Over the course of this studio, our task was to design and create an open, accessible, kitchen-esque surface on which to mount the machinery necessary for the creation of falafel by a chef while allowing the customer to watch every step of the falafel-making process.

In order to effectively design a delivery top, Our group had to coordinate with the other groups about the dimensions of their spaces, like the mount size for the fryer group, or the space in which the folder group could mount their device. We also had to incorporate the needs of the other groups, like the overall dimensions of the cart given by the chassis group, or the height of the top, given by the conveyor group. In addition, we had to have enough room for the condiment boxes, the storage for the wraps, plates, and the counter-space.

When we started, we had many different ideas of what the delivery top should look like. Eventually we sat down as a group and chose one idea and started sketching. We edited the idea as we went, gradually making small improvements as we worked. When we finished, while we were taking with the storage group, we realized that our two ideas were different, so we had a meeting to make a process map in order to coordinate the designs. Once we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to create, we started making a new Rhino file for it. Even after we had the problem before due to a lack of communication, we still talked very little with the other groups. All we did was tell them dimensions and had them change their designs accordingly. This did not work very well in the long run because they were not always clear on how much space they had or where their piece was to be mounted. We also did not have a clear, solid design because we had not made a good sketch of what we intended to create. Because of all this, and because this seemed to be a common theme with all the groups, it was decided that we would all have a meeting to coordinate our ideas and make a process map diagram. This allowed us to get a basic understanding of what every group was working on and what needed to be changed or improved. After this meeting, we used that diagram to map the layout in Rhino in plan and section. When we were done, we started to cut the parts out of cardboard by hand because it would have taken too long to make the cut file and we were only cutting rectangles which aren’t complicated. When every group was done with their models, we had another big meeting to get up-to-date on the progress of each group, what each group’s task was, what was going well and what needed to be changed. That was the first time we got to see everyone’s parts assembled into a full cart. This was helpful and allowed us to get an actual physical model to hold and see how all the parts fit together. After the meeting, we immediately went off to make a new plan and section in Rhino of our final wooden model which included the thickness of the material. After we finished, we started working on the cut file for the final model.

One of the challenges in this project was that much of our time was used just to get the dimensions right and to give them to the other groups. The dimensions were constantly changing, so we had to repeatedly tell other groups what the new ones were. At one point, the dimensions were changing every hour. This was before we had a scale drawing of the design, so we had trouble keeping track of what the dimensions were. Once we made that drawing it was easy to get the dimensions from it.