Lesson video

Hello, thank you for joining me for your design and technology lesson.

My name is Mrs. Conway and I'm going to be guiding you through your learning today.

So today's lesson outcome is, "I can iterate ideas for the context student living using 3D CAD." And our keywords for the lesson are CAD, development and iterate, and I'll go through each one of those in a little bit more detail as we work through the lesson.

So the first thing we're gonna look at then is sketching over CAD.

Now, CAD, computer aided design, is an excellent tool to develop design ideas.

And to develop designs is to basically improve and build on design ideas to make them better.

CAD is a tool used as part of the iterative process and is a way to help further develop your idea by viewing it virtually and also evaluating the idea.

And to iterate is the process of refining and improving a design.

So CAD is a really important part of that iterative process.

Okay, quick check for understanding.

Developing your design idea in CAD allows you to see it A, physically, B, virtually or C, metaphorically.

Pause the video here just to take a moment to think about your answer.

And the correct answer was virtually.

So developing your design idea in CAD allows you to see it virtually.

Now at this stage of the design process, iterations of ideas can be led by a range of different things.

I'd like you to just take a moment to think about this question then.

What could iterations be led by? Feel free to pause the video, just take a moment to think about that question.

Okay, what did you come up with? Let's see if it kind of matches some of the ideas I'm gonna suggest.

So your iterations could be led by things such as analysis and evaluation of sketches, analysis and evaluation of physical models, feedback from your user or your client, and also things like testing analysis of your CAD virtual models.

If you got any extras, well done.

So Andeep has decided he's going to use his testing of his virtual model and some further user feedback to help him with his developments.

And choosing which kind of information you want to help you and move you forward with your developments is completely up to you.

He's just explained here, "My user feedback and virtual model testing have given me the following things to improve and develop on my design," and he's picked out the key points.

First one then, "Small sections added inside the caddy to organise smaller parts." He also wants to look at including a lidded section to access from above.

He also wants to make it wider to fit long paint brushes and rulers, and he'd also like to look at making the front of the product to look a little bit more interesting.

However, it can sometimes be difficult developing an idea in CAD.

You can sometimes be limited by your confidence levels in using the CAD applications, and this can affect how much creativity you're able to put into a developed idea.

Some of you might be really confident in the CAD, but others, you might still be learning and picking it up.

And so actually this can cause a little bit of a problem when you're trying to be really creative.

So sketching over the top of CAD designs can help to develop the idea before going back to then make those improvements in CAD.

Now this particular technique can be helpful regardless of your ability in the actual CAD software or application.

Okay, let's just do a quick check for understanding on that then.

What are the benefits of sketching over your CAD designs before developing them further? Is it A, creativity is not limited by capability on CAD software, B, it ensures the final design will be structurally sound, or C, it automatically corrects dimensional errors in the CAD model? Feel free just to pause the video and take a moment to think about your answer.

That's right, the answer was A, the benefits of sketching over your CAD designs before developing them back again in CAD means that creativity is not limited by your capability on the CAD software or the CAD application.

Now to sketch over your CAD drawings, you firstly need to print them out.

So here's an example of a printed CAD design.

It's a really good idea to print several copies of your design and possibly from different angles as well.

And you can do that by moving your design around in the CAD application and taking different screenshots or using the snipping tool to do that.

The reason you do that is then you can experiment with your developments and ideas without worrying about making mistakes.

You can just pick up another version of it and sketch on top of it.

You don't wanna be too precious when you're developing these ideas at this stage.

Now developments and changes to your design can be worked out by then drawing on top of your design.

And you can see here in the example, we've actually explored and had a little play around with changing the top and adding in a lidded section, which was one of the improvements and developments that Andeep had picked out from his feedback.

So he's added a lid section to it instead of where the handle would be and seeing what that would look like with the extra height.

Now remember, these sketches don't need to be perfect, it's just experimenting at this stage and these will then be used for when you go back to CAD to complete the drawing as a virtual model.

Here Andeep's done some further iterations and developments.

