Freddy Charters - Industrial Design Portfolio 2020, Loughborough Design School

INDUST R I A L DESIGN P O R T FOLIO/ FREDDY C H A R T E R S / 2 0 1 8 /

HI, I’M FREDDY CHARTERS/

01/ SMART CITY APP/

02/ DIGITAL TOUCH EXPERIENCE/

03/ INJECTION MOULD/

04/ INTERNET OF THINGS/

05/ MERCHANDISE/

USER RESEARCH/

USER RESEARCH/

TIME MANAGEMENT/

SKETCH IDEATION/

GRAPHIC DESIGN/

WIREFRAMING/

UX DESIGN/

MANUFACTURE/

MODELMAKING/

FASHION DESIGN/

CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT/

EXPERIENCE PROTOTYPING/

TECHNICAL DRAWING/

CONCEPT GENERATION/

COMMUNICATION WITH SUPPLIERS

UX DESIGN/

BRANDING/

TEAMWORK/

BRANDING/

PHOTOSHOP/

AXURE PROTOTYPING/

ILLUSTRATION/

BRAND RESEARCH/

PROBLEM SOLVING/

MARKET RESEARCH/

01/ SMART CITY APP/ Brief: Design and prototype a smartphone app that enhances the experience of Smart City living A combination of group research and concept identification as well as individual prototyping, development, testing and design.

Overall project duration: 10 weeks

RunSmart is a Smart City running app for students that wish to reduce the everyday obstacles of running in the city.

SMART CITY APP/

USER RESEARCH/ “I really struggle to decide running routes, often spending far too much time deciding one�

SMART CITY APP/

As a group, we came to the realisation that the technologies available within a smart city could enable a runner to be able to minimise the daily frustrations that come with urban life such as busyness of streets and the levels of pollution. Smart sensors in the cities can detect these levels and where they are highest in order to take a runner on a route more to their specific preferences. From this concept we split up to conduct individual research through various methods such as interviewing target users, conducting surveys and shadowing. We then collated our research to devise a realistic persona that would have a genuine need for our app.

Amy Farrier Age: 19 Bio-Med Student at Manchester university Home: Herefordshire

Persona: Amy Farrier

Amy wants: - A running route customised to her wants/needs.

- To feel safe and confident in the city.

- Quick and simple navigation through app.

- As little interaction with her phone during the run as possible.

WIREFRAMING/

SMART CITY APP/

FINAL SCREENS/

Axure RP Software allowed me to create a working prototype of this app that enables the user to transition between these screens easily. Feature fully interactive buttons, scrolls, swipes, sliders, typeboxes live maps and live videos to give a far better sense of reality to the concept. Follow the AxureShare link below to experience the RunSmart app. https://b4xvlm.axshare.com

SMART CITY APP/

02/ DIGITAL TOUCH EXPERIENCE/ Brief: Develop an innovative, future-facing digital product or service that enhances communication through touch in one of three sectors: personal relationships, leisure, or health and wellbeing.

Overall project duration: 2 weeks

USER RESEARCH/

Situation

Freddie Clark is a 20 year old full time student at Loughborough University. Whilst on his Gap year, he became a CSIA Level 2 qualified ski instructor (Canadian Ski Instructors Alliance) doing a full season in Canada’s Whistler Blackcomb Resort, the largest ski resort in North America. Home to over 8,000 acres of skiable area, it is common for children in ski schools to get lost from their group in this vast expanse of snow, especially when the slopes are very busy.

Research Process

The intention of this investigation was to examine how Freddie experienced being a skiing instructor and the difficulties he faced when it came to instructing children.

This was achieved by conducting an informal interview with Freddie. Having also previously been skiing with Freddie, I also have first hand experience his coaching style.

Pain Points

•Fearless and adventurous ski students who are overconfident because they have been skiing since they were very young.

•Constantly having to be turning back to check that the skiing students are close by.

•Having the fear of losing children from the group or a child falling and getting injured.

