Lessons Learned

From looking at the initial prototypes, there were a few things I learned.

• Holding the heat gun too close to the surface of the acrylic for too long can cause shrinkage. In addition, too much heating will cause surface bubbling.
• The Baseball bat on the side of the holder is too thin and falls apart when heated. This will need to be thickened
• The handle itself is not wide enough. It feels a bit flimsy and may break. it should be widened.
• With flat edges, there is no way to ensure that the edges of the holder stay together where they meet. The next iteration will need some sort of mechanical snap fitting.
• The bottom part of the handle will need to be attached to the holder in some way
• It is hard to bend the top and bottom of the holder to perfect circles.

With all of these shortcomings noted, changes were made to the surface model. A new .DXF file was created and a wood prototype was cut. In addition, the top and bottom circumferences were measured. Circles with the corresponding diameters were cut out to help in the heat molding process. Comparisons photos between the old and new wood prototypes can be seen below.