Hopper Lite Challenge

        The Hopper Lite module was a design challenge where we were tasked with creating a one-legged machine that could 'hop' one foot horizontally with only a single interaction from the operator. We were told to look to the world around us for inspiration, and that we would have to create someone else's design once we were done with our own. 

Brainstorming Sheet

            For my design process, I went with my gut reaction to the prompt I was given and built my ideas from there. When I heard the phrase “hopping machine”, my brain instantly went to two things: paper frogs and the Pixar lamp. I had no clue where to start for either and I wasn’t entirely sure if I could make them hop a foot but since my mind immediately went to them, I stuck with them. Neither were from nature, but my mind went to them for a reason, so I took the time to make and test two designs for this project before selecting the better design. Since the frog design failed, I switched full focus onto the Pixar lamp design which ended up being my final design for the project. The most helpful mindset I had was that of ‘no time to be picky’. I deliberately spent most of the weekend brainstorming and waited until the day before to start building so I wouldn’t rip my design to shreds as I built it. I built my design and tweaked it only to fix problems that came up in testing. Since I have a habit of chasing perfection in my designs, I knew that time to stew meant time I would be unhappy with my design. It was nerve-wracking to wait to build but I think it genuinely did me good to wait and think, then build and turn in so that I couldn’t second guess myself.

Design Page 1

            I learned that measurements are extremely important when building a design from scratch. Since my design involved items that typically have set measurements, I didn’t consider measurements to be important in my diagrams. However, after only receiving half the necessary measurements to recreate my partner’s design I realized that it’s better to have redundant units just in case than to not include them at all. Thankfully, Chris put detailed enough illustrations and captions that I could reasonably estimate the missing measurements but even then I struggled with getting the proportions of my cuts right to make the design function optimally.

Design Page 2

            I learned that brainstorming several ideas at once is much easier than brainstorming one, dropping it, and then brainstorming another. It makes it harder for me to get attached to one idea and it allows me to think in multiple directions for the designs by incorporating strengths or weaknesses of the other designs I’m brainstorming. I’ll be using that technique for future design projects as much as I possibly can. Another thing I learned was that if I focus too much on the final product then I freeze up completely. I’m not sure if other designers face the same problem, but I like to think of the big picture in order to predict possible strengths and weaknesses. But big picture thinking ended up freezing me in my brainstorming with the stress and pressure of how to take words on a page and turn them into something that hops. I suppose you could say I learned not to put the cart before the horse, but I do still value stepping back to see the big picture. In the future though, I’ll save that step for after the brainstorming.

Completed Hopper Prototype

            I’m most proud of two things in this project: how solid my design ended up being, and how well I recreated my partner’s design. My design wasn’t intended to be made of anything but popsicle sticks and alligator clips and yet the design works just as well if not better when you replace the legs with any other kind of lever and the attachments with any other type of elastic or adhesive. I wasn’t expecting it to have that level of versatility. As for my rebuild of Chris’s design, I remade it in a day with only the papers he gave me and it functioned beautifully on its first launch. I’ve never done a swamp and make assignment before, and I’ve also never built a hopping machine out of cardboard before so I was and still am very proud of how well I did on that half of the assignment.