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Industrial Design Hack Chat

Form follows function

Wednesday, September 8, 2021 12:00 pm PDT Local time zone:
Hack Chat
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Eric Strebel will host the Hack Chat on Wednesday, September 8 at noon Pacific.

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At Hackaday, we celebrate all kinds of hardware hacks, and we try not to judge based on appearance. After all, every product starts out on the breadboard, or as a prototype built with hot glue and tape. What's important is getting it to work, at least at first, But there comes a time when you've got to think about how to make your project look like something people want to use, how to position controls and displays in a logical and attractive way, and how to make sure your thing can actually be built.

Turning a project into a product is the job of an industrial designer. Pretty much everything you use, from the toothbrush by your sink to the car you drive to work in bears the marks of industrial design, some more successfully than others. Eric Strebel has been doing industrial design for years, and he keeps feeding us a steady diet of design tips and tricks through his popular YouTube channel. He'll stop by the Hack Chat to get a little more in-depth on industrial design principles, and how you can make your projects look as good as they work.

  • Hack Chat Transcript, Part 2

    Dan Maloney09/08/2021 at 23:56 0 comments


    Pablo Oyarzo12:23 PM
    @Dan Maloney Eric OFC, Sam Zeloof , maybe Adam Savage?? and Simon Giertz

    Erin RobotGrrl12:23 PM
    Did you work at a design firm before making your own company? Which do you like more?

    Eric Strebel12:24 PM
    nice, i would like to meet some of those people :-)

    Dan Maloney12:24 PM
    Wouldn't Adam make a great keynote? I'll suggest it -- maybe we have a connection to him, friend of a friend thing.

    Pablo Oyarzo12:24 PM
    Whats your Top 5 ID youtubers/ content creators?

    Pablo Oyarzo12:25 PM
    Besides yourself haha

    Eric Strebel12:25 PM
    @Erin RobotGrrl , yes, I used to work for ALPS, Japanese switch maker, they make good stuff. I definitely like working for myself better, way more fun making videos on YouTube as well

    Erin RobotGrrl12:25 PM
    Neat!

    Eric Strebel12:26 PM
    @Pablo Oyarzo , actually I love Daniel shiffer, his video work is stunning, his insight into the video process has been invaluable

    Pablo Oyarzo12:27 PM
    None from Industrial design?

    Rudranand Sahu12:27 PM
    What are your opinions on creating a product for a market that is already filled with tough competition and cannot accommodate one more product or a company?

    Eric Strebel12:27 PM
    @Pablo Oyarzo , the potato jet, is up there too, Jehu Garcia is up there too

    Erin RobotGrrl12:28 PM
    @Rudranand Sahu It better be at least 10x better then hahahaha

    Eric Strebel12:28 PM
    @Pablo Oyarzo ehhh, not a lot of them out there, and I don’t always like thier design philosophies, sorry designers are a picky bunch

    Rudranand Sahu12:29 PM
    @Erin RobotGrrl yep that is true XD

    Eric Strebel12:29 PM
    @Pablo Oyarzo , Scott Robertson is an amazing technician, Even I learn from him about drawing stuff

    Pablo Oyarzo12:30 PM
    And i thought you drawing skills were great already. Good to hear you keep learning

    Eric Strebel12:31 PM
    @Pablo Oyarzo , never stop learning, there is always something to learn in life

    morgan12:31 PM
    open (and hopefully useful) to all: would love recommendations on beginner drawing channels

    wayn3w12:31 PM
    I like your series on using Bondo for prototyping, especially since I mostly use traditional hand tools for making things. I'd like to make an investment to improve my ability to make prototypes; would you have a recommendation as to where I should invest, be it 3d modelling tools or laser cutters or CNC, or perhaps eomthing more basic?

    morgan12:31 PM
    with ID/design in mind

    Pablo Oyarzo12:31 PM
    are there any renowned ID competition/ Fair or events to look forward to?

    Eric Strebel12:32 PM
    @wayn3w , depends if you wan to expand your hand crafts of go in a more computerized direction. The materials are just tools to get an end result, sometimes picking the right tool for the job is half the battle

    Eric Strebel12:33 PM
    @morgan watch the fine art channels, they have a much better insight into the finer points of drawing than most designers do

    wayn3w12:33 PM
    That makes me think I should familiarize myself with more tools

    morgan12:33 PM
    cool!

    Eric Strebel12:34 PM
    @morgan anatomy is key, if you can draw the human form you can draw anything

    morgan12:34 PM
    ugh, those things

    Eric Strebel12:35 PM
    @Pablo Oyarzo , sorry don’t keep track of that stuff anymore

    Pablo Oyarzo12:35 PM
    What are your Top 5 favorite materials? in general, either in a finished product or to prototype with

    Dan Maloney12:35 PM
    Hands and eyes. Those separate the amateurs from the pros

    morgan12:35 PM
    /me only draws pirates then

    Eric Strebel12:36 PM
    @Pablo Oyarzo , bondo, silicone, resin, plaster and metal

    Dan Maloney12:36 PM
    "Draw the rest of the f*g owl."

