Designing a USB Drive Product - Term Paper Example

Abstract This paper entails the final report in designing a USB drive product for enhancing cloud storage through Bluetooth. The USB drive product was found to be useful for the USB Bluetooth cloud storage to be incorporated in high definition cameras manufactured by Go Pro Cameras Company. Go Pro Camera Company specializes in high definition camera development, their manufacturing, and marketing. The company’s key characteristics, philosophy, and objectives are discussed in this final report. Achievement of various tasks is realized in this report. Some of these include determination of customer characteristics and linking them to the company’s philosophy and objectives. Some other tasks achieved include full determination and consideration of the design concepts, establishment of the material for manufacturing the product, determination of its weight and dimensions, and estimation of unit and overall costs. Table of Contents 1.0 INTRODUCTION 4 1.1 Overview 4 1.2 Company Philosophy and Objectives 5 1.3 Promotional Strategies 5 1.4 USB Bluetooth Cloud Storage 6 2.0 DISCUSSION (The Design Concepts) 6 2.1 GoPro Multi-Mount 6 2.2 View Master 8 2.3 USB Bluetooth Cloud Storage 10 2.3.1 Design Concepts Chosen and Justification 11 2.3.2 Comprising Materials 12 2.3.3 Approximate Product Dimensions 13 2.3.4 The Weight of the Product 13 2.3.5 Possible Manufacturing Process 13 2.3.6 The Cost of the Product 14 2.4 Tolerance 15 2.5 Information about Safety, Packaging, Legal, Environment, and Disposal 16 3.0 CONCLUSION 17 4.0 BIBLIOGRAPHY 18 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Overview The Go Pro Cameras Company is typically a technological company, which specializes in the development, the manufacturing, and the marketing of high definition personal cameras, which are mainly used in extreme-action video photography. These cameras were found to be lightweight, rugged, and compact. The cameras are mainly worn or mounted on vehicles, humans, and sports equipment. They were as well found to useful in extreme and dangerous sports capturing up close and personal shots taking amateur and professional photography to a completely new level. In this regard, they are capable of capturing still photos/videos in HD by a wide-angle lens. One can configure the cameras to work automatically without much intervention by being controlled remotely. The Hero4 black for instance was found as being usable in shooting 4K video at 30 frames per second. Fig. 1 below shows an image overview of the Hero 4. Fig. 1: The Hero 4 The Hero4 (as shown in Fig. 1) is typically the highest performing device in the line of capture devices ever made by the company [10]. It is more advanced than Hero 2, which has a feature that allows up to 11 megapixel photos per half a second. Generally, the company’s cameras come with new processors, which, according to their estimates, are twice as fast as it is with its predecessor. They also have, built in them, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth features that can be used to connect them to the GoPro applications via one’s Smartphone or tablet [1]. 1.2 Company Philosophy and Objectives The company operations are typically based on its philosophy and objectives. The success of the company is based on passionate ideas regarding what is possible. This passion contributes to the creation of experiences as well as realities that expand its world besides inspiring the people around it. The company’s philosophy and objectives are mainly to reach more people and at the same time focus on increasing its market base respectively. In this regard, the management has been forced to shift and place much focus on the company’s promotional products. The need for this effort is to ensure that the consumers can find them more appealing and worthwhile. With the proposed feature, GoPro will help people to capture and share their most meaningful life experiences with others, as an enhanced way of celebrating together, specifically by sharing what has been captured. People would therefore be able to share their lives through incredible videos and photos. 1.3 Promotional Strategies Typically, the company’s promotional products come in many different forms to help in marketing its products. Promotional strategies help majorly in awareness creation of the company’s products, and in making the company distinct from the others. The promotional products should be able to influence the target customers positively, and help increase the company’s market share. In most designs, a prototype would be required in order to be able to assess this effectiveness and limit the risks involved [2]. Most of the physical promotional products would include the production of company bags, company pens, shirts that they would provide for their users and/or employees. 