MIT / RISD Product Design and Development
RISD 2016
During my senior year at RISD I was able to participate in a joint MIT and RISD Product Design and Development course with the Sloan School of Business. Throughout the course we learned the methods and steps that are required to bring a product to market. Our teams’ task was to develop a product addressing the needs of people for disaster relief housing.
Collaborative sketching along with the team allowed us to come up with the human factor needs that could be addressed in our solution. Our product was meant to allow for the people within these communities to build onto each others structures and develop more variety in engagement.
The main feature in the 1/3 scaled prototype allowed for the vacuum formed tiles to attach to the PVC tube frames through a snapping hinge. Each hinge would be able to snap to the four corners of the PVC tubing frame on all four sides. Through the making process I was able to develop a mold that allowed for the plastic sheet to form over a piece of plugged tubing to create a solid connection that snuggly fit overtop of the PVC frame.
This video shows the assembly process of our disaster relief housing structure solution.
The structure that we built without any glue holding the PVC together was able to hold over 250lbs in sand bags. This was a real surprise for us and confirmed that there was a feasible path for future durable options for building.
During our final presentation we were able to show the work that we had done on our disaster relief housing solution, and receive feedback from the professors and industry stakeholders invited to the presentation.
