When you hear the word tiling, you’re probably thinking of the tiles in your bathroom or kitchen. The combination of tiles and grout are often what is used to cover the surfaces you’re thinking of. For my low fidelity models, I tried to consider which materials would best act as tiles and which materials would best join those tiles, acting as similarly to grout. So, my first step was to just flush out some ideas in my sketchbook.Model 1: Mesh tiles connected by string

For this prototype, I cut out similar proportioned sheets of mesh and used string to stitch them together. While string is very different from the grout often used in tiling, it can still be used to link many tiles together to cover a surface. While my stitch work is another example of why I could never be premed, it got the job done, and I did it in such a way that if one wanted to add even more mesh tiles to the ones I laid out, he or she could.

 

 

Model 2: Paper Tiles connected by type

This was a relatively straightforward thing to prototype. I did my best to cut out congruent triangles from construction paper and used tape to connect them. If one did want to tile a low fidelity prototype, construction paper and tape would probably be the most efficient and convenient way to do it.

 

Model 3: Foam sticker tiles connected by legos

For this model, I cut rectangles out of a foam stickers and attached legos to the adhesive on the underside of the of the sticker so that they could be linked together. What I wanted to achieve was a model that represented tiles that could clip into one another, which would be one way to tile a surface without having to rely on something like grout. The legos on the back represent the feature of the tile that would allow for other tiles to be clipped in. (If I were to prototype a higher fidelity model of this kind of tiling I would make tiles that have indents and some sort of component similar to the lego that juts out just enough to snap into that indent.) Also, the string has nothing to do with the design of my prototype here. It is just a way to attach it to the cardboard so that you can see all the components.

 

 

 

Model 4: Foam block tiles connected by toothpicks

For this model, I took several foam blocks and cut squares from the ends in an effort to get as close to the same shape as possible. I then pushed 2 toothpicks into a side of a foam squares and slid another foam square onto those toothpicks to connect them. The blue foam and adjacent red squares have four toothpicks in them: two connecting them to each other and two connecting them to the other adjacent squares. I didn’t want to connect the adjacent green and red squares, just so that one can easily pull them out to see how the toothpicks are joining the tiles.

 

Model 5: Cardboard tiles connected by magnets

For this prototype, I cut five similarly shaped cardboard squares out and attached two thin magnet strips to the edges with tape. The magnets were a bit finicky to work with (and that likely has to do with the fact hat they are cut so thin), so I found the best way connect the cardboard tiles I had cut out and labeled them so that you can tell which are best to connect to with. In a higher fidelity model, or even just another low fidelity model with thicker tiles (so that the surface area of the magnet strip could be larger) or better magnets, this could be a very convenient way to tile a surface, as you wouldn’t have to deal with the mess that would come with an adhesive like grout. (Again the string is just a way to attach the prototype to the cardboard in a way that would allow one to see how the components are working.)