1.4 USB Bluetooth Cloud Storage As a team leading the design of the company’s camera products, it has become highly important to recommend the use of promotional USB Bluetooth cloud storage. Often, the procedure used in the design of a successful promotional product design involves the determination of the target market, picking of the appropriate events and the best promotional items fitting both the brand and the market. When coming up with the design, the focus should be on the end users of the company’s products. How the market would react to these products and whether they will improve the brand, awareness should be of a particular focus to the company. Reasoning for the USB cloud storage would be to promote the GoPros built-in and under used Wi-Fi element that allows the camera to connect to computers or the smartphone app. 2.0 DISCUSSION (The Design Concepts) Generally, three different designs were found to exist. These designs include the GoPro Multi-Mount, the View Master, as well as the USB Bluetooth cloud storage. Each of the designs is explained in details. The Solidworks software was used as part of an additional works that was found as critical in supporting the project. 2.1 GoPro Multi-Mount The idea behind design one was to emulate the experience of using a GoPro. In this regard, the GoPro multi-mount was designed to fit various purposes. It was designed in such a way that it would be compatible with the known official GoPro mounts. Nevertheless, the design allowed for attaching the mount in any of the GoPro’s sides [9]. Again, it is useful in creating a matrix GoPros that are equally separated. This makes it easy to use time effect that exist [9]. About the final design, the promotional product showed a combination of current features that various GoPro mounts have such as the Go Pole and the Gooseneck among others. This ensures that device user could develop a feel and understanding of how the GoPro works and is used as a whole [14]. Owing to the cameras wide screen photography, the fisheye mirror was to imitate the images you would be taking and receiving on the camera. For instance if you held the promotional mount out and extended it, the mirror would give you an insight as to what sort of images your camera would be taking; for example when users take a ‘selfie’. A selfie refers to a self-portrait photo taken using a hand-held camera or a camera enabled device like a phone. The image obtained can be transferred to other devices through the Bluetooth feature for sharing on social networks like Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter among others. Therefore, one not only lets the user get a feel for the gadgets advanced mounts but also gives an insight into the cameras photographic ability, which together with the sharing capabilities, the entire experience becomes incredible. The mounts are of various type/structures depending on usage. The design has to be compatible with official GoPro mount, although the mounts can be attached in any of the GoPro camera sides. Fig.2: A typical Structure of a GoPro Multi-Mount . 2.2 View Master The view master was a traditional children’s toy that was popular in the 1920s. It was designed in such a way that when one looked through the lenses, a photo was projected and the viewer could see a range of tourist attractions that the toy was promoting [5]. This view master aspect is well illustrated in Figure 2. The GoPro’s philosophy is about travel and experience. In this regard, one idea that was initiated and developed was looking into a small view master that was the shape of the GoPro. The images inside was an official photos from around the world that had been taken by a GoPro. Although one does not actually raise the GoPro to his or her eyes in order to take a photo like traditional film cameras, it provided the user with the idea of what such a small device could accomplish. Fig.3: A typical Image of a View-Master Fig.4: A Simple Sketch of View-Masters 2.3 USB Bluetooth cloud storage The development of the cloud has greatly changed the way people interact with computers and other related devices. The cloud has typically made external storages and USB flash drives less useful with time [10]. Such storage devices are only necessary when storing huge files, but with files like camera-captured images, the cloud is highly convenient [10]. The cloud storage has given rise to other technologies like the USB Bluetooth cloud storage. The USB Bluetooth cloud storage involves mainly a USB Flash Drive that turns devices on for cloud connectivity via a Bluetooth link. Files of various types can be easily stores on various selected devices after which they can be viewed or organized later [5]. Concerning the design