INSIDE OUT: WASHING MACHINE
Date :19.03.2020
Forth semester , Industrial design
National Institute of Design , Andhra Pradesh
(Keeping the picture quality and “fantastic” framing aside) As you can figure out from the pictures and the title, we dismantled the washing machine down to it’s nuts and bolts. Except a million spider eggs , dead spider and cockroaches , we also found out how interconnected every component was to others and how it’s form plays a major role in it’s function.
As a part of our first assignment for Simple Product Design , we were asked to take apart any household electronic. We a group of 12 people started with a partially working LG semi automatic top loading washing machine. The outer shell of the machine was made of steel with zinc coating and galvanized iron. The internal parts except wires ,gears and pipes were either of ABS or PP. We also studied each component individually , hence its material , manufacturing process and function(which I’ll be uploading soon).
After the post-mortem , we all constructed a detailed isometric 2:1 scale view of the machine , which again helped us to see the structural details of different parts and made us wonder how those calibrations were decided upon.
WHAT DID I LEARN?
Taking apart the machine and then making the isometric , felt like working with a huge jig-saw puzzle . Most of the extrusion , hole ,structure and in lay man language “design” had a role to play in either user experience or function. And those for which we couldn’t find a reason to exist ,posed as an opportunity to learn or to create something new. The exercise as a whole taught me to question the fundamental of the products around me , to see them not as one unit but a combination of parts working together to achieve something (also in life as it was hell of a team exercise) .
The study of machine in general made me realize that , solutions to some very seemingly complicated can be very basic and simple.