"I developed my ideas by experimenting with the amount of drawers and the width of the product as well as things such as size and proportions and the addition of a lidded top." So you can see again, these sketches aren't perfect, he's done them quite quickly and quite roughly, but he's really given himself an idea of how he could potentially develop and iterate these ideas.

Sketches can be, and if you can see by this, these have been done in 2D, so they can be in 2D or 3D, that's absolutely fine.

Whatever works with the way that you've printed out the image and the way you wanna get your idea down quickly.

Okay, it's gonna be over to you now to have a little go at this.

First thing I'd like you to do is sketch at least two developed iterations.

Again, feel free to actually do more than two if you have more ideas, but I want at least two developed iterations of your CAD design by sketching over printed copies of it.

I'd like you just to annotate your designs also to explain your developments and your ideas.

Okay, pause the video here to have a go at this task and good luck.

Okay, your answer's going to be really different to the examples here.

I'm just gonna give you some more examples that you can compare yours to.

So your work may look similar to this.

Here we have got a sketch over a CAD printout and you can see what I mean here about printing or seeing your image from different views.

And this is playing around with that suggestion that Andeep wanted to focus on, which was changing the appearance of the front of the product and changing that front latch.

He's played around with a couple of different versions of this.

So in that first example, he's kind of made it into a kind of weird little shape and then you've got the front one where he's kind of narrowed it at the top.

On that second one, he's also played around or suggested the removal of one of the drawers to make the whole product shorter.

By adding that lidded section, the whole product has got a little bit taller.

So maybe by removing a drawer, that would actually help the dimensions and the look of the product.

So these sketches show experimentation with changing the shape of the front latch and what this could possibly look like from different angles.

You can also see that consideration that I just pointed out of removing one of the drawers to make it shorter in height and take it to three drawers instead.

Some more examples here for you then.

Andeep has continued to play around with what that front latch may look like and then actually kind of making it narrower in this example.

And again, he's just explained, "I've experimented with different-shaped latches that hold the drawers in place during transport.

It seems a waste of material to keep it the full sheet and this will also help to keep the weight of the product down." So he's just explained like I wanted you to for your second part of your task as to what actual changes is done and why he's decided on those changes or just experiments.

Remember, you don't need to commit to these changes at this point.

This doesn't mean you're definitely going to do these.

You're just experimenting and iterating and developing your ideas.

Okay, we're next gonna look at using those sketches to then develop your CAD ideas.

So your sketch drawings over your CAD printouts are then used to develop your CAD drawings further.

And your sketches need to be evaluated to help decide which ones are worth developing and which ones are not.

They're not all going to be great ideas.

Now Andeep can evaluate his sketches against his decided upon improvements.

And if we just remind ourselves of what these improvements were that he picked out, small sections added inside the caddy to organise smaller parts, include a lidded section to access from above, make it wider to fit long paintbrushes and rulers, and make the front of the product look more interesting.

So this was one of the ideas that he had to make the front of the product look more interesting.

So he's just gonna evaluate this now.

"I like the idea of reducing the amount of material on the front latch and changing the shape of it, but I do not like this particular shape." So he's experimented with the shape, but is not convinced by it.

But the idea of reducing and removing some of that material is something he likes the idea of.

Here, he's added that extra lidded section at the top.

Again, he's evaluated this.

I think the addition of a lidded compartment to on top is worth developing in CAD.

So he's really happy with this idea and he wants to develop this further as this was a specific request of my user and would help to store a different variety of small items that would then be easily accessible.

Okay, let's do a quick check for understanding on this.

What should be done after sketching over the top of CAD drawings and before developing them further in CAD? Is it A, render, B, test, C, prototype, or D, evaluate? Feel free to pause the video, just take a moment to think about your answer.

And the correct answer was evaluate.

So once you've done sketching over the top of your CAD drawings, you should evaluate those ideas before then developing them further in CAD.

Now adding a top lidded compartment was planned from sketching on the CAD printout.

And then this has then been added in CAD afterwards.

So Andeep has been able to use that idea and that sketch to be able to help him formulate and plan the idea out in CAD.

