Table Design Sketches. Much Of Sketch Credit Here Goes To M. Baxter.

Quick sworks of a potential group table. Tri, top, and side views. streetlightchanger 

From frame to frame-with-back to frame-with-back-and-shelves. And level shelves at that! Next step: slapping those hinges on. atlasdesignstudio benbasseches bradherz pgolyski

Process shots of the group table project.

The products of today's brainstorming on Prince Lab storage/space use. 

atlasdesignstudio benbasseches pgolyski

A slightly better representation of the folddown (though still missing many components). Beam (not shown) goes through the notches in the front of the side panels to hold it together. Without the beam in the top folds down against the back, then the sides fold in on top of the top. The beam reinserts into hooks on the outside of the sides to secure the flatpack. 

Day one: LED and paper project. Phone opera house, projects sound and light. Collaborator: Brian Drake (I'll miss ya buddy)

Added some things to the model of final project fold-down table. Though in the proposal I talked about a very stalwart table, the concept of a heavy table and the concept of a table that folds flat for moving are in conflict, so we are going for a lighter, more skeletal look in this iteration. Also added some hardware, in the form of little legs in the front of the sides and hooks for the beam. (Also some sweet and highly convincing wood skins!!)

Potential circuit for the on/off of the "smartphone opera house" lights. You could power the whole stand off of the 5V iPhone USB cable, taking a parallel path for the LEDs and the phone charger.

Dead center in the schematic is a relay that would control power to the LEDs. The relay could be pulled by some sort of signal from the iPhone's USB jack (the line coming from top left). I kind of hope that the iPhone sends some momentary Tx signal on the USB when it wakes up for an alarm but this is an assumption; its hard to find information on an Apple product. In any case, assuming some kind of transient signal could be pulled off of the iPhone the relay would be pulled closed and then self-latch, keeping the LEDs on. In order to manually turn the lights on and off, a double pole, double throw switch (ignore the SPDT label) could be used (which is shown as two separate switches, 1 and 2). To turn off the lights after the phone has turned them on you would turn the lights manually on, connecting 1 and disconnecting 2, then back to off, which would momentarily break the self-latch circuit.    

The conclusion of the great storage assembly. Wheels: on. Doors: on. Realized we needed a more ergonomic way to open the doors: not a problem, got some adorable little knobs. I think its a good little storage space, people are using it already. It has enough heft to feel like a not-easily-moved installation, however, because of the non locking wheels, it will not tip over even if a linebacker leans on it. Oh and there is whiteboard on the back of it as well! The piece fits into out initial design goals, as summarized here by Ben:

Having identified the need for project storage and display in the new Brown Design Workshop (BDW), we set out to design and build a large scale storage unit.  We were given the constraint of only using plywood (in straight cuts with a track-saw) and drywall screws for the primary structure.  

In the process of thinking about improving the BDW space, we felt that a small semi-enclosed lounge area for collaborative brainstorming, sketching, and snack breaks would be incredibly beneficial.  We noticed that a small awkward area around a large structural collumn was not being effectively used, and we had the idea of defining and enclosing a lounge using storage units.  With this goal in mind we came up with dimesions and layouts for the storage units that would allow them to act as partial walls defining the lounge space.  We envision the back side of the storage units being large whiteboards for ideation and sketching in the lounge.

 atlasdesignstudio benbasseches bradherz pgolyski 

Mega update: after breadboarding up the latch circuit I found it would not toggle with a finger contact due to the high impedance of fingers. So step one was tracking down some 10MΩ resistors to up the impedance of the the whole thing. I decided that to keep the final assembly small I would do a “dead bug” circuit rather than a board. Next, I made some touch contacts out of copper shim—antennae for my bug. The process photos really illustrate the technique’s namesake. My first dead bug circuit came out successful, but it is quite a tedious method. Only recommended if you have a few zen hours to burn. Next, I cut my newly procured Mylar sheet into the appropriate sizes to create the body. Because I had a large sheet I upped the size of the largest cut above 8.5x11, which had always looked a bit anemic. I also glued up my scrap base: a glass sheet (carefully!) extracted from the glass scrap and some scrap plywood from the shelving project. Really I think they came away with a nicely complimentary color palate for being found materials.