Desk Design

For a first-year design project, I collaborated with other engineering students to redesign one of the Carleton lecture hall desks (Minto 2000). Our goal was to develop a desk that could attach to or improve the existing design while maintaining compatibility with the current chairs and ensuring easy removal for fire safety. The project included multiple brainstorming sessions, iterative design development, and the creation of a final model in AutoCAD and Fusion 360, with careful attention to dimensions and assembly allowances.

Goal

The goal of this project was to develop an improved design for the Minto 2000 lecture hall desks at Carleton University. The redesigned desk needed to attach to or replace the existing desk while remaining compatible with the current chairs and ensuring ease of removal for fire safety. The final design was then presented to peers and a final report was submitted

Challenges

The main challenge we faced was narrowing down design concepts from several initial ideas. Since all the designs we created had different pros and cons, we used a decision matrix to evaluate each design and all scored them based on our set parameters. From this we were able to come to the best overall design which we used for the final.

My Role

My primary responsibilities included creating the final Fusion 360 model, ensuring that all components were accurately sized and compatible for assembly, as well as contributing to brainstorming sessions and presenting the design.

Creating the final Fusion 360 model with precise dimensions and connection allowances
Brainstorming and iterative design development
Presenting the final design to the class/professor
Design evaluation using a decision matrix