Research & Concept

When I first started brainstorming ideas for playful objects, I initially had some trouble thinking of an object where the playfulness didn’t impede on the function. At one point I was thinking about how, since my Airpods are broken, I have been having to use wired headphones and have been frustrated with the wires getting tangled. I wanted to design an earbud cable wrapper in the shape of a person. However, I could not figure out how to make the human shape work well with the function of the object. After thinking further about what I could do with the general shape of a person, I had the idea of a desktop phone stand. There are many times where I am working on my laptop and like to have my phone nearby for easy access, so this object will definitely come in handy.

To add some playfulness to this object, I thought that the best approach would be to add people that are holding up the phone. As I develop this idea further, I will want to make sure that the measurements are broad enough to fit my phone with and without a case, and I will have to play around with the positioning and amount of people needed to create a stable support. I am also considering raising the stand up and adding a hole to allow me to charge my phone and use headphones while it is in the stand.

Iterations

For the modeling process, I began by taking measurements of my phone to make sure the holder would fit it exactly. I went into Tinkercad and placed shapes to create the holder itself, making sure they corresponded with the measurements that I took before. I then rotated it back slightly, and arranged several more shapes to create the people that hold it up. I made sure to have the people connecting to the holder in multiple places, and I positioned them with the hope that they would be sturdy enough to hold my phone. At one point I was considering adding another person that would interact with the phone from the front or side, but I ultimately decided against it because I wanted to be certain that the phone would still be fully usable while on the stand.

After finishing the model, I began my printing process. Because the model needed to be tested at scale and is fairly large, I printed it using the “fast” preset, with 20% infill. However, about an hour into printing, the model started coming off of the plate, which was interfering with how the filament was being placed. I realized that this was happening because I used the “skirt” adhesion, so there was nothing holding the print down and keeping it stable. I cancelled the print and tried again.

For my second attempt I used the same settings, but this time I used the “raft” adhesion to be sure it would remain 100% stable while printing. Once it finished, I really had to work to get off all of the supports, but I was very pleased with how it turned out. The print is perfectly sized for my phone, and the people seem pretty sturdy and have held up well so far.

Final

For the final iteration of my Stickman Phone Stand, I decided to make a few aesthetic changes. The main change that I made was making the people a bit smaller, in order to make it look like the phone was heavier for them and they were struggling more to keep it up. I also rounded the edges of the stand, since the corners were very sharp in the previous iterations. Finally, I added 2 small supports underneath the bottom of the stand itself to make it more stable when holding the phone.

Overall, I am very happy with how the stand turned out. The entire process of sketching, designing, and refining went well, and I always had clear ideas of what to do next throughout the process. I think that the addition of the smoothed edges do a lot to make the product look more refined, and the smaller size of the stickmen do a great job of making the phone look heavier, while still providing enough support and keeping it stable.