Outcome

Intention

The problem I am trying to solve is a very a niche problem. In essence, I am trying to solve the problem of supporting your phone while in bed. This problem, is not one I face alone. I feel that many college students find the need to prop their phone up in the beds. I want to do this so that I can watch Netflix on my phone in bed, without having to hold my phone to do this. I’m doing this because I believe that there are a lot of interesting design challenges with this project, and that the result is functional. I want to try to make is not too bulky, so the stand apparatus will be portable and user friendly. Additionally, I think there should be a cutout, so someone could also charge their phone (since watching tv on your phones often drains the battery very rapidly). The project will be specific to the iPhone8 (since that is the phone that I currently have).

Aesthetic + Inspiration

I was inspired by my roommate. He too loves watching tv in bed, but often complains that having a bulky in the bed with him is uncomfortable, but a using a phone takes a lot more work. Hopefully this solution will bring out the best of both devices. I was also inspired by one of my friend’s phone cases, that essentially was like a slide on cover for the phone. I thought the design was sleek and clever, so I want to design my holder to be such that you can just slide the phone in and out of the holder.

Process + Procedure

I started by taking a lot of measurements of my iPhone8, so the holder would fit my specific phone perfectly. Then I needed to CAD a model of the iPhone8 itself, to see how it would fit into the holder. Originally, I had thought to use an online model of the iPhone8 as I felt that trying to model the phone myself would be very time consuming with little benefit. I ended up modelling the phone as a rectangular box (for simplicity and time sake). My next step was to CAM the holder. I chose a 5 cm support rib on the back because I wanted to be sure that the phone wouldn’t fall over when I was using it. I used a filet for the charging port as I felt that it would help reduce the damage done to the charger when trying to plug it in. Although going from my drawings and measurements to the CAD model wasn’t conceptually hard (I did have to refer to some of the tutorials), it took quite a bit of time.

Reflection

[Reflect on Upon reflection, I realize that I probably should’ve devoted a lot more time to this project. The measurements of the iPhone itself didn’t take too much time, but I grossly underestimated how long the CAD model would take. As a result, I had to turn in my project late. If I had to go back and start this project over, I would definitely start the CAD earlier. I think that would’ve helped me finish on time and would have allowed me to have a more developed project. Unfortunately, due to my ill planning on this project, I couldn’t implement a lot of the features that I really wanted to, such as the adjustable prop angle, the A-frame support, the surround sound speaker experience, etc. I would like to come back to this design in the future and polish and finish my design the way I had originally intended.the process of making this project. What did you learn? What would you do differently?]

Photos

[Five semi-professional photos with care given to context, lighting, staging, scene]