improvement

I’ve been thinking about my project a lot today. The focus has shifted a little. My “kitchen machine” is a food processor, blender, and mixer all in one, but that’s only one product. The purpose of the assignment is to design three. So… what about the other two? The premise of the kitchen machine is that there is one motor for all the appliances. This one motor powers any kind of activity you’d need to do in the kitchen which is based on a spinning blade, hook, etc. So, what other activities are there that can be shared? There’s water heating: steaming, boiling water for tea, coffee, etc., cooking noodles or rice. There’s also dry heating: toasting, baking, broiling, grilling. I’ve got two very different directions I could go with this.

One–Large Scale. Redesign a range/oven/kitchen machine so that it takes up minimal space. Maybe they could still be one volume. Would that bring me back to the original problem, though? It seems like it could be a good idea. The ultimate kitchen tool. Any other kitchen appliance beyond these would just be a convenience–even a microwave isn’t really necessary if you have a range and an oven.

Two–Standalone. Have separate items, resting on counter or mounted to wall/cabinets/countertop. Each item is a mega-appliance–the boss of its appliance type. You have the kitchen machine, immersion heater, and dry heater. I suppose these would be most likely to result in three separate forms. But my question is, do you really need a toaster oven AND a large oven? Do you really need a water heating vessel other than a pot and stovetop? What if you only need the small ones–that could be an interesting approach.

I’m just not too sure where to go from here. I worked really hard all last week, and now I’m starting to feel like I won’t have anything concrete by tomorrow. I was headed that way, but now I feel like I’ve just hit a wall. Hum.

On a different note, I’ve been watching YouTube tutorials today, too. One of my new goals is to be awesome at sketching. I’m pretty mediocre right now, but if I practice enough, I could probably get pretty good. Marker and pastel renderings look so awesome–I’d really love to be able to do them well. Then again, with 3D computer software, is it still worth learning how to crank out a really hefty sketch?