Introduction

Since there are many different ways to hold things apart, I wanted to find some unique applications for the materials in the Low Fidelity Prototyping bin. Most of my brainstorming came through staring at the cart, seeing how I could attach pieces together, and what pieces fit well with other ones. Some of these examples illustrate the failures of pieces that did not fit well together, before I was able to find a successful solution. The next 5 solutions demonstrate the designs that I am most proud of, and could potentially have some practical use for future teams.

 

1. Straws held apart using holes in plastic flute.

This design is used if you desire equally spaced poles. The straws are placed in the holes of the flute, and secured with duct tape. This design is easily adjustable regarding the height of the poles, but is limited in the amount of spacing that can be used. Another option that had been explored was poking holes in foam blocks, which would allow for varying separation distances, but requires more precision.

2. Ping pong balls held apart using a cardboard sleeve.

 This design is used to hold two spherical balls a certain fixed distance apart. It uses cardboard rolled into a cylinder, secured by duct tape. The balls are also attached with duct tape. This distance can be adjusted based on the length of the cardboard and different balls can be used with different cylindrical diameters. This design required multiple attempts at finding the right width of cardboard that would fit the balls being used. This works well because it keeps the cardboard secure, but it might be less practical because the cardboard covers half the ball. A different design for holding balls apart can be seen in the next design.

3. Styrofoam balls held apart using K’Nex

This design uses K’Nex and foam balls to simulate holding spherical objects apart from one another. The benefit of this design is that it can be easily be extrapolated to cover multiple balls in 3D space. It was created by using a screwdriver to poke a hole in the foam ball, and then put the K’Nex into the foam ball. However, we are limited in the lengths and angles of K’Nex pieces when designing our pieces. I had originally tried to use straws, but the K’Nex sturdiness and adjustability in angles offered a better solution.

4. Clamp held open using string

This design went through multiple iterations, as I had struggled to find materials that were easy enough to keep open and strong enough to hold the sides apart. First, I had tried the larger binder clip with yarn, but the clip was too strong for the knots to hold. The small binder clip was still strong, and the small size prevented string or yarn to be effectively used. Duct tape worked decently, but did not stay stuck well, and didn’t keep it open very well. Lastly, we see the most effective design, a red clamp held open using string. It was difficult to hold the clamp open while tying the string, so I attached the clamp to the side of the table to keep it open, and tied it from there. This string could be cut to close the clamp, and could be tied tighter or looser to open or close the clamp.

5. Straws held parallel apart using paper clip

At first, I had tried using the red and white straws attached to the paper clip. However, these proved to be too large to effectively stay attached, so I transitioned to the thinner black straws. This design is useful because it can keep the two straws parallel to one another, at a fixed distance apart. The paper clip can twist, but it will return back to its original position. This can be useful for a self aligning mechanism that stays a fixed distance apart. The downside with this design is that it is not very adjustable, as the paper clip is a fixed size.