THE TOGGLE INDICATOR
The Toggle Indicator is a simple mechanical device powered by a spring. The toggle indicator my classmate and I constructed should be used to help children remember whose turn it is to use a particular toy, to minimize fighting and promote sharing among young children.
Final Design
User Story
Ideation Sketches
Initially, my partner and I spent a lot of time ideating on what kind of mechanism we wanted to create. The constraint on the project is that it had to be operated by a spring and had to have two unsteady states. Once we decided on our design, we created sketches of dimensions on how it should function, so we could easily create our base and components in SolidWorks.
Solidworks Assembly
Once we created each part in SolidWorks, we inputted our hardware from McMaster Carr to fully assemble the design to make sure all the components fit together.
Reflection
Overall, we really enjoyed this project. It was the perfect amount of work for a partner project, and the work was easily divisible. Having a partner alleviated some stress of trying to reserve the laser cutter and other processes in the PRL, and allowed us to focus on creating a robust design. We also enjoyed creating a user story behind our design, and it helped us visualize how a user might interact with our toggle indicator outside of the Stanford bubble. Moreover, during our ideation processes, we enjoyed worked together and bouncing ideas off of one another, such that the final product we created was better than anything we could have created on our own. The only challenge we faced in the assignment was creating our assembly in SolidWorks. Our design was much more complicated than anything we have created in class so far, so it was a leap forward to create a functioning mechanism through 3D modeling. However, we did learn a lot about CAD during this process. Overall, it was an enjoyable group project and we were glad we could add a spark of joy and creativity into a relatively simple mechanism.