Art Class Results

As I mentioned in a previous post this summer I took 2 classes at MassArt for the first half of the summer - the first was Drawing for Designers, and the second was Introduction to Industrial Design.  I really enjoyed my drawing class as I learned a lot about how to communicate the ideas in my head and translate that into a drawing.  For the first few classes I lagged behind my classmates, but it finally clicked and I greatly improved from start to end.  Now I can quickly express my thoughts via drawings that are in perspective and not too skewed, which is a lot harder than I originally thought!  I learned the magic of proportions and line weight in bringing my sketches off the page.

For the first few classes I couldn't tell if my head hurt because my brain wasn't being used as rigorously as at MIT, or if it was because a different part of my brain was engaged.  In my other course, we learned about different manufacturing techniques to produce products, and had to produce 2 original designs - a container and a tape dispenser and go through the thumbnail sketch phase to the rendering phase to the model phase.  It was fun to create a finished product from start to finish.

For my container I created a ‘nerd’ case for young children who aspire to be scientists and engineers.  The case was in the shape of the great dome at MIT, the iconic building that hacks are placed upon, and the building I consider the heart of the institute.  To create the case I created a mold out of Medium Density Fiberboard, and on one side attached wooden pieces to resemble the MIT logo.  On the other side I attached skinnier wooden pieces to emulate the columns supporting the great dome.  The idea is that inside the case there are tools that would challenge the thinking skills and creativity of the child, abilities necessary to be successful at MIT.  There would also be pencils, slide rulers, protractors, etc thrown in there.  I then took a thin sheet of plastic, heated it up, and pushed my mold up into the soft plastic to get the desired shape.

 

For my tape dispenser, I was inspired by the greek mythological characters of Hydra and Cerberus.  Hydra is the multi-serpent-headed (usually 9 heads) creature, while Cerberus is the 3-headed dog. My tape dispense was a combination of both my inspirations.

As you can see, the tape rolls rest on the two outer necks, and encompasses the head of the middle neck. All three tape rolls are pulled toward the tail, and the tape can be cut by blades on the sides and top of the tail.

I also created a clay model of my design.