    Pablo Oyarzo12:36 PM
    In that order? chan chan chaaaan

    Rudranand Sahu12:37 PM
    What are some important steps to be taken before open sourcing a hardware design? Also, will it differ from open sourcing a software design?

    Eric Strebel12:37 PM
    @Pablo Oyarzo , not necessarily, I love using plaster but rarely use it any more

    Eric Strebel12:38 PM
    @Rudranand Sahu , I have never open source any hardware so I don’t know

    periscout12:38 PM
    Hi

    ... Read more »

  • Hack Chat Transcript, Part 1

    Dan Maloney09/08/2021 at 23:55 0 comments

    Dan Maloney11:38 AM
    Hi all -- we'll get started in about 20 minutes

    Eric Strebel joined  the room.11:43 AM

    Dan Maloney11:44 AM
    Hi Eric! Nice to have you here today!

    Eric Strebel11:45 AM
    Thanks, nice to be here

    Nicolas Tremblay joined  the room.11:47 AM

    Nicolas Tremblay11:48 AM
    @Eric Strebel Thank you for your videos. I've learned so much from them.

    morgan11:49 AM
    yeah same, I feel like when I was still exhibit fabricating I learned some tiny tidbit that was so useful in the shop

    Eric Strebel11:50 AM
    Ok, cool. So glad that people can learn from them

    Eric Strebel11:51 AM
    awesome, I like to give back to the world, making stuff by hand seems to becoming a lost art in some ways

    Eric Strebel11:51 AM
    I am try to preserve as much craft as I can

    Dan Maloney11:52 AM
    What gets me is the variety of materials you can use. With the right techniques, wood can look like something completely different, like plastic or metal.

    Eric Strebel11:52 AM
    yeah, there really is no limit to material so long as you can stay safe

    Eric Strebel11:52 AM
    sky is the limit and new materials keep becoming available all the time

    morgan11:53 AM
    the conceptualization before fabrication is I really like, as that's not something I'm super good at

    morgan11:53 AM
    ...is something I...

    Eric Strebel11:53 AM
    @morgan that is just practice

    Eric Strebel11:53 AM
    just keep doing it and watch other that are good at it

    Nicolas Tremblay11:53 AM
    For me, it's mor my drawing skills. Give me CAD software anytime

    morgan11:54 AM
    yeah I've been trying to get started on regular drawing/sketching practice

    Eric Strebel11:54 AM
    you can multiply your options with drawing, you can draw a lot faster than you can model something

    morgan11:54 AM
    I've never been much for drawing

    Eric Strebel11:54 AM
    Drawing is a tool just like anything else, you just have to get good at using it

    morgan11:55 AM
    and yeah, ^ that's what I want. I'm proficient with CAD which is great, but it's slow when trying to come up with ideas

    Eric Strebel11:55 AM
    @morgan , like riding a bike, that took you some practice to get good at as well

    morgan11:55 AM
    oh, I'm great at that

    Dan Maloney11:55 AM
    And for me, there's something about the "look inside" that drawings give that makes a design more tangible, in my mind at least.

    morgan11:55 AM
    :)

    deʃhipu11:55 AM
    I find that making paper models helps me a lot

    Eric Strebel11:56 AM
    @Dan Maloney its that first peek into your idea

    deʃhipu11:56 AM
    even if I just print the footprints of all the components, and play with them

    morgan11:56 AM
    also been trying to do that more, especially when I'm struggle with visualizing scale

    Pablo Oyarzo joined  the room.11:56 AM

    Dan Maloney11:56 AM
    Exactly! It makes it real in my mind like nothing else can

    Eric Strebel11:56 AM
    @deʃhipu those are great for ideating, love them

    Pablo Oyarzo11:57 AM
    Did this just started? or is this a warm up?

    Eric Strebel11:57 AM
    @morgan , scale is something I see people struggle with a lot, its hard

    Dan Maloney11:57 AM
    Nah, this is the pre-chat. But we'll kick it off "officially" in just a few

    Eric Strebel11:57 AM
    @Pablo Oyarzo just starting, welcome

    Eric Strebel11:57 AM
    hehehe

    wayn3w11:57 AM
    Since we're talking about drawing, I notice that architects exhibit a distinct visual style when they draw. Is there a proscribed way for learning how to draw for design?

    Dan Maloney11:58 AM
    I'll make sure to capture this for the transcript, though ;-)

    Eric Strebel11:58 AM
    @wayn3w that is probably more what they are taught, so more of a schooling thing

    Pablo Oyarzo11:58 AM
    Cools, Eric I love your vids, Im the leader of the local Hardware Community in Dominican Republic, and I share a lot of your videos to incentivise low/mid scale manufacturing

    Eric Strebel11:59 AM
    @Pablo Oyarzo sweet! Thank you, very humbled

    wayn3w11:59 AM
    Does that approach really help? Or should one just 'draw'?

    greg joined  the room.11:59 AM

    Dan Maloney12:00 PM
    OK everyone, welcome to the Hack Chat today!...

    Read more »

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