Activity Product Design: The Key Chain Flashlight Design Brief This is your starting point for the project The design brief will tell you what you need to and what the successful product (design solution) will be like Design and model a producible (can actually be made) flashlight that can be used as a key-chain It must incorporate one “ultra-bright” white LED and one AAA battery or coin battery The flashlight must have a push-switch that completes the circuit as long as the switch is pressed You will need to devise some means of holding both the LED and battery in position and design the switch Identify Stakeholders Identify the major stakeholders in the design and briefly explain what would satisfy each one Some of these are started for you Stakeholder Name 1: Consumer What this person looks for in a successful design Low cost, easy to use, fits well on key chain (others…) 2: Manufacturer Low cost to produce, consumer demand for product, profitability (others…) 3: Society Will not pollute environment (others…) 4: Retailer Project: Key-Chain Flashlight Name: Course: page 139 Activity Investigation & Research In this step you should try to find the answers to questions that will help you in your design work Questions that deal with the size and shape of standard parts that will be used in your design need to be asked In this case you will use an LED and a battery You should find specifications for these parts, or better yet, find the actual parts and measure them yourself Now you have a starting point Whatever you come up with in the way of a product must hold a battery These are some questions you need to ask What are some others? What is the size and shape of the battery that will be used in the flashlight? To answer this question you should measure actual batteries and sketch the dimensions below Sketch a AAA battery with accurate overall length and diameter Project: Key-Chain Flashlight Name: Sketch a coin battery with accurate thickness and diameter Course: page 140 Activity Investigation & Research - continued What is an LED and what I need to know about it to use it in my design? A An LED is a Light Emitting Diode, an electronic device that can give off plenty of light but use very little current It is important that it uses little current because a battery will last a long time when operating devices that have a small current “draw,” therefore, a battery will not require changing very often In fact some small flashlights that use LEDs not have any way to change the battery The flashlight is thrown away when it’s useful life is over Also, you should know that an LED will only work if the battery is connected to it in a certain way A battery has a positive and a negative terminal and an LED has a positive and a negative terminal The positive of the battery must be connected to the positive of the LED, and negative terminals must be connected together What reasons can you give for buying a product that is designed to be thrown away when its useful life is over? Project: Key-Chain Flashlight Name: Course: page 141 Activity Investigation & Research - continued What reasons can you give for buying a product that is designed so that it can be maintained by replacing the battery? What other design considerations should I think about before beginning the design of the product (safety, materials, durability, practicality, producibility, environmental impacts, etc.) Sketch an LED with accurate overall length and diameter and location of leads Project: Key-Chain Flashlight Name: Course: page 142 Activity Investigation & Research - continued What can I learn from existing flashlights about how these products are made and designed? You should look at a number of small flashlights and, if possible, take them apart and look inside For example, you would learn that larger flashlights are often designed so that cylinder-shaped batteries can be loaded in the front or back Flashlights of different shapes, or those that use smaller “coin” batteries use a different approach to loading a battery What else can you learn that would help in the design of your product? Use this space to sketch some of the flashlights you examine, including some of the details about how they are constructed, what kind of textures are used to prevent the product slipping out of your hand, what materials they are made of, etc Use annotations on your drawings to point out some of these details Project: Key-Chain Flashlight Name: Course: page 143 Activity Investigation & Research – continued Either use standard Pro/DESKTOP battery and LED files your teacher has given you or develop your own files for these components The components should be the same size as the ones you intend to use for your design You will need these parts for your final assembly Paste Pro/DESKTOP renderings of these parts on this page Project: Key-Chain Flashlight Name: Course: page 144 Activity Initial Design Ideas Sketch at least eight initial ideas for your flashlight design on this page Remember, the more ideas you have the better the chance that one of them will be a good one You should keep in mind the size and shape of the LED and the battery you have chosen Consider where the switch will be located but don’t worry about how it will work yet You may want to try out designs based on cylinders, flat shapes, geometric or organic shapes Project: Key-Chain Flashlight Name: Course: page 145 Activity Refine Your Design Idea Select one of the designs on the previous page and explain why you have chosen that design You might want to use terms that describe how it looks, how it might feel to hold that flashlight design, how handy it would be to use, etc On this page you will also refine your idea Using the design you have chosen, experiment (by sketching variations) with changing proportions until you come up with the best proportions you can You might want to start with the proportions of the “Golden Rectangle.” If you not know what a Golden Rectangle is, you might want to a quick Internet search for some clues Project: Key-Chain Flashlight Name: Course: page 146 Activity Refine Your Design Idea – continued Now you will need to figure out how the flashlight will hold the battery and LED You already know the sizes of these parts, so use them to adjust the size and shape of your flashlight It might be a good idea to disassemble a small flashlight (if available) to see how someone else solved this problem The LED doesn’t need a cover over it, so plan on making the top stick out of the flashlight You wouldn’t want the LED to disappear inside if someone pushed on it, so it will need to have a way to keep it from sliding in or out You might want to think in terms of a two-piece case for your design This would allow the flashlight to be assembled easily by placing the battery and LED in between small “tabs” that would keep everything in its place Remember to develop a way to fasten the two parts of the case together, such as screws or places that glue would be used to make a strong connection Project: Key-Chain Flashlight Name: Course: page 147 Activity Finalize Your Design On this page sketch out the final design you have developed, including any dimensions you want to remember, such as cavities to fit the battery Your sketch can be rough because the Pro/DESKTOP program helps you to present your ideas as high quality renderings You will refer to this page while designing in Pro/DESKTOP Project: Key-Chain Flashlight Name: Course: page 148 Activity Present Your Design On this page paste the printouts of the final Pro/DESKTOP design, including isometric or trimetric, top, side, and front views of the 3D design You may also want to present orthographic views from the Drawing part of Pro/DESKTOP to show how interior parts are made Project: Key-Chain Flashlight Name: Course: page 149 Activity Evaluate Your Design Write an evaluation of your design You should briefly discuss the strengths of your design and its weaknesses You should address things like: how it looks, how well it works as a key-chain, how well the battery and LED fit in the design and any other factors that are important for a successful key-chain flashlight design Make sure you refer to the Stakeholders you identified in the beginning of the project Strengths of the Design Weaknesses of the Design Project: Key-Chain Flashlight Name: Course: page 150