Product design

Inside Out: PDE Graduate Exhibition

The graduate show for the Product Design Engineering final year students (including me) is coming up later this year (early December, I believe) at a venue yet to be confirmed. Stay tuned - more details soon. Finally I'm getting out of here!

2006

This year I'm back at university undertaking my final year of Product Design Engineering and getting stuck into some decent projects. A number of these are currently commercially sensitive so you will have to wait to hear about these. A major project being undertaken this year is a sojourn into public transport design with a re-design of a tram for Melbourne, conducted through Alstom Ltd and Lab.3000.

For some eye candy, I've uploaded some images of recent projects undertaken, below:

Project 1

Construction systems

Requiring the development of a complex construction system from a small number of basic components, with repetition of the individual modules creating the complex structure. Modular systems had to be sourced from existing systems found in nature.

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Project 2

Folded furniture

Development of a functional piece of furniture from a single flat sheet of any material. The final product must have a viable manufacturing solution.

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Project 3

Lightrail Towards 2020

In association with Lab.3000 and Alstom Pty Ltd, this project was a statewide tertiary competition requiring the development of an exterior and interior solution for a tram for Melbourne in the year 2020. The tram design had to be able to mount to the existing Citadis model of tram rolling stock, developed by Alstom. This was a group project undertaken with group members Rani Zahl Urke and Nush Szafranski.

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2005

In 2005 I completed an 11 month placement at Catalyst Design Group in Richmond. This gave me great experience dealing predominantly with the initial stages of the product development process - being concept development and refinement. Having come academically from a more technical background (Product Design Engineering), it is an amazing opportunity for me to gain a broader perspective on the product development process. Specifically, my role at Catalyst included:

• Concept generation - freehand sketching and rendering;
• Concept refinement - detailed linework developed in Illustrator to give a more accurate representation of form;
• 3D Form studies - creating blue foam or Ureol mock-ups for internal review or client analysis;
• Modifications to SLA master parts (in preparation for silicon casting process);
• Engineering analysis of prototypes;

At present, Catalyst are developing a range of high-spec cycling and commuter bags and accessories for Cannondale Bicycle Corp, with these expected to be in stores within the US and Europe by July 2006.

Product Design Engineering Portfolio, 2004

This online portfolio gives insight into the design projects I have undertaken during the last two years of University. An A3 printable version is also available for download. This folio is also accessible at the top of this page in the main menu.