I have been very excited to work with Synch ( pronounced "sinch") over the last few months developing a unique soft-good product for the disabled market. Synch is a start-up company focused on providing usable and fashionable products to those with disabilities. Instead of offering utilitarian and dismal products to the handicapped market it is focused on elevating the product experience and the much needed "cool" factor.

Having gone through many product revisions since the first concept along adjustments made from user feed back, the design of their first product is nailed down. Since this is a new-to-the-world product I am going to have to wait for the official release to reveal the product. But, we have overcome our biggest hurdle to date in finding a supplier that can meet our design specifications and with some good diligence, we are expecting to have it available to the market in 10-12 weeks. We will be building up the website in the mean time and most likely do a little local soft start to shake out any bugs before going national.

Stay tuned to this channel as I announce the launch of this product and may more soft-good and hard-good products over the coming months from Synch.

If you are interested in the design services I offer or want to see other projects I have worked on in the past, please click this link to go to my website, bullseyedesignworx.com.

Windsor Industries Vac Pac Shoulder Harness Redesign

Improved Windsor Vac Pac Harness Design

While at Windsor Industries I worked on a redesign of the harness system for their backpack vacuum. It is simply a vacuum cleaner worn on the back. This product is used in commercial cleaning to clean office cubicles. You may have seen it if you work late in an office setting.The idea is that the operator is less fatigued wearing the vacuum then pushing a heavy upright vacuum back and forth several hundred times an evening. The original harness was a stripped down version of a competitors that offered minimal comfort as can be seen in the photo below- no back padding, poor should straps and a small padded belt.

Prior Vacuum Harness Design

This project was spurred on by customer complaints about comfort, dropping sales and more competitors entering the market. After initial research into user issues,ergonomics and related product designs, like backpacks, a number of concept were developed to address the project demands. These sketches show some of my first thoughts.

One Piece Harness Concept Sketch

Back of Harness with Tool Holder

To address the comfort issues a number of improvements were made. Applying ergonomics to the concepts the range of people that the harness would fit was expanded greatly to include about 90% of the general population. This included changes to the size of the waist belt and shoulder straps. Padding in each of these were improved because users often carried the Vac Pac by its straps because they hurt so much.  When the vacuum is full it can weigh up to 35 pounds and the straps can cut into the shoulders sharply. Straps were also contoured to fit over the shoulders and curve in under the arms and fitted with a sternum strap to keep the shoulder straps in the right place.  Padding was also added to the back panel to protect back muscles and spine. Working with an outside contractor, we started to develop some physical  prototypes. Below is the base concept showing these improvements.

Base Back Vacuum Concept

Graphic Representation of the Concept

While straps were lengthened to fit a broader range of people it was difficult working with the current frame design to provide a better weight management and fit for taller people. The next concept looked into how the shoulder strap system could slide up the frame more to address these challenges.You can see the height adjustment strap attached at the base of the padded back pad down to the hip belt which achieved this goal in the concept below.

Base Concept with Adjustable Height

Adjustable Height Strap Added

While the changes to the second concept were a step in the right direction it did not satisfy the need of the user. One of the project's boundaries was to use the current frame in the new design.  There was also the push to make the new design reto-fit to older machines so the new harness design could be sold as a replacement or upgrade too. To keep these parameters, an additional sub-frame piece was developed to fit the existing frame.

Design with added Sub-Frame

Vac Pac with Extended Height Adjustment

While the parameters of using the same frame for the redesign sounded good at the beginning it was realized that this requirement was interfering with the main  goal of the project. The added sub-frame along with an extra lumbar pad on the waist belt was running up the cost quickly. It was also felt the design was not substantial enough for the rigors of commercial cleaning. Taking a look at the opportunity to develop a new frame allowed us to get the height we needed to fit people much better. It also enabled us to incorporate a lumbar support right into the frame which allowed us to remove the cost of the padded lumbar pad on the waist belt.

One Piece Frame Design with Carry Handle

New Frame Design

In the end, the final design used a new longer length frame with a lumbar support curve molded right in. Bearing straps, running from the top of the shoulder strap to the top of the frame, were eliminated because the frame was not designed to handle the forces that would be put through them.

The redesign was met with good success. Sales increased. Orders came in for replacing the harness on vacuums with the old design and user comfort was improved with minimal cost increase to the product.

If you are interested in design services for your product or product idea, please click this link to go to my website, Bullseye Design Worx. To see more examples of sketching click here, and to see more examples of prototyping click here.

GT Bicycles - Development of the STS-1 - Carbon Fiber LTS

GT Bicycle's STS-1 Carbon Fiber Bike

This is the carbonfiber version of GT's high performance LTS dual suspension mountain bike I designed in the mid nineties. The design process started of with a series of side view hand sketches. As with a number of in house design departments the sketches are just black and white, no time to add color. To speed things up just the frame is drawn on photo copy paper with the wheels, seat, handlebars and already copied onto the page.

After the first few rounds of sketches, a few concepts were selected to be prototyped into models. I did a few more detailed sketches of just the frames to nail down the forms for a reference as I hand built the models.

Then, I got to work building the prototype models. Using metal, wood, bondo, screws, glue and even some very rough welding I created the models.

Having completed developing the frame forms the concepts are ready for paint to make them look more real.

At this point there was a management review and there was a feeling that the designs were too far away from the traditional straight tube look. Compared to bikes now, these concepts are very tame but back then they were a bit edgy. So a more linear concept was developed and a prototype model built to show how it would look in real life.

As is common with most development projects the initial designs are a result of working with a certain premise of how things are going to work. Any of these designs were going to be complicated to manufacture and we were learning more about the molding process which was not going to be easy. This is the point when assumptions are challenged and a fresh look is taken on how to design the product. In this case a handle bar using the same manufacturing process was being looked as a method of making our design easier to make. The bar had metal sleeves that the carbon fiber tube ran through in the center and at the ends where the stem and barends would clamp.  If we did the same thing with our problem areas, headtube, seat tube and bottom bracket areas, things would be a lot easier.
Time was passing by and we needed to get it done. So I sketched out a quick design of how we though it was going to look and we ran with it.

In the sketch you can see where I drew what the cross section would look like in various ares of the frame. You can also see the straps from the cnc machined parts that the carbon fiber tube was threaded through. A model was quickly made but never built up. Instead it was cut up to use for reference when modeling the frame in the computer software.

Below is the finished bike, some detail shots of the cnc parts and the bike as it looked as when GT developed it into a down hill bike.

If you are interested in seeing more of my work or are interested in the design services I offer please click here to go to my website, Bullseye Design Worx. To see more bike design related projects click on the label tags to the right.

The GT Bicycles STS-2

GT Bicycle's STS Head Tube

GT Bicycle's STS Seat Tube and Upper Pivot

GT Bicycle's STS-DH - Down Hill Bike