project in this case, the images captured using the camera can be transferred to other devices that have better features in terms of storage, viewing, organizing, or editing. Fig. 5: Sketch of the USB Bluetooth Cloud Storage The USB Bluetooth cloud storage uses Bluetooth wireless connectivity, which is provides similar benefits as WIFI connectivity, but it is more advantageous that Bluetooth in that less energy is needed/used for the drive and the Bluetooth connectivity. The connectivity thus would be able to last longer than the WIFI featured devices. Fig. 6 shows a labelled sketch for the above cloud storage. Fig. 6: Labelled Sketch of the USB Bluetooth Cloud Storage [14] 2.3.1 Design Concept chosen and justification For the GoPro Multi-Mount, the idea behind its design was to emulate the experience of using a GoPro. The promotional product showed a combination of current features that various GoPro mounts have like the GoPole and Gooseneck among others. This was meant to ensure that the user could develop a feel and an understanding of the way the GoPro works as well as the way it is used as a whole. Due to the cameras wide screen photography, the fish-eye mirror was to imitate the images you would be taking and receiving on the camera.   Regarding the USB Bluetooth cloud storage/connectivity, the idea was to emulate GoPro’s advanced and self-powered Wi-Fi feature [8]. This feature delivers an enhanced performance as well as improved power management. In this regard, the USB Bluetooth cloud storage was seen as highly useful in the sense that it could perform most of the tasks achieved through the WI-FI feature. Thus, USB cloud storage, as shown in Fig. 5 was created. The USB Bluetooth cloud storage in this case is able connect, store and send files to a computer or mobile phone using Bluetooth. Once the image files are the computers, they could be managed or edited if necessary. The reason for choosing Bluetooth was that it could achieve the same connectivity achieved through Wi-Fi enabled devices [10]. Besides, it was found to be a lot cheaper and easier to produce. 2.3.2 Comprising materials The materials for this USB, as shown in Figure 5 will be mainly some Polycarbonate plastics and other typical plastic material. The Polycarbonate is one of the engineering thermoplastics [7], but this was mostly prefered for the lense. The Polycarbonate plastics are a specifically a certain group of thermoplastic polymers that are moulded, worked, and thermoformed easily. The application in this case is mainly attributed to these properties, which also make it have many applications [7]. The other key reasons for deciding to use this material is the advantages of having high strength and lightweight [3]. The material is also durable and has a relatively high impact-resistance. Due to its low resistance to scratch, a hard coating would be applied to enhance the durability and neatness of the products. Other plastics were used for the device shell. This followed their availability and affordability as well as strength. Similarly, aluminium was used for the pivot lever due to its characteristic of being non-corrosive. The fixed connector was made using steel due to its strength. 2.3.3 Approximate Product Dimension Based on the conducted research, the dimension of the USB drive that our design is based on is 15.8 x 14.2 x 5 cm [4]. Technologically, the size has to decrease to enhance portability. In this regard, the product being designed in this case was a little bit smaller than the researched dimensions. This is attributed to the fact that it had to be compact enough to fit inside the camera and should not have been difficult to carry. Therefore, the approximate dimensions of the products were set to be 12 x 10 x 3 cm. 2.3.4 The weight of the Product The weight of the original product was found to be 59g [4]. Technological advancements are characterized by enhancing functionality and minimizing product size and weight. It would thus require a smaller and lighter deigned than the original one. In this regard, the design product describe here is supposed to be more detailed. It also has to contain a Bluetooth circuit inside it. Therefore, the anticipated weight of the product was set as 65g. This weight could have increased by about two times due to the additional featured. 