This week I tested Designs 3.0 & 3.1, which were printed at the end of last week. I also designed and printed another prototype. I tested Design 3.0 & 3.1 on my own hair and concluded that although the design works, it makes putting your hair up more complicated, which is the opposite of what I’m trying to do. This design was not a complete failure though; I learned a lot from this design. With these designs, I created knobs for the elastic to hook onto allowing the user to let go of the elastic and re-adjust. With my previous designs, I created knobs for the elastic to hook onto, but the elastic kept sliding around. In Design 3.0 & 3.1 I created a cross-shaped divot in the knobs which fit the elastic perfectly.
One aspect of my design that made it harder to put my hair up was that the half cylinder was too thick and there wasn’t enough room to stretch and twist the elastic easily. The knobs on the side worked well, so I tinkered with one of my earlier designs that had the knobs, but not the divots.
Later in the week, I started designing and printing Design 4.0, which was just a cylinder with cross divots on each side. My idea with this design is that the cylinder could be grasped with the hair and force the elastic to twist around the hair. This design sort of worked, but I would be interested in making a hook on one side to grab the elastic and hook the hair through the elastic. Another challenge is that I am testing these tools on my hair so I cannot always see the mechanics of what is happening with my designs. My next steps will be to create a design that goes off of Design 4.0 by adding a hook to one side and asking my friend to test some of my designs.