•What would the parents think if he had lost their child?

•Dealing with many different sizes of groups on a daily basis means it can be hard to remember how many children he is looking after when he stops to count them.

Task Goals

•He wants to give parents assurance of their child’s safety.

•He wants to be able to lead large group lessons with one instructor rather than two.

•Freddie also wants to be able to track wear he has previously taken particular groups to add more variety to there lessons.

•Wants to be alerted immediately when a child has fallen over or strays too far away from the group.

•He wants to be able to use the device or linked app to quickly contact other instructors in the vicinity of a lost child or rescue services in emergency situations.

Experience Goals

•Wants to have peace of mind knowing that the children he is instructing are safe.

•Freddie wants the parents to be satisfied with instruction.

•He wants the children to enjoy their time under his tuition.

•He wants a linked app that is easy to use to locate a child, should they go missing.

•He wants the device to be comfortable to wear.

DIGITAL TOUCH EXPERIENCE/

Having interviewed Freddie and researched the subject, it is evident that there is a problem and I intend to prototype a solution to this problem. For the children and parents benefits, the device will keep track of various stats such as their speed where they have been skiing using GPS. I will also exploit various digital touch technologies such as using haptic feedback warnings to tell the instructor when a child has been lost from the group as well as using bio-sensing to measure various features of the child’s body such as heart rate and core body temperature for the parents peace of mind.

“When teaching children to ski for the day, you’re not just their instructor, you’re also their guardian.”

EXPERIENCE PROTOTYPING/

DIGITAL TOUCH EXPERIENCE/

Haptic Feedback Testing For this experience prototyping session, I wanted to gain an insight into how the digital touch element of my product could improve the experience through Haptic Feedback in the form of vibrations. I was recreating the experience of skiing so made sure that Freddie was wearing imitation equipment such as the winter hat (Helmet), Goalkeeping gloves (Skiing Gloves) and a ski jacket. At the same time as my tests were being carried out, Freddie was also holding poles to replicate skiing poles and performing turns as though he were skiing down a mountain.

I first wanted to find out whereabouts on the body would be most sensitive to the feedback. To do this, I used the IPhones sound settings to simulate vibrations. By placing my phone on various areas on Freddie’s body suitable for an item of wearable technology and initiating the vibration on my phone. After which, I could ask Freddie whether he felt it and if so, how well he felt it and and comparing the different places to find out which area of the body was most responsive to the haptic feedback.

Position on Body Inside Hand Inner Wrist Outer Wrist Neck Ear Chest Ankle

Vibration Rating (/5) 4 3 2 4 (Audible) 5 (Audible) 2 1

Inside of hand - Tested without gloves on because if I were to produce a glove with haptic feedback it would have direct contact with the inside of the hand. Viable however, vibration could get confused with poles hitting the snow at the same time.

Inner Wrist - Measured with glove on to test if the vibrations were hampered by its presence. Workable, however not the strongest of vibration ratings.

Outer Wrist - To Establish where the most responsive area was on the wrist should I produce a watch for the final product. Too weak for a realistic solution.

Neck - performed on bare neck in case a buff style wearable technology would be more suitable. Suitability high although doubts over constant contact with skin.

Ear - Testing suitability of a vibration in the ear pad of a helmet. Most practical solution given Freddie’s feedback.

Chest - Vibrating underlayer tshirt option. Unviable due to low rating.

Ankle - Testing the viability of a ski boot with haptic feedback. Freddie made it clear to me that this would however be unviable due to the natural vibrations received from skis whilst skiing.

The second part of my prototyping for haptic feedback was based around different types of vibrations and how they affected Freddie’s response to the vibrations. I also wanted to work out a distinction between a vibration in response to a child getting lost from the group and a child falling over. The IPhone vibration settings allow for various types of vibration patterns as well as creating your own. I consulted and tested with Freddie to see which he thought would be most appropriate for each situation. His conclusion was that a rapid on and off vibration would be most noticeable and that he would probably be unlikely to decipher the differing vibrations whilst skiing and would need something else to be able to establish any difference for each situation.

