Bathroom Phone Holder

This project was submitted for the Spring 2019 3D Printing and Design Competition. Participants were asked to respond to the following prompt: “We want to know how you created your project, what inspired you, what you learned along the way, and where it might lead you. In short we want you to tell us the story behind the project and reflect on the process.”

Response:

With a lot of determination and hard work our bathroom phone holder was created. My group and I were inspired to create this phone holder because we realized when we go to the bathroom in a public place we do not have a clean, easy spot to place our phone. This project allowed our group to learn new skills. First of all, we learned how to use the 3D printing program Sketchup. That was a program that prior to three or four weeks ago, we had no idea how to use. In addition, we learned how to overcome frustration while 3D printing. Sometimes Sketchup would quit out, and we would have to start over. Other times the tools were not following what we wanted them to, or we did not know which tool would do what we needed. Sometimes it took a lot of time to figure out the right tool to use. This project allowed our group to grow closer but also grow a passion for 3D printing, as we were learning about the program together. We spent a lot of time outside of class working on the design, so we were able to learn more about 3D printing and about Sketchup through each other’s mistakes and each other’s ideas. We also learned the importance of working in a group with something as difficult to use as Sketchup. We had to put our minds together to figure out how to fix our product after our first 3D print. We thought we had the perfect print, but the print had many errors. It was also hard to use Sketchup as a group since we had to sit around one computer, so only one person could be working on the object at a time. Both of the group members who were not working had input for the project, but the person on the computer could not do everything at once, and often times it got overwhelming for everyone. We had to come up with a good system of switching people, holding our ideas in our heads until the person on the computer was ready, etc. Eventually, we were able to work very well together and things started to run smoothly. The first time we printed out object, the front section that holds the phone in and the backside were extremely close together which caused the pocket to have strings going from one end to the other. This made our group realize we needed to print from a different angle which would then allow our project to be printed without the extra strings. In addition, we also extended the front part of the object out in order to make more room for the phone, and just as an extra step of caution to make sure we did not produce any accidental strings again. We also learned that our holes for nails or hooks were too big so we figured out how to make them the appropriate size. This took a lot of time because we could not figure out a good size that would fit the average nail or hook. Eventually after a lot of trial and error we learned the best way to design our phone holder. The next step of this process would be after perfecting the design, printing about ten or so more and putting them in different public bathrooms to see if people not only liked them but understood their purpose and used them. If people used the object, we would keep printing them and sending them to other office buildings and schools. This project allowed us to go outside our comfort zones and enter the world of engineering and 3D printing, which was a world none of us had been a part of before this assignment. Created by Camryn Hardy, Katie Greer & Nina Bourgeois