Intention
Student cannot live without music and audio during school life. When stressed, on the way to class, eating alone, studying from youtube in studios, we need to listen to the music or audio material via our earbuds. However, it is hard to keep earbuds safe and organized in space. Therefore, I am solving such a problem that would help organize our earbuds a little bit. My motivation is that good quality of audio/ music are usually requested by students, so that keeping these expensive good quality earbuds safe and organized make it important for students. However, the earbud holder are just not as user-friendly as what the users expect it to be. Also, owning a earbud holder and hold a earbuds when they are not used permeates an organized style of life through the most used object in students daily activity, thus indicating the students to be organized in other subjects as well. My goal is to make a little, pretty, user-friendly earbud holder that students would be willing to use and would like to relate emotionally to it.
Research
There are 3 major types of earbud holder in the market accessible for students.
Cord Wrap
This type of earbud holder is cheap and small. However, it does not offer protection for the earbuds, which is under risk to rub against other objects in a student’s compact bag. Also, this cheap unappealing appearance would hardly convey a sense of aesthetic elegant life-style or an emotional connection.
Earbud Pocket
This pocket obviously does not have the organizing functionality. It is simply another little bag for a earbud and the earbuds can still get entangled in the bag.
Earbud Container
This is the most usual and mostly used earbud container. It keeps the earbud organized at one place. However, it is a little bit hard for students to get it back straight and ready to use. I can bring this design to a next level.
Aesthetic Inspiration
I have thought about how to make it the most easy for students to organize their earbuds when they don’t need it and have it ready to use when they need it. One day I saw the toilet paper holder, on which the toilet paper rotates freely on a rod. I think I can incorporate this design into a earbud holder, such that the earbud can rotate freely on a rod as well. Students can simply drag the end of a earbud and get it out of a container. When they store their earbuds, they can take some time rotate it back onto the rod and put it back into the container, just as what they normally do with other earbud container.
Sketches
Process + Procedure
Modeling
The holder consists of 5 individual parts: a top, a bottom, a rod, a rotating ring rod and a circular cylindrical wrap. The top and the bottom are identical circles, which could be down with easy 3d printing. The rotatable rod consisting of two parts may be 3d printed as well and I will look for a way to print the two parts in conjunction with each other in one print. If it is not possible, I would cut the “I” shaped rod into two pieces for the rotatable ring rod to get assembled. The circular cylindrical wrap would be done with the technique of living hinges. I would calculate the correct parameter of little gaps to be laser-cut on a piece of rectangular clear acrylic so that the acrylic is bendable. The wrap would then be attached to the top and bottom with acrylic glue. Since a glue between acrylic and plywood might occur, if the glue does not work well, I would then try assemble the three pieces with threads. In that case, I would drill holes on the top, bottom and the wrap for threads to go through. In order to test the glue, I would make some test pieces of plywood and acrylic.
Modeling steps in Fusion 360
1. Model bottom piece on the top plane, draw a circle (parameters according to design)
2. Make an offset plane 50mm away from the top plane, named plane1
3. Draw a top piece on plane1, draw a circle
4. Extrude both circles according to design
5. Draw a smaller circle for rod on the center of the top of the bottom circle
6. Extrude cut the top and bottom with the smaller circle
7. Extrude cut the rod created by the smaller circle to form a rotatable ring rod
8. Make the wrap by drawing and extrude cut another circle
Making process
1. Laser cut the top and bottom plywood plates
2. I think that cutting out wholes on the top and bottom plywood plates would benefit the final product by allowing me to tie the clear plastic living-hinged wrap with the top and bottom plates through the wholes. Therefore I added wholes on it.
3. Laser cut the living hinges
4. I made 4 prototypes with plywood