From the feedback I was given by Freddie, It was clear that the ear was the best place to receive vibrations due to them being very disruptive and therefore far more noticeable. This would make it ideal in an emergency situation. As a result I decided to come up with a product that would provide warnings to the instructor through the ear. with this being the case I could also solve the problem of differentiating between a fall and losing a child through the medium of both audio and haptic feedback

Inside Hand

Outer Wrist

Chest

Inner Wrist

Ear

Neck

FINAL CONCEPT/

DIGITAL TOUCH EXPERIENCE/

Smart Ski School Safety Enhanced Through Digital touch.

The CARV Ski School Wristband is to be provided to each member of an instructor’s group. The wristband allows for real-time GPS tracking of each child by both parents and instructor through the connected app. For Parent’s peace of mind, the wristband’s in-built bio-sensing keeps track of their child’s heart rate and core body temperature. For the children’s entertainment, statistics such as top speed and distance covered are also recorded. All of this data can be montiored through the CARV app.

The CARV Removable Helmet Ear Pad features in-built vibration to provide ski instructors with this haptic feedback in response to a child skier falling over. Should a child be lost from the group, feedback will be provided in the form of a loud beep. With the ear being the part of the body most sensitive to vibration and sound, the CARV very clearly disrupts the attention of the instructor to make sure that they are aware of the potential danger to a child ski school student.

FINAL CONCEPT/

DIGITAL TOUCH EXPERIENC/

The Instructor assigns a number of wristbands to a particular group number for his upcoming group of children that he is teaching for the day using the CARV app.

The Instructor starts the lesson by putting a wristband on each child’s wrist. For younger groups, this operation can be performed by a parent before they go skiing for the day.

The child skier comes to a fork in the piste and having not seen where the instructor went, feeling panicked, the child turns the wrong way.

The Instructor receives feedfack in the form of loud beep in his ear warning him that the child has strayed too far from the group. He then receives a vibration in his ear to indicate that the child has also fallen. Not knowing the severity of the fall, the instructor is now on high alert and is feeling very worried for the child’s safety.

The Instructor checks that each wristband is connected by using the app to make them vibrate and going down the line of the group to feel whether they are vibrating. He assigns each wristband to a particular name so that child can easily be given their statistics throughout the day, as well as for the parents benefit.

Having realised that a child is missing and potentially injured, the instructor gets out his phone and checks the location of the wristband assigned to the missing child and tracks it through it’s integrated GPS. The instructor shares the child’s location with other instructors in the vacinity of the child.

The Instructor and parents now feel a lot more relieved knowing that the children are more likely to be safe. With this, the group begins to ski, however it is not too long before one skier is lagging behind the rest of the group.

The Instructor skis the group to the location of the tracked wristband to discover the child with another instructor from the ski school and thankfully, the child is safe and uninjured, the instructor and the child are relieved happy to be reunited with one another.

03/ INJECTION MOULD TOOL/ Brief: Design and develop a giveaway promotional ‘widget’ for a particular brand, which is suitable for injection moulding As a group, manufacture the finalised mould tool and inject polymer into it to create your widget.

Overall project duration: 12 weeks

Tyre Lever

INJECTION MOULD TOOL/

The injection moulding project began with the production of a development portfolio for my own widget design and correspronding mould tool. Upon completion of the indivual work, we collaborated as a group of six, and chose one mould tool that we felt was the most feasible to take on to manufacture as a final product. We chose the design shown below: A tyre lever designed for Deliveroo.

3D PRINTED RAPID PROTOTYPE/ INJECTION MOULD TOOL/

The 3D rapid prototype highlighted to us some minor issues that would need solving before continuing further with the project. We worked together to eliminate these issues to ensure that they would not crop up during the manufacturing stage.

We first constructed a CAD model of our widget and used polymer flow analysis to check whether the product form could be packed quickly and easily.