He may have struggled to do that straight away in CAD, the sketching was almost like a plan for him to how that could actually look.

You saw this example before.

Now this sketch experiment of changing the width of the product and adding a double drawer design.

When developed using CAD, the change in proportions of the design can be made to show a single drawer that is wider.

So here, that design idea has been developed by simply messing around to the proportions and making the whole product wider.

But Andeep at this stage has decided actually he still prefers one long drawer as that would actually meet the needs of the clients more as they wanted it to be wider to fit long paintbrushes.

So two drawers wouldn't really solve that problem.

Now once this has been added, it's really then easy to create further iterations from there again.

So here, Andeep has made that change of added the lidded compartment, but he can still make further iterations on top of that by changing things such as colour and the materials.

So rendering a design using CAD to alter the material is shown as an example there.

Now this will look different depending on the CAD software that you're using, but usually it'll be somewhere in a render section and you will have different options available to you to the different materials you would like to try out and iterate your design with.

Here's a different example.

This time of it being shown in a polymer then using that render technique in the CAD software.

Okay, it's gonna be over to you now to have a go at this.

So you're gonna be using your sketches that you've drawn on top of your CAD printouts to develop at least two iterations using your CAD software or application again.

Once again, once you've done those, I'd like you to evaluate and explain the new iterations.

Remember, as I've mentioned before, you can do more than two.

It's just do at least two just to really try and push yourself on developing and iterating different possible ideas.

Feel free to pause the video here and good luck with these tasks.

Okay, so let's have a look at Andeep's so you can compare yours to his.

There are two parts to this task.

The first one was to take your sketched ideas over the top of your CAD printouts and turn these into a new CAD-developed idea or developed idea of it.

So you can see here Andeep has done exactly that.

He has used that idea of changing that front latch and taking away some of the material, but also making it a more interesting design at the front.

He's also removed one of the drawers, and you'll notice that the drawers have now gone down to a three drawer rather than a four drawer product.

On top of that, he has also widened the product as well and made it shallower.

These are all based on that feedback and those ideas he had of ways to develop his idea.

And he's also added that lidded compartment.

But on top of that, one of the other points he had was to add smaller sections to that lidded compartment.

So he's also done that.

Now he's also evaluated it, which was the second part of your task, and he said, "I developed my design to be shorter with three drawers instead of four, but I've also made it wider to fit the longer paintbrushes and rulers.

I've also added sections inside the top lidded compartment to help organise smaller items." He goes on to explain, "The front section that holds the drawers in place is now V-shaped so as to remove some weight of the product, but also add some interest to the front.

I think all of these developments work well to improve the product for my users' needs." So again, compare your evaluation to Andeep's.

Have you explained all of those changes that you've actually shown in your CAD virtual model and the why and whether you like those changes? Andeep also goes on because there were two iterations you needed to do to test it in a different material.

And again, he's explained this, "In this iteration, I decided to see what the design would look like in a semi-transparent polymer such as polypropylene.

I think this could be a useful function improvement for my user to see what they have inside the caddy compartments, but I'm not sure she will like the aesthetics of this change." So Andeep is questioning this improvement in this development and wondering what his client will actually, or user will actually think of the look or the aesthetics of this product.

That's still fine to be doing that at this stage.

So just compare your answers to Andeep's.

Have you got enough information in that evaluation? Are your two iterations really explorative and have they been based from those sketches you've done from CAD? Let's just summarise today's lesson.

Today, we were looking at iterating with CAD, and CAD is computer aided design.

And CAD is an excellent tool to develop design ideas.

And CAD is a really important part of the iterative process and is used as a way to further develop your idea by viewing it virtually and then being able to analyse that idea.

It can sometimes be difficult developing an idea in CAD and that's why I've shown you the technique of sketching over your CAD drawings, which can help you to develop the idea before then going back to make those improvements in CAD.

And before developing your ideas in CAD, your sketches should always be evaluated just to kind of check which ones are the most effective.

Well done for all of your hard work today and well done in the development of your design ideas.

Thank you so much for joining me and I will see you soon.