Smart Cast: Part 1

For this project, my group was assigned to make a prototype that incorporates somatic experiences while working through the iterative phases of inspiration, understanding, ideation, making, and sharing. What we decided on was to design a new type of cast for injuries that is more comfortable, hygienic, and simple, called the Smart Cast. This idea was supposed to play into not only the external somatic experience of touch but also the internal somatic sense of comfort and feeling. The cast is comprised of two parts an outer mesh cast that is breathable, strong, and flexible, and an internal fabric cast meant to represent smart fabric.
The reason we decided on this idea is due to my personal experience of having a traditional plaster cast. My user experience with it was awful, my skin was always itchy and felt unclean, my arm sweat a lot making the itching worse, and the removal process was scary. No child wants to see a circular saw coming towards their arm with the doctor saying it should stop if it hits skin. Even after the cast is off the skin underneath is in rough shape of being dry and peeling, as well as tender and red from not having sun or air hit it for 6 weeks.
For the design process, it was fairly simple as the group tended to agree that this design problem was what we should address in the project, for we all had primary or secondary experiences with the traditional plaster cast. From there we actually experienced some challenges because of the timing of this project. This project fell over the course of reading week and midterms, so we were not able to communicate well during the time. This lead me to respond by designing and producing the physical prototype by myself. What I ended up doing was first designing a template, in which I used a standard piece of paper and drew lines on to form a triangular mesh. The triangle aspect of this template is important to note because triangles are seen as one of the strongest shapes. Allowing the cast to remain somewhat flexible and open-air, while also being strong. From this template, I layered a piece of parchment paper over top and traced all the lines with hot glue. As a group we wanted the Smart Cast to have some flexibility to allow fairly normal life to continue. While in reality, we would have used a flexible 3D filament, we ended up using hot glue to mimic the filament, due to time, and resource constraints. After creating this sheet of hot glue mesh, I formed it into a cylinder, and from there shaped it to fit the curvature of an arm, which forms the outer cast. The inner cast was similarly made with the few changes of skipping over the template and using a solid piece of cotton instead of hot glue.
From this experience of inspiring, understanding, ideating, making, and eventually sharing this prototype with the class I feel overall amazed with the final design. Overall, the project went really well. Using the template and parchment paper technique during the design process worked better than I thought it would because the hot glue went on, formed together and came off just as I had hoped. Not much of the design process went wrong in terms of big disasters though, mostly just little events like taking more time to trace the template in hot glue than originally planned and re-sewing the inner cast a few times for the right arm curvature. I feel these issues were this way because my time estimations were off, but limited other things going wrong because I planned ahead a lot before designing and making the prototype. What I learned from this involvement with the design process is how to always plan extra time when design and making a project, especially if you have never attempted something similar before. As well as, to state more outright what to expect from other group members in terms of communication. Together these learning outcomes from the design process contribute to my evolution of a UX designer because it has taught me new techniques to use when prototyping and items to discuss when beginning a new project, like communication, to make the design process even smoother.