2.3.5 Possible Manufacturing Processes to be used The manufacturing process used for the product will be injection moulding. Typically, plastic mould casting for the outer shell as the mold casting machines are readily available in most manufacturing factories and have high output value. It would therefore be easy to obtain it. The mould would however be manufactured first so that it could be set into the casting machine. The manufacturing process will be used to produce the required parts through injection material into mould [7]. In this regard, it will be initiated with polycarbonate plastics as the host materials. The polycarbonate plastic material will be fed into barrel that has been heated. It will then be mixed and force through into a mould with a specific cavity. Here, it will be allowed to cool in order to herded and make it easy to handle [7]. The resulting shape would be configured to the cavity. The shape would specifically be similar to the designed shape for the USB device attachment, which will be illustrated in more detail on Solidworks software. On the other hand, all the other materials will be obtained from suppliers. Aluminium parts would however be produced through chemical milling. This would involve a subtractive process using temperature-regulated etching chemicals baths for removing the aluminium in order to create the desired aluminium shapes [15]. 2.3.6 The Cost of Production Specifically, it was decided that the cost of production would be based on the unit cost of production. The cost of production will be based on all possible total fixed costs (TFC) and total variable costs (TVC). The TFC would include cost associated with premises, the machinery to be used, and any other equipment needed [13]. These costs would be fixed because they would not change irrespective of the number of units produced. Even when the output increases, these costs would be constant. However, the variable costs would change with increase or decrease in the volume of output. The costs would change as shown in fig.1 [13]. Fig.1: A Graphical Illustration of Possible Changes in Costs in the Course of the Manufacturing Process From fig. 1, total cost curve keep on rising alongside he TVC curve. The TFC is however constant. It is nevertheless estimated that, on average, £1.75 would cover the cost of assembling a single unit. Besides, the cost of transporting one unit is estimated at £0.30. Thus, the total cost of producing one unit would be estimated at £2.05. Considering that the total number of anticipated units is 10,000, the total production cost would be £20,500 for all the10, 000 units [13]. This figure would however change as the number of units produced increases. This increased would be caused by an increase in variable costs such as cost of materials, energy consumption, and labour costs among others [13]. Nevertheless, the values are basic estimations based on a single prototype. 2.4 Tolerance Regarding the aspect of tolerance, the USB Bluetooth technology has the potential to cope with changes in its surroundings, as it remains functional. Some of the most considered elements include its physical dimension, its measured value or the physical property of the USB Bluetooth device. The materials used make the device highly tolerant to temperature and humidity among other physical environmental elements [18]. The material and technology are also designed to ensure maximum safety. The dimensions of the device, with respect to the prevailing conditions, are designed in that a way that they do not affect the operations of the technology. Any possible variations should not be beyond the tolerance for the technology to be considered compliant. This follows the fact that too restrictive tolerance would make the technology unable to function effectively [18]. 2.5 Information about Safety , Packaging , Legal , Environment and Disposal Safety concern is an issue in information and communication in general. Bluetooth as an aspect of information transfer involve the transmission of information through short-wavelength UHF radio waves, especially the microwave radio frequency spectrums, which could involve some adverse health effects in the end. The effect is however negligible, but for maximum safety, the technology safety would be one of the major priorities. Regarding data safety, hacking the Bluetooth connection could be possible. The failure to use inscription in some cases could pose threats on the data safety [16]. In the case of packaging, environmentally friendly material would be used. Besides, it would be important to indicate possible warnings regarding the misuse of the packaging material by customers. At any given time, adequate directions on the best way to dispose the packaging material would be indicated. This requirement is critical since it would be meant to promote the safety of the immediate physical environment. The packaging, health, safety, and security concerns should be made with respect to the prevailing laws and regulations governing each case [17]. The basic standards used have to comply with the prevailing laws and regulations. Packaging, for instance, should comply with the Uniform Packaging and Labelling Regulations. Such regulations places restrictions regarding the way packages should be labelled or even measured [17]. 