As I'm nearing the end of the bike kit development, I'm becoming increasingly more stressed about the final product. I've made a few tweaks here and there; adjusted the curve on the bottom, slightly altered the scale of the product, added an opening at the back was the product needing repair. As well as these I've CAD'ed the other components, such as the camera and screws, and with these, it started to bring the bike kit together.
(Got to admit I'm quite proud of this CAD model. Took me a while..!)
However, it suddenly dawned on me that there is a slight design error. I had the camera slight sat back in the housing of the kit to protect it, but given the shape of the kit, I'm a bit worried that this might create a few blinds spots for camera, which is ironic given the purpose that kit is meant to fulfil.
In the above render, you can see that the camera is tucked back a little, protecting it from any large stones that might chip up from a vehicle in front. There is an extra lens in front of the camera, to add that extra bit of protection from any dirt flying up. My worry with this design is that the camera is housed in the inside is a wide-angle lens, and without actually having the camera with me, or being able to 3D print the housing, I have no way of telling if the protruding base of the housing will cause an issue or not.
To test if the product would suit a protruding lens, I made the appropriate adjustments on fusion 360, created another render and sent it out along with original renders to fellow product designers to get their opinion. We all agreed that while this design solved the issue of any blind spots, the original does look a bit sleeker. This kit, however, isn't meant to be stylish, but to be a safety and training product, so if the function has to come over form then so be it. To be sure that the original design couldn't be saved, I decided to try one more form.
This time the hole for the camera is tapered, meaning its wider at the front than at the back, providing less of a possible blind spot to the camera. There is also a piece of glass covering the hole, preventing anything from getting stuck and covering up the camera. My worry with this design is that it might only solve the problem a little bit, not entirely, and if there's a problem with camera blind spots, this would need to be solved entirely rather than only partially. Going forward, I'm going to weigh up the pros and cons of each design, taking into account function over form amongst other factors, and then decide on a final form. That's all for today's blog, Thanks!
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