Goals for OpenPCR industrial design:
- Sturdy – can be put in a backpack without fear, can be dropped from 6 inches without shattering
- Portable – can pick up OpenPCR machine with one adult sized hand, and it will fit in a backpack.
- Cost effective – Â optimize materials cost + assembly time. ponoko is good because you can cut vents and whatever sized holes you need. This would cost hundreds of dollars from a traditional fabricator, and can’t be done by places like TAP plastic that can’t cut holes or parts <1″.
What is portability? I spent some time in the San Francisco Botanical Garden today thinking about this.
- Components such as rubber bumpers or handles technically make a device bigger and heavier, but add portability. Which would you put in your backpack, a cube with sharp metal corners or a cube with rounded rubber corners?
- Dimensions that fit in the hand are much more portable — i.e. what if your digital camera were 2x as long but 1/2 the thickness. Same “mass” from a technical perspective but the 2x long one sucks in your pocket!
- Portability means that “dirty” parts are covered during a move — i.e. which would you put in the back of your car, a broom with a cover, or a broom with no cover that gets dirt all over your seats. I say a broom with a cover is much more portable.