Vilde’s Chair
race car chair design for elementary school teacher to use in classroom
Sketching, Ideation, Prototyping, Fusion 360 (CAD)
project for ENGN 0032: Introduction to Engineering: Design
project team: Charles Effman, Kendra Ezeama, Helen Huang, Reggie Zheng
project duration: 1 month
Our Problem Space & User Vilde
For our project, we were assigned to design a chair for Vilde, a (hypothetical) elementary school teacher who wanted a chair for when they were gathered on the ground.
Mandatory Features (given to us):
Product increases comfort when sitting on the ground
Should be cognizant of children sitting around the chair
Design aesthetic should be happy, approachable, friendly
Product should be easily cleaned
The chair should not make the user more than 3 inches taller than sitting on the ground
Additional Features (other criteria we considered):
Ability to rotate while in chair
Safety (for both students & teacher)
Inclusiveness (for both students & teacher)
Our Design Process
We began by sketching 15 different initial chair designs catered to our user, then creating three low-fidelity prototypes inspired by these sketches.
Our Final Design
How It Fits Our User
Fun & cool design appropriate for elementary school setting
Flexible with material choice: could be 100% soft, or have plastic structural components
Provides low back support
Can swivel: rotation-friendly
Soft & round edges for safety
CAD Analysis Results Interpretation
The maximum deformation in any direction was less than 0.0015 mm, meaning that the maximum was negligibly small.
Force was distributed fairly evenly, so the stress experienced across the seat and back was low.
This chair is structurally sound & could easily withstand the weight of the user without breaking or deforming.
What I Contributed (denoted by *)
sketched initial ideas, created initial low-fidelity prototypes, sketched additional ideas
created final low fidelity prototype using measurements from final sketch
researched swivel mechanism
Bill of Materials & Pictures of Materials
I Learned How to…
Create a Bill of Materials to outline physical necessities for a product
Ideate creatively within very specific constraints
Construct a to-scale low fidelity prototype using found materials
Conduct & Interpret CAD analysis results