An adaptive product to fold and store your sleeping bag.
I collaborated with a cross-functional team of 5 students from industrial design, engineering, and business to design and launch a physical product in a simulated startup environment.
Contribution
User/Market Research, Product Thinking, Concept Testing, Product Fabrication, Brand Design, Video Production
Team
Mayank Kinger, Alyssa Downs, Julie Zhang, Holden Pizzalato, Liz Li
Project Type
Academic Course: Integrated Product Development
Timeline
Fall 2022 (3 months)
Challenge
Design a tangible product solution that lowers barriers to outdoor participation by persons who have lost functional use of one or more limbs.
As part of an Integrated Product Development (IPD) course, I worked in a cross-disciplinary team of five, bringing together industrial design, engineering, and business backgrounds. We were challenged to take a product from concept to market in a simulated startup environment, including prototyping, user testing, cost strategy, and a Kickstarter-style launch.
Our team had to solve the challenge of aligning user needs, manufacturability, and business viability while working under tight timelines and limited resources. I led efforts in user research and product design, and contributed to prototyping, fabrication decisions, and go-to-market strategy.
Solution
Rolipoli: A simple way to pack sleeping bags with one hand.
Rolipoli is a sleeping bag storage tool that makes camping easier for people who can only use one hand or have limited arm movement. Instead of struggling to roll and squeeze a sleeping bag into a tight bag, it lets users pack it by turning a simple crank. The device rolls and tightens the sleeping bag for them, with very little effort.
Inspired by the side profile of our 3D prototype, I designed a logo that simplifies the sleeping bag’s rollable form into an iconic symbol.
How it works?
Ideation
Conceptualising the idea
We attempted to fold and store a sleeping bag using only our non-dominant hands in order to understand the difficulties that may occur during this process. This exercise helped us to empathize with our users and consider spatial limitations before beginning our design exploration.
For ideating phase, each one of us came up with five ideas each and we started building ideas on top of each other's idea. We then grouped ideas sharing common values into 6 design concepts that fall into the the 4 themes identified during research. To visually communicate our ideas and further inform our final decision, we created detailed sketches and wrote product specification for each concept.
We evaluated our design concepts through two rounds of concept card testing. During the first round, we presented potential customers with more general descriptions of the concepts. We tested 6 concepts along with 2 existing products, which helped us to gauge the customers' willingness to purchase each design concept and provided further design inspiration. We refined a few design concepts for the second round, which yielded more specific feedback on design details and product functionality.
Prototyping
From paper to model
We began prototyping early to test our design details and potential technical issues. For our first design, we focussed on creating a functioning prototype which required precise mechanical engineering work to make sure the roller could pack the sleeping bag neatly in the right position. We used materials like cardboard, wooden planks and dowels, duct tape, super glue cut, and spray paint. While the prototype was fully functional, it was heavy and bulky and not made with weather-resistant materials.
We worked tirelessly to think of new ways to make the structure more compact and more efficient. We made a lot of mistakes along the way and constantly adapted our strategies as we began understanding the materials we were working with more deeply. We used lightweight premium materials such as ripstop nylon, woven polyester, adhesive velcro, and PVC pipes. We used our 3D-printed assets in addition to supplies purchased from local hardware and fabric stores to assemble the final high-fidelity prototype. This version addressed the durability and size issues of the previous version.
Presentation
Showcasing at Tradeshow
The simulated market environment allowed me to further develop my product thinking skills. The process of developing Rolipoli involved not only designing good user experience but also identifying opportunities among other competitors, making trade-offs for production and cost and creating compelling storytelling to customers.
Here is us demonstrating our working prototype to trade-show visitors.
More work, more stories.
