Walking stick - Design problem solving

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Design Problem solving is an important part of CEED exam. Let's take an example and analyze the design aspects for it.

Question :

Design a multi-purpose walking stick for the elderly. State your perception of the problem and the opportunities that your solution provides. Present your concept through sketches, showing the overall form, different functions  and its construction details.

(Appeared as question no. 10 in CEED 2009 exam paper)

Perception of the problem

Walking sticks are a basic need for elder people especially for walking around, morning walks and also while having long strolls. Elders usually find difficulty in carrying generally used things like water bottle, torch light (for night walks) and so on. Keeping walking stick in one hand and things like bottles or torch lights as well as carry bags in other hand is really difficult.

Old people usually do Surya pranam exercises as well as Surya-namaskar during early mornings as well as during sun set and if they are in a room, they may face difficulty in finding the right direction (East). Elder people likes to hear music on the go and most of them wear spectacles. They will get irritated whenever their walking stick fells down. 

Opportunities that the proposed design provides

The solution given through the design will help the user (elders) solve the basic identified problems in the following manner. 

1. The proposed design supports holding arrangement for half-liter water (or any soft drinks) bottle by making use of elastic cloth material, arranged above the center of the stick (below hand-hold), The reason for placing the bottle near the hand-grip is because the bottle weight will be handled very well in that position unlike placing it at the bottom.
2. A mini-torch light system is integrated in the new walking-stick's front face of hand-grip (as shown in illustration) with switch arrangement for on and off. Hard rubber type of material is proposed so that when the walking stick fell down accidentally, the torch arrangement wouldn't get damaged.
3. A magnetic compass is included on the top of the rubberized hand-grip (with torch on front face) to let the users know the direction especially while doing Surya pranam exercises.
4. A mp3 player will be made available at the back side of hand grip integrated with Bluetooth technology to connect with cordless Bluetooth head phones for music. 
5. An optional  mobile phone cum spectacle holder (made from sponge or foam material) can be provided.
6. Two short supportive legs ( with optional bottom lights) were proposed for the designed stick (at the bottom) so as to make it stand, because keeping in a slant position will balance the weight of the stick along with water bottle. 
7. Aluminium is considered for constructing the stick to make it dead light, considering the weight of the water bottle and other accessory integration.

Final sketches illustrating the solutions and construction of designed walking stick were shown below :

Rough sketch to get ideas on the design were illustrated below.

As we had gone through the walking-stick design aspects, I would like to share my ideas and thoughts (you may call it tips) that you might find useful while attempting similar design problems.

1. First things first, The better way to deal with this type of problem is to try rough sketching first (instead of doing the perception and solution writing). Because when you start sketching, in the process you might get a better idea than what you had thought earlier. Suppose that you wrote the explanation and solution part first, then you might face difficulty in adding or changing the wordings. So better start with rough sketch, second comes writing part and then go for final sketch. Using pencil for sketching rather than colors will help to do easy changes.
2. I noted three pages for rough work and three pages for final answer in the question paper and I planned to use this papers as follows :

• I wish to use at least two papers (given for rough work) to show my rough sketches. Rough sketches should preferably be illustrated by a quick and simple pencil (part and overall) sketches. Preferably 5-10 mins can be spared for that.
• I will utilize the first page (given for final answer)  to write the perception and solution part. Second page will be used for the overall drawing with construction and the third page for detailed part sketches.
• Note that rough sketches could be impressing the examiners and there you can show the construction part in exploded view format.
• Sketching and rendering for this type of questions won't take much time (as there are no background themes or portraits to be drawn). So, utilize the time and try to give detailed drawings, especially the individual part sketches, like I did in my illustration above.

  3. If you find time, you may try coloring also.

 4. You may reduce the number of 'identified problems', but let the problems be acceptable.

To be frank, I kept focus on each detail of the above illustrations (even for rough sketches !!) and so it took more time for me to complete that. The details were drawn to clearly explain my ideas to you as well as test the time consumed by drawing the details. In any of my next posts, I will try to sketch illustrations as per the allowable time (time allowed as per CEED exam).

Any way; by attempting just two-three illustrations, I feel like my sketching skills were developing (slowly but steadily and I need to be more quicker). That's why I am insisting you again and again to try and practice regularly.

"Practice makes man perfect", right !!!

Latest update: Tips for Exploded view drawing

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