We then modelled the final assembly of cavities and inserts. From this we could produce engineering drawings of the mould halves and inserts which would assist us during manufacture.

Using HSM works within solidworks enabled us to slect the exact toolpath we would need to mill our mould cavity.

Once complete, we used the CNC milling machine, we carried out a series of blue foam ‘trial runs’ to make sure the toolpath we had created would do the job.

With a successful blue foam run we were able to move on to the final tool made from aluminium.

MANUFACTURING/

Once we had produced a finalised set of engineering drawings, we began work on the mould tool, we checked the CNC tool paths were correct by first prototyping with blue foam blocks. The final moulds were then CNC millled out of aluminium.

SURFACE GRINDING/

WATERJET CUTTING/

FINAL MOULD/

Inserts were manufactured through a combination of hand milling and filing, finished through surface grinding and held in the mould tool cavity with location pins that were turned on the centre lathe. A central donar part produced on the the waterjet cutter provided consistent wall thickness for the product reducing polymer shrinkage during the injection process.

CNC MILLING/

INJECTION MOULD TOOL/

HAND MILLING/

FINAL OUTCOME/

INJECTION MOULD TOOL/

CYCLE TIME

9.65

Fill Time: 0.96s Hold time: 2.87s Cool Time: 3.1s Opening Time: 0.9s Ejection Time: 0.54s Mould Close: 1.28s

SECONDS

We were also tasked with developing our mould tool for mass manufacture. For this we create a four widget mould block arrangement and proposed that inserts would be permenantly fixed to the mould tool and the donar part would be automatically inserted by robots at the start of the cycle.

3 MONTHS/ 160 HRS/WK/ 7,488,000 SECS/ 3,103,832 WIDGETS/

INJECTION MOULD TOOL/

04/ INTERNET OF THINGS/ Brief: Identify an opportunity for an IOT product for which the industrial design and app interface are dedicate to a clearly defined context. The opportunity may be base around current needs or projected up to five years into the future.

Overall project duration: 9 weeks

PROBLEM/ The complex chemistry of swimming pools and spas makes it very hard for users to know if the chemical balance is correct in their pool or spa and therefore whether the water is safe to enter.

Although test strips can be used, these are a time consuming solution to the problem and can be inaccurate due to human error matching up test strip colours. Test strips can also give no accurate measurement of how much chemical to add to the water which can lead to over-chlorination or pH inbalance in the opposite direction. This comes with its own set of problems. They also don’t give any indication as to how long to leave the chemicals to settle because they can’t tell how much chemical the user put in the water, therefore the user doesn’t know when it is safe to use. pHloat eliminates these issues by monitoring the water’s condition constantly, giving the user real-time information to allow them to spend more time in their pool or spa.

INTERNET OF THINGS/

“In 2012, nearly 5,000 people in the United States visited an emergency department for injuries from pool and spa chemicals, more than half of which were children and infants and more than a third happened at home.”

GREEN ALGAE STAINING PINK SLIME OVER-CHLORINATION BLACK ALGAE CHLORAMINES CLOUDY WATER PH INBALANCE ETCHING RUST BROWN WATER GREEN HAIR WATER MOULD CHLORINE DEMAND

FORM LANGUAGE/

INTERNET OF THINGS/

‘A design which is subtle yet stylish, elegantly floating on the water without disturbing the user.’

IDEATION/

After having loosely established a form and brand language, I started sketching, firstly doing thumbnail sketches, then gradually defining more details and features which developed into my final chosen concept. After having defined a final form, I could begin creating blue foam sketch models and evaluate them against my sketches and form board.

PROTOTYPING/

Having developed my initial concepts into a final design I quickly moved on to the modelling stage, producing a blue foam model to see whether the design would be viable in its 3D form.

I found that this model was slightly to small and I extended its length to make it more ergonomic for people to hold and would be more inkeeping with my original form board. I also felt that the longer form would make the product look more elegant, especially whilst floating on water. The body of the appearance model was made using ProLab which was finely sanded and primed before coating in layers of finishing coat. I am a keen model maker and loved the attention to detail that this project required.

