EV studio self reflection and SWOT

Self Reflection- Just thought I'd put this up here so I have something to look back onto later.

I can’t quite remember what I put down on what I wanted to learn at the start of the semester but I know it had sketching, and CAiD on it as these are areas that I lacked skills in or felt I needed guidance. Having never quite done a product based studio I though it was a good time to see what is involved and challenge myself to come out with a new or improved skill set. I never picked this studio thinking it would be easy for me, and new that I would have to change and improve the way I do things like drawing in perspective.

Teaming up with Raph we seemed to have taken a different approach to develop our scooter brief and have gone down a different path to others within the studio. Though is neither a good or bad thing as it was where our own interests guided us at the start though we all come out with a scooter at the end Raph and I have a lot more research and fell we have gone into more depth than other students. We both felt that research is important to get a good grounding and the scooter culture is strongly intertwined with its history. Raph and I never wanted to loose sight of the user (a Melbourne person who likes scooters) so it was important to cover who is this Melbourne person and what is this scooter person. It is not just a vehicle to get from A to B but a lifestyle and culture with meetings, forums and events. With this in mind we wanted to build onto what is there and not erase or start new but build on what is given.

SWOT

Strengths: My ability to do research by myself is something that I have been working on since the start of second year and I find it important to read as many things relate and are based upon sound research. I try not to think of something as an object that’s sits by itself in isolation as it is based in peoples lives and they way they use it.

I developed an excellent way to present my research in a visual way so information can be quickly gathered in a visual way with the scooter timeline. This allows me to show how much research I did and that it isn’t just forgotten about.

My understanding of solidworks increased which means I can use it as a more effective tool and my designs are not limited to what I can do in solidworks. This has always been something which I struggled with and one of the main reasons I chose to do the studio in the first place.

Weaknesses: The timeline Raph and I created left us with a demanding two weeks once Simon had left to go overseas, this meant meeting up in the city everyday and also left to some disappointment as if we had more time we could have worked and experiment on the renderings like every one else. As I was sick in the semester and couldn’t work for about two weeks I had never worked to a shortened timeline before. This means I Raph and I should have gotten together a few weeks earlier to focus on the scooter and get it into CAD a lot earlier.

My level of presentation was quite low as I never had the confidence to present my work, which meant I never put a lot of time into any of the presentations at the start. Though this improved greatly with Raph’s and Simon’s help letting us think what we would like to see. I am looking forward to the final presentation in front of the panel to talk about our process in a confident way as often the work is there but I just don’t know how to present it.

I have failed in past studios which lead to a great embracement where so many flaws and lack of research begin to show that my design quickly became discredited and left me looking like I had a weak final outcome. Though I realize that a lot more was there within my design I had lost so much faith within my own work it I couldn’t communicate any of the benefits in a strong way.

My level of faith and confidence in my own work has also brought me down a lot this semester where I am left procrastinating about my lack of skills and frustrated at my lack of ability to do things. This has left me discrediting my work so much Raph and I ended up chasing circles as to what our final design would be as we could only find negatives to work with instead of seeing positives that we can work with develop and change. We both had a strong idea of what it wasn’t and that it had to be able to use by both males and females.

My limited Material knowledge along with my drawing skills made it a lot more challenging to develop a scooter that can easily be manufactured, or thought how to break the scooter down into more parts. It meant it was a lot harder to visualise this as a product, where we where creating a surface and frame to hold the components in. Understanding the limitation of the EV scooter and that materials needed to be lighter or more power was needed so the vehicle could move was challenging as this is my first project working on a vehicle.

Opportunities: My skill level of drawing has always been something I have struggled with and have chosen to always draw in a safe way which I understood and new. This semester I tried to break this down and thought it wasn’t easy I did see an improvement in the way I drew things in 3D and the way this communicated my ideas across.

As this was just a starting point to redraw and rethink the way I communicate it may not be the best sketches in perspective but braking away from what I know is hard and I know if I continue to draw this way my skill level will improve and I shouldn’t be afraid of just drawing even if its bad as the more I do the more I will learn. This is the same with Solidworks, I feel I am now at a level where I can use it more by myself so can learn by using it where as before I always felt my skill level compromised my designs to such a level I would loose focus.

Presenting to a panel who know nothing of the journey or process that we have gone on and showing only the final outcomes is going to be a challenge, as Raph and I went down a different path to every one else with the in-depth look into the people of Melbourne the users of the scooter and not just the look of a cool scooter. If we don’t let this show across in a positive way this could be a disadvantage to us. Though I think this is an important skill for presenting anything later on and has been a weakness in past studios.

My skill level for a third year is still very limited though this studio has shown me areas that I can focus on a bit more and ways to improve my skills by visualising things in correct perspective, allowing my mind to see the level of detail things need to be.
Understanding how to simplify down large objects and requirements of what a scooter is made it easier to design around what is needed. Knowing what the scooter needs to run and that these are OEM parts and finding them on the internet along new areas of technology and research made it easier to visualise people using our scooters in a few years time.

Knowing the people who use scooters and why they use them along with the current conditions of drivers meant Raph and I where always thinking of a network of things so our scooter wasn’t just turned into a styling project. Identifying some of the problems faced and the limitations and attitudes of the users showed us there where opportunities to make the scooter safer by following the use of similar slow vehicles like the bike and that the scooter could also use this infrastructure as long as doesn’t compromise users already there.

Threats: One of my biggest threats is my ability to understand that I am learning and even if everything turns out to be a disaster as long as I can see where I went wrong and try to prevent these or minimize these mistakes in the future I have achieved something.
Realising that I am often my greatest critic and that I sometimes lack confidence within myself of what I can achieve and I often felt I was holding Raph back. It made me understand that if I find to many flaws within my own design I am shutting out a lot of ideas and also the time to sit back and simply just realise I am learning and that is what I am here to do. It also sets me into a negative mindset and I over look simple solutions or see that I am improving.

I realise that if I don’t try to find positives and faith within my own work I struggle more to find a reason as to why I am doing this and I also get more frustrated with my work and inturn with myself. This frustration limits my freedom limiting my ideas and creative freedom. I then feel annoyed that I can’t come up with ideas and get frustrated at my skill level and feeling that I will take a long time to achieve anything and that a semester is to short a time for me to develop anything worthwhile for myself.

As a designer when you have to convince others that something can work and that a simple idea can be great, you often need to talk up the idea or prove that you can come up with effective solutions to problems you may face. Otherwise a lot of the control of the design is then given away to others who will manipulate the work in their own way. Finding or discovering that there is something unique and valuable in my ideas is something which is hard for me and if I don’t learn to do this I will always end up designing for someone else and never myself.