Prototyping is an important phase of the design process. It is important because it is a way of testing out your ideas and seeing if they will work successfully or not. They are also a way of communicating your ideas to others.

Producttank - Prototyping video

Producttank - Prototyping materials and techniques

Please watch both videos and take notes in your sketchbook

Prototypes can take many forms. It may be a physical model, CAD model or it may be a detailed drawing, or series of drawing - or both. Choose the most appropriate form of prototype for your design. This prototype will become a part of your final presentation.

• How well does your prototype accurately convey the look and/or function of your design solution?
• Did you choose appropriate materials for your prototype?
• Even though this is a "Low Resolution" or first prototype, is your prototypes well crafted?

The images below are examples of prototypes for the same project, for which I have already showed you other examples in previous units. You can see that I created both a more detailed drawing,  a physical model, and a CAD (Sketchup) model of the same project. While it is not required to provide all of them, in the case of this project, I felt it helped to communicate my design. Since this was a fairly large object, I used a SCALE model to represent the design concept. Had this been an actual design project, the next step would have been to create a full-scale working model of the design.