Rapid Prototype Blog

Archive for October, 2009

Discover An Amazing Technology That Will Give You An Unfair Advantage Over All Your Competitors And Increase Your Rankings Rapidly… Guaranteed!

Boost Search Engine Rankings – Fresh Website Content 24/7.

how much does it cost to make a FDM SLS prototype for a model of a shoe no moving parts , the prototype should be near production quality and made of the real production materials

Every project plan has some elements in common. Before starting to create the prototypes, drawing wireframes or hiring coders, it’s important to:

Define what you will do Divide it in small tasks Define who’ll do each part Assign an amount of time to each one of them (start and finish dates) Create a way of measuring progress Register tasks finishing dates Tasks needed before a given task begins Create a timeline Assign someone to control and manage everyone’s activity

Avoid failing the project by careful planning

There are several reasons why projects fail, and most of them can be avoided by careful planning.

Not enough time or money: Without proper scheduling and budget control, it’s easy to have a project dismissed due to lack of resources. Besides, even when they not fail, the final project can be sloppy, with bugs or dysfunctional if this kind of planning fail. That’s why it’s very important to have everything that’s needed clear on every team member’s mind before starting.

Poor communication: A client asks for a simple website, and then wants to add functionality that’s hard to implement; the designer makes a wireframe awful to code; the coders say it’s impossible, but it isn’t. Everyone saw that situation sometime, and most of the time it’s a problem of communication. Websites and software can be pretty complex sometimes, and words aren’t very specific to describe them, or jargon can be very hard to understand for non-technical people. It’s important to always speak clearly and make sure that everyone understands what’s being expected and required from them.

Inadequate testing: Most of the time, due to problems in timing. Since launch date is so close, people decide to simply launch it, and then fix the errors. Sometimes it works (as Google Beta apps do), but others they fail miserably. Testing should be done, and it’s even more crucial for first time launches.

Lack of quality: Those come often from time management problems. Not enough time to test, to guarantee that everything is just as it should be, so we’ll correct everything as the problems come. Sometimes works, sometimes it’s a trainwreck.

All of those problems should be avoided with careful planning.

If you have an idea for a Molecular Manufacturing Machine I’d be happy to solid model it! Just need your sketches to get started.

Wireframes are good to show how the web will look like. Sitemaps are used to show the navigation structure.

But none of them show how a website works.

The main focus of a prototype is not the appearance of the website, but content, structure and functionality. Back in the 90’s, HTML didn’t allow for much more than visual presentation of text and static images with links. Nowadays, there are plenty of sites that work as software, interacting, changing behaviour and content according to user’s responses. This makes the working part of a website the most important thing to be focussed, discussed and planned.

So, before building any software or website that’s more complex than a printed leaflet, you should build a prototype of it to understand how it’s going to work, and plan ahead how you’re going to build it.

Structure is basically naming and organizing elements of the pages, such as links and categories. It also involves the basic sizes and shapes of objects, but not in a way that hinders designers’ work. The low fidelity wireframes stand in this part of the project.

Categorization is normally done with card sorting and text files, but as projects get more and more complex, it’s becoming even more necessary to simulate them.

Content also is very important, and it is great to have clients approve it before seeing the visuals. Many people get obfuscated with logos, colours and shapes, and can only think about that when they were supposed to analyse the texts, the information and the story being told. If you present a black and white prototype, it’s easier to get everyone focused on what’s written, and after that pass on to the design.

Functionality is very important, and cannot be visualized with old paper wireframes, or plain mockups. With rich interaction, you can simulate clicks, filling forms, voting, wrong passwords, and most of the experiences a user have with real websites. That way, it’s possible to prevent mistakes such as asking too much information in your login forms, or users being unable to click on determined objects when they want to.

It is important to discuss and decide the technical functions before start coding, because most of software bugs come from changing plans along the coding stage. It also helps reduce production time, since the rewriting normally takes longer than coding once.

I am interested being an industrial designer, but I read something about the rapid prototyping machine is going to a bad thing for industrial designers. (wikipedia)
Also does anybody know if the salary is good for an ID, or if it is really hard to get a job?
Any info would be vastly appreciated.

What companies can do rapid prototyping for toys- like 4″ plastic figurines and such- and what would it cost to have (1) prototype of this size made?

Instant Download Of Fibonacci Secrets, Rapid Fire Swing Trading, Profinacci, Tab Market Timer, Tactical Trend Trading And Index Adjustment System.

123 Trading Secrets For Stocks, Futures And Forex Trading.

apid tooling promises to be a powerful solution in the quest to develop better products faster. In the future, rapid tooling will commonly be used to slash the time for the delivery of components in production intent materials.

Presently, there are barriers to the broad acceptance and application of rapid tooling. However, if the definition of rapid tooling is expanded, it can be a powerful and beneficial tool.

Rapid Tooling Defined

The original, and most accurate, definition of rapid tooling is: A 3D CAD-driven process that generates tooling inserts in a layer-by-layer (additive) process for the production of components in end-use materials. In simpler terms, this means building tools from a rapid prototyping process. In the past few years, the definition of rapid tooling has become broader and somewhat unclear:

Any process, technique or technology that significantly reduces the delivery of a tool for the production of components in end-use materials. Translated, this means cutting an aluminum or steel tool can be considered rapid tooling.

When the search for a rapid tooling solution begins, it is common to use traditional tooling techniques as the benchmark. The goal becomes the replication of all the quality of a cut tool while slashing the delivery time and expense. With these standards, the options become limited. These imposed limitations can make it best to seek out a tool shop that is extremely fast and efficient at building cut tools in aluminum or steel. In the evaluation of projects, Accelerated Technologies often finds that a machined tool is a far superior solution. Under the original, narrow definition, rapid tooling has limitations in many areas. These include:

* Tool life

* Accuracy

* Surface finish

* Resin selection

* Tool configuration

* Cycle time

* Part size

Each available rapid tooling solution presents limitations in at least two of these areas. When the strengths and weaknesses of the processes are presented, many elect to use traditional methods that may require more time. It certainly will be a dream come true if technology brings down cost of buildings.

Shopping for a designer house will be one of the choices open to everyone, not the privilege of a few. A 10 to 15 year recycling time for a house will be appropriate, because the recycling cost will be lower than the renovation cost.

Fast prototyping cannot replace our current building practice, but at least it will help to construct a mock-up to improve the design. It is a known fact that a full-size building mock-up is necessary to eliminate errors and the need for future design modifications. Fast prototyping can accelerate the mock-up process, bring down the cost, and speed up the final construction time.

Full-size building component prototypes are not yet in production, because they require detailed connections and some modifications. It is not hard to imagine, that in the near future an entire house will be manufactured by an LOM machine or other RP processes directly. Such a notion is exciting and will revolutionize the building industry. Rapid tooling is a powerful process that can definitely make the building process faster, cheaper, and better.