Concept:
Cloud is designed to be an aesthetically pleasing automatic plant care device that will provide water and light for your indoor plants. Cloud aims to be both a functional plant care system as well as a statement art piece in your living space.
Motivation: The concept for Cloud began as I was brainstorming for ways to keep my plants alive. I love the life that plants bring to a living space but I’ve never been good at plant care. I knew there were existing plant care devices that automatically water and provide grow lights for plants but the physical design of those products never appealed to me enough to justify putting it in my apartment.
Design: As someone who deeply appreciates minimal design, that’s where I began my design. I knew that the design needed to include both a watering and a light element in order to care for the plant. I started my thought process with the natural world: what provides water and light? Clouds provide rain and the sun provides light. Immediately, I loved where this idea was headed; since clouds and the sun are already naturally beautifully minimal, I knew I’d be able to create a sleek representation for my product design. With a general idea in mind, I began with a quick sketch.
The design idea was to build a cloud shaped reservoir to hold water which would be released as rain drops on a schedule depending on how often the plant needed water. The bottom of the cloud would also have built in grow lights that would also turn on based on a schedule best for the plant. As an added visual appeal, I wanted the cloud to have a sun peaking around one side that would light up when the grow lights were on. I also thought about making the cloud light up with flashes “lightning” while the rain water feature was on but ultimately decided that this would be too distracting when really implemented. To keep the design minimal, I wanted the cloud to have 3–4 puff rounds and after sketching different puff sizes and placements, I decided with 4 puff rounds with the cloud peaking behind the two smaller rounds.
Goal:
The goal of Cloud is to test desirability. Since products with similar functions already exist, I wanted to test if focusing more on physical appearance would increase desirability for a plant care product. To test this while respecting COVID protocols, I would send photos of the finished prototype and a short description to friends and family, asking for for feedback and if they would be interested in purchasing a product like Cloud. I also planned to bring the prototype to work since that was the only place I would be able to get hands on feedback on the structure and build of the prototype during COVID.
Implementation:
To build Cloud, I needed material that was strong enough to support a rigid design, but thin enough for me to easily cut clean curves for the cloud shape. I also wanted the material to be inherently white in color. With this in mind, I decided to use white foam poster board. For the sun, I needed a sheer or transparent material that would let light shine through. At first I searched for overhead projector plastic sheets but couldn’t find any in yellow. I thought about cutting yellow paper and lining the plastic sheets with it but this seemed like a clunky solution to me. I wanted Cloud to come out as a polished, almost ready to sell prototype. After some brainstorming I came to an epiphany — yellow plastic folders. These would be easily cut into shape, flexible enough for the curve of the sun, and sheer enough to let light through yet also opaque enough to not show any of the messy wiring inside.
After collecting my materials, I began sketching on the poster board. I used bowls from my kitchen that I had in two sizes as my tracer for the cloud puff rounds.
After sketching, erasing, and re-sketching on the poster board until I was satisfied with the shape of the cloud, I drew a new sketch to help me keep track of the build. I used a tailoring tape measurer to measure the arc length of each puff (the sun arc length is specified in this sketch but wasn’t actually added until later).
To build the side of the cloud, I needed to have the poster board curve to each of the 4 puff rounds. To do this, I decided I would cut the poster board into segments, one for each cloud puff and score the poster board by inch increments to give it the flexibility to curve to the puffs. To keep the design consistent, this scoring increment also led me to space the rain holes on the bottom of the cloud by inches as well. Having all the specifics thought out, I started cutting into the poster board with an x-acto knife. To make the rain holes, I used a drill followed by trimming with scissors to clean up the edges.
Next, I had to plan out my wiring. I needed have light shine through the bottom of the cloud and then move up into the sun. To do this, I decided the cleanest design would be to cut an opening in one of the cloud puffs that would be covered by the sun enclosure and feed the fairy lights through the cutout into the sun. This design should also keep the cluster of lights in the sun and keep them from falling down into the cloud. I also needed to build a space to securely hold the battery pack for the lights inside the cloud with easy access to the on-off switch.
Next, I started gluing the lights into the bottom of the cloud with hot glue. At first I planned to glue lights in every other rain hole that I had previously drilled. After about two lights, I decided I didn’t like how this looked and it started straying away from the minimal design I was aiming for. I ended up drilling new holes on the outer edge and additional holes between the existing rows of rain holes for the lights to go in. I also built a small enclosure for the battery pack, making it slightly larger than the pack and cutting out a space for access to the on off switch. I made a second cutout and glued ribbon to one end of the battery pack to allow for removal and battery change if needed.
Next, I sketched the pieces of the sun. I wanted the sun to be slightly further back than the furthest point of the cloud so I reduced the width from the 4 inches I used for the cloud to 3 inches, allowing for a 1/2 inch border of cloud on each side of the sun.
