Blue Sky Designers Journal

My product was done and it was time to show the world... or well at least the exhibition attenders. Kiera, Fraser, Luca, Sydney, Mimi, Kai, Robbie and I were all in the mental health group, and our room’s theme was beach! People started coming in and they got to see each of my prototypes. I made a poster and also set up a few essential oils along with what they did:)

How might we? This is an activity where you began narrowing down your ideas. I definitely started of with a whole lot of ideas and it was time to land on one of them. I started asking questions like How might we improve weight lifting? How might we make a hand held weights better? How might we create a natural stress reliever? How might we reduce stress? These are only a few of many questions but after looking over all of them I had a better idea of what I wanted to do.

To better understand my problem I decided to interview someone in the mental health field, as well as interview my client, Lilian. I started by asking Lilian what helps her feel less stressed, and what causes her stress. After taking for a while essential oils is what we kept coming back to so I decided I would create something using essential oils. I then interviewed the owner of a store called Deep Cove Botanicals. I asked her about a few essential oils that help with stress, and essential oils that blend well together. This gave me a better understanding of what I could possibly do.

We began looking into our project, what blue sky is starting of with watching some videos to give us inspiration and get ideas flowing. After this I had a basic idea on what area I wanted to focus on, mental or physical health. I came to this focus as after talking a bit to my client, Lilian i realized stress around us is very common throughout high school and i wanted to help with this problem in-particular. 

In our last small project we used the launch cycle, helping us get to our final destination. Well in blue sky we used this same cycle taking each step along the way.

I started thinking about what product I could make for Lilian. After going through many ideas, trying to think of things she would actually use I decided on a hair tie. I would make blends of different essential oils and cut a hole in the scrunchie, then I could add a sponge which would hold the oils to release a calming scent, and I could use Velcro to close the hole back up. This was my first initial idea so I made a sketch and brought my idea in to get some peer critique.

This is the part where I create my first physical prototype and in total I made three. The first one as I explained before has a dish sponge and I used Velcro, this wasn’t the best and I knew I would have to did some improvements.

Now that I’ve completed my first prototype I need to highlight what’s working and fix what’s not. Overall the idea was working but the materials were not, so I went back to the drawing board and switched out the Velcro that could get stuck in you hair for plastic clips, and the dish sponge for a more absorbent sponge.

Going on to create yet another prototype as there was still several things which needed to be improved. Although the plastic clips were better as hair would not get caught in them they were way to difficult to open and close making put the sponge back in very hard. As well as the sponge I used still not holding the smell as long as I want and not letting off a very strong smell either. So I switched the plastic clips for metal ones which were so much easier ton open and close. I then went on to switch the sponge for a wick which is a very absorbent material which I got from the owner of Deep Cove Botanicals as they aren’t sold commonly in stores. This made the essential oil smell stay for longer and remain strong enough to easily smell quickly and in a more subtle way.

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