3.0 CONCLUSION In concussion, several achievements were realized. Before setting up the final design for product, determination of the customer characteristics was done. Such characteristics were then to the company philosophy and project objectives. This was meant to ensure the full consideration of the design concept. These design concepts included GoPro Multi-Mount, View Master, and USB Bluetooth cloud storage. The material useful for the actual design were fully analyzed and chosen with respect to their engineering and chemical characteristics. Other important tasks achieved included the approximation of dimensions for the design and actual product as well as cost estimation. All these achievements gave way to an easy task during the actual project. 4.0 BIBLIOGRAPHY [1] MITSUISHI, M., UEDA, K., & KIMURA, F. 2008. Manufacturing systems and technologies for the new frontier: the 41st CIRP Conference on Manufacturing Systems, [Online] Tokyo, Japan. London, Springer, Available from:http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=aaRDAAAAQBAJ&pg=PR8&lpg=PR8&dq=) +Manufacturing+systems+and+technologies+for+the+new+frontier:+the+41st+CIRP++ MITSUISHI,+M.,+UEDA,+K.,+%26+KIMURA,+F.+(2008)+Conference+on+Manufact uring+Systems&source=bl&ots=Lvyrra3idh&sig=k2sogH2bvvdGtoua8R7bCUrlGNc&hl =en&sa=X&ei=itNRVLrUFoetaY7PgYAM&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=)%20Manufact uring%20systems%20and%20technologies%20for%20the%20new%20frontier%3A%20t he%2041st%20CIRP%20%20MITSUISHI%2C%20M.%2C%20UEDA%2C%20K.%2C %20%26%20KIMURA%2C%20F.%20(2008)%20Conference%20on%20Manufacturing %20Systems&f=false [Accessed: 23 Oct 2014] [2] CHITALE, A., & GUPTA, R. C. 2007. Product design and manufacturing. [Online]New Delhi, Prentice-Hall of India. Available from: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=CFlyglsIINYC&pg=PR4&lpg=PR4&dq=Product+de sign+and+manufacturing+CHITALE,+A.,+%26+GUPTA,+R.+C.+(2007).&source=bl&o ts=SGjYdigu5J&sig=U4FfPmXtZcvE1hWcY5kJX_NyH8M&hl=en&sa=X&ei=g9RRV LDlCsfhas_ZgpAJ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Product%20design%20and%20manufac turing%20CHITALE%2C%20A.%2C%20%26%20GUPTA%2C%20R.%20C.%20(2007 ).&f=false.[Accessed: 24 Oct 2014] [3] CES software (2014).Material .Available from: http://www.grantadesign.com/products/ces/ [Accessed 29 OCT 2014] [4] Amazon (2014) Flash drive. [Online] Available from: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Camera- Flash-Drive-Funny- Memory/dp/B007K4TSZW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414592399&sr=8- 1&keywords=camera+pen+drive [Accessed: 29 Oct 2014] [5] Anon, n.a. View-Master Modele. [Online] Available at: http://www.viewmaster.co.uk/htm/e.asp [Accessed 20 December 2014]. [6] HotUKDeals, 2013. USB Flash Drive (USB+Wi-Fi+Bluetooth+Cloud Storage) for iOS. [Online] Available at: http://www.hotukdeals.com/freebies/usb-flash-drive-usb-wi-fi-bluetooth- cloud-storage-for-ios-1565833 [Accessed 29 November 2014]. [7] Parvin, M. & Williams, J. G., 1975. The effect of temperature on the fracture of polycarbonate. Journal of Materials Science, 10 (11), p. 1883. [8] SAN MATEO, C., 2014. GoPro Introduces HERO4: The Most Powerful GoPro Lineup, Ever. [Online] Available at: http://gopro.com/news/gopro-introduces-hero4-the-most-powerful-gopro- lineup-ever [Accessed 29 November 2014]. [9] Shapeways, Inc., 2014. GoPro Multi Mount. [Online] Available at: http://www.shapeways.com/model/636582/gopro-multi-mount.html [Accessed 29 November 2014]. [10] Thompson, A., 2014. MBLOK: 250GB of Bluetooth Accessible Storage in Your Pocket. [Online] Available at: http://www.techfaster.com/mblok-bluetooth-storage/ [Accessed 29 November 2014]. [11] Picker, Leslie, 2014. GoPro Touts Media Ahead of IPO for Higher Value Than Cameras. [12] Lefteri, C., 2012. Making It: Manufacturing Techniques for Product Design. 2 ed. London: Laurence King Publishing. [13] Economics Online Ltd, 2014. Costs of production: Fixed and variable costs. [Online] Available at: http://www.economicsonline.co.uk/Business_economics/Costs.html [Accessed 04 December 2014]. [14] Anon., 2014. GoPro: Design for Manufacture. pp. 1-8. [15] Fishlock, D., 1960. New Ways of Cutting Metal. New Scientist 8 (212): 1535. [16] Monson, H., 1999. Bluetooth Technology and Implications. [Online] Available at: http://www.sysopt.com/features/network/article.php/3532506 [Accessed 20 December 2014]. [17] Pearson, C., 2014 . Packaging Regulations in the USA. [Online] Available at: http://www.ehow.com/list_6921175_packaging-regulations-usa.html [Accessed 20 December 2014 ]. [18] Pillet, M., Adragna, P. A. & Germain, F., 2006. Inertial Tolerancing: "The Sorting Problem", Journal of Machine Engineering. Manufacturing Accuracy Increasing Problems, optimization, 6(1), pp. 95-102. Read More