Then I glued each side piece to one of the cloud cutouts. I glued the segments from the inside in order to keep the outside of the cloud clean with no visible glue. About halfway through glueing the segments, I thought how am I going to get the other half on without glue showing on the outside? I immediately knew this was going to be a major problem. I couldn’t glue this side by segments because the poster board isn’t flexible enough to let me glue one side and have it lift up enough to put glue on the next segment. This was a problem because hot glue also cooled far too quickly for me to draw a ring of glue around the entire perimeter and simply lay the other half on. Because of this, I decided to leave one side arc segment off. I planned to leave an opening and attempt to glue the second of the half of the cloud from the inside. Next I fed the fairy lights through the cutout in the upper right corner and left the lights hanging on the outside of the cloud structure until later. Gluing the second half of the cloud was by far the most difficult part of this prototype. I had to tear off the bottom of the cloud (and remake a new one) in order to give my hand enough room to reach inside and glue the second half of the cloud on from the inside. After getting the second half on, I glued on the bottom of the cloud and sealed it off with the final side arc segment.
Lastly, I glued on the sun. This step was also difficult because the plastic material was so thin and didn’t want to hold shape unless it had something forcing it to. As a result, I had glue inch by inch allowing each inch before to completely dry and hold in place before moving on. The thinness of the material also proved difficult because I didn’t want it to have any overlap that would make the prototype more “rough”; I had to get the glue exactly on the edge of each piece of the plastic, making sure not to press too hard, forcing the glue to bleed out onto the outside but not too lightly either or it wouldn’t stick.
Now for the rain drops. Since I made the cloud of poster board and there’s battery and wiring inside, I couldn’t actually pour water into the cloud reservoir so I needed to create a representation for the water feature. I wanted to create cutouts of raindrops and use various lengths of thin string to attach them to the bottom of the cloud. I decided to use glossy blue paper ribbon because it the glossiness would reflect as rain drops would. As I superglued the back of the ribbon to the string, I realized the ribbon was too light and kept clinging to each other through static. To add to the weight, I attached another drop cutout to the backside and used excess superglue in-between to weigh it down. This kept the drops hanging straight down.
I also realized I didn’t want to attach and detach each individual raindrop to the cloud while demoing the prototype so I decided to attach all the raindrops to a clear sheet of soft plastic that was cut to the dimensions of the bottom of the cloud and would allow me to easily tape and attach the raindrops to the cloud all at once.
Lastly, to attach Cloud to the wall with a floating effect, I used command strips attached to the back of the cloud.
Evaluation:
To evaluate my prototype, I sent photos of Cloud with a short description to friends and family, asking for their feedback. I also brought the prototype to work and asked for feedback from coworkers. Overall, I got an incredibly positive feedback about the design and some even expressed that they wanted me to produce Cloud immediately because they loved the minimal design and wanted it as a piece in their home.
After viewing the promo video I made later for Cloud, one friend actually mentioned that the prototype was so refined that she thought I had bought the cloud and only made the rain drops myself.
My sister even wanted to show Cloud to some of her friends because she found the design so aesthetically pleasing. She even requested that I make a Cloud for her in the future, even if it’s not functional, she wanted it even as just a light. All in all, I would say the design was very successful and is definitely a desirable product for users. The prototype was also incredibly successful, refined enough for a friend to believe it was an existing product that was store bought.
Analysis:
After spending 9 non stop hours building Cloud, I’ve definitely learned a lot through the process. I think the materials I picked were perfect for my prototype because the poster board was strong enough to hold up the battery pack and the inner lights actually show a bit of the blended material of paper giving it a slight cotton/cloud like visual. The plastic folder used for the sun let the perfect amount of light through to create a glow but also not show the individual fairy lights inside. To improve this prototype, I want find a better way to glue the second half of the cloud together. Aside from being messy, I realized that gluing it this way doesn’t leave room for modification. The entire design is sealed shut and attempting to take it apart to make modifications would destroy the poster board. Lastly, I should have built an enclosed space for the battery pack. If I lay Cloud on its side, the battery pack falls out of its small enclosure, into the cloud and is relatively difficult to get back into its place since I can’t open up the cloud.
If I were to make another prototype similar to this one, I would definitely buy double the amount of material you think you need in case there are some bumps along the way. For example, when I had to remake the base of the cloud, I barely had enough poster board left to do so. Having extra material allows you to iterate over and over until you’re satisfied with the pieces. I would also try to plan out how to build it more than I did with Cloud. Although I didn’t skip any steps, I just didn’t realize glueing the second half of Cloud would be an issue until I got to that step. It’s hard to predict issues like this but making Cloud has definitely shown me at least one thing to be aware of before I start building future prototypes.