PRIMING/

BLUE FOAM MODELLING/

PROLAB MODELLING/

HAND SANDING/

FINAL COATING/

FINAL PROTOTYPE/

The smart floating pH and chlorine monitor for domestic swimming pools and spas.

05/ MERCHANDISE/ As an elected committee member for my University Hall of residence, Towers Hall, my role as the ‘Stash’ Representative put me in charge of designing the hall’s branded clothing and official merchandise to be sold to the student residents for specific hall events as well general everyday use.

Time in Committee Position: 1 year

STASH FOR EVENTS/ The last wednesday of term for Towers Hall residents marks the annual Wednesday Wave-off, a day of fun and drinking before leaving for the summer holidays.

In 2017, as Stash Representative, I was tasked with designing the t-shirts for the event and outsourcing their production. The years prior to me being in the role, had seen some pretty uninspiring designs for this event, so I wished to change that and provide the students with a design that they would gladly carry on wearing after the event. The design went through many iterations due to having to work with committee to produce a good design whilst keeping costs low for the event.

MERCHANDISE/

FRESHERS STASH/ For Towers Hall Freshers 2017, we decided as a committee on the theme of Power Rangers, which of course had a play on words turning it into Tower Rangers. As Stash Rep I set about designing various merchandise for the event, coming up with T-shirt designs for freshers, Fresher Helpers and Committee Members as well as wristbands and drawstring bags. The Bags come in 6 different colours of blue, red, black, green, yellow and pink in order to keep up wth the theme and the various power ranger’s colours.

Overall, the stash was very well received by the students and my collection was given the highest score across all the halls of residence.

MERCHANDISE/

FRESHERS STASH/

MERCHANDISE/

EVERYDAY STASH/ For my winter 2018 stash collection I wanted to create designs that people would want to wear and would continue to wear. To do so, I carried out research through asking the residents of Towers Hall what they would type of clothing they would like. There was an overwhelming response of wanting comfort and simplicity, something that would represent Towers but not shout it out loud. In order to achieve what the students had asked for I utilised the white tiger, which has always been the animal of Towers to create the emblem shown. Ths design was applied to sweatshirts, hoodies, half-zip jumpers and joggers which achieved a record breaking number of sales.

MERCHANDISE/

ABOUT ME/

EXPERIENCE/ Design Related:

• 2018/19 - Design Intern at LEGO System A/S • 2017 - Towers Hall Stash Representative (Merchandise Designer) • 2017 - IBM Design Thinking Workshop • 2015 - Vax Ltd. Product Design Work Experience Week

General Work:

• Bar and Front of House Assistant, Mermaid Tavern, Herm Island • Shop Assistant, Hop Pocket Wine Company • Scotch Egg Packer, The Handmade Scotch Egg Company

I am a highly motivated and creative Final year student studying BA Industrial Design and Technology at Loughborough University and am seeking a 10 week professional placement commencing in the summer 2020.

When I am not designing I love getting involved in many sports including skiing, football, tennis and swimming. As well as sports, I enjoy travelling abroad, and creating art through various medias of painting, drawing and photography.

FREDDY CHARTERS/

EDUCATION/ Loughborough University: 2016 - Present: Industrial Design & Technology BA (Second Year 2:1)

The King’s School Worcester: 2006 - 2016: A-Level & GCSE Qualifications

SKILLS/ Physical:

Software:

User Research Problem Solving Teamwork Multi-media Prototyping Ideation & Creativity Sketching & Rendering Presenting Concepts and Ideas

Axure RP8 Photoshop CC Illustrator CC InDesign CC Sketchbook Pro Solidworks Keyshot Rendering Microsoft Office

THANK YOU/

a.m.c.charters-16@student.lboro.ac.uk fcharters@live.co.uk Linkedin: Freddy Charters