wicked lyrics of this duo, but I'm posting "get better", which is more relevent today.

Stereotypes of Design Students

Above image is from a tongue in cheak appraisal of 21 art school student types: Which Student are you? by Chuck Dillon.

Also worth a look is:
Classmate designertypes (and what you can learn from them)
part of the incredibly useful (for design students) Hack2School on Core77

Best Computer for Product Design Technology Students - Part 1 - Hardware

PDT and other technical Industrial Designers are effectively tied to microsoft Windows by Software packages, Solidworks, Rhino, and Algor. (Mac Rhino is in beta and has been for years, and solidworks have talked about a mac version, but don't expect it soon.) The combination of 3D CAD and Photoshot, means that we need fairly high end machines to work.

If I were currently working as a professional designer, I would have the PC below, and this is also what I would recommend for UWE PDT students. I've tried having a mac, but found that the software and hardware limitations of a mac, and the PITA of duel booting means that I've returned back to PC's.

Current Recommended Specs - 11/2011:
- Intel i5 or i7 processor (or equivalent)
- 4GB of Ram (or more)
- 500GB hard drive (preferably 1TB+)
- 500MB Dedicated Graphics Card (Preferably 1GB, NOT integrated graphics - 3D CAD needs a dedicated graphics card)
- Windows 7 - 64bit Operating system

Here are some machines that would do nicely:
15" Laptop - Something like this Acer-5750G, i7, 15.6" screen, 4GB Ram 1TB Harddrive.
22" or larger Desktop - Acer z5801 all in one, £830. 24" touch screen, i5, 4GB Ram, 1TB Hard drive, 1Gb dedicated graphics. (This one also has a TV tuner - perfect for Student room).

Don't buy bottom end machines and don't scrimp and save, I've done that before, and it's a false economy, it's probably got to last you 4 years. Buy a brand you've heard of, I currently favour Acer machines, our previous one lasted 7 years, a chepo machine died in 3 years.

Essential Additional Hardware:
- USB key 8Gb or 16GB Write your name on it, and save a text file on it with your name and contact details.
- External Harddrive for regular backup. If you have a laptop, then a large -1TB desk based external harddrive to back up everything. If you have a desktop you can get away with a smaller prtable hard dr to carry projects into work. 250Gb+.
- Mouse

Nice to have hardware:
A4 Scanner - the Canon LiDE range are ultra thin and well designed - Highly recommeded. Not essential though, as you can use the scanners in the department, or with good cross lighting, use a digital camera.
A3 Printer - I recommend Canon again - Pixma Range. Buy it in the second year.

PC's can be brilliant work horses but they need setting up (usually takes an evening), a little bit of management and they need monthly enema's to keep the performance snappy. Tune in for Part 2 - Software, how to Pimp your windows.

CCS Car Styling - Carl Olsen

Car Design at the college for creative studies 1987-2001.
As a study in form, Biomorphic, deconstructive, constructive, etc this is a really useful resource for design students. Although, some of them are starting to look dated, and his attitude (or perhaps the entire car industries attitude) to women looks very dated too.
Via Core77

Creative Britain in Reverse?

Making the case for more design and technology in the UK.
More info on the youtube page.
via Core77