A different Kind of design: My fake Firearm weapon.
In my last year of high school I took a design technology class. Now my schools design tech class went to the museum and saw the top design exhibition. While there were many lovely and pretty designs yet they where all pretty much the same thing. Chairs and Barstools by private schools and obviously having parents invest hundreds of dollars into these projects. But the unfair crookedness of the exhibition isn?t the point.
Everything there was the same! Boring, Pretty and shiny but boring. So I thought to myself what would be a good item to make that no one else in Victora year 12 would attempt. A firearm!
So. I asked the teacher if it was legal to make a fake prop firearm. As long as it couldn?t be used as a weapon it was fine. And thus started the process.
The total time of the project was 20 weeks. From Criteria to design to prototyping to modifying to the final product. While not the prettiest weapon the process I went through was the most in depth in my school. And the making of this gun can be gauged as a typical process of design. I did research into older weapons. I had to learn metal cutting and crafting techniques. I drew over 4 prototype designs and made a tangible prototype to suss out what can and can?t work. From that I found 9 different aspects of the gun that needed modification and adjusted the design. I came across almost catastrophic setbacks and adjusted myself and the design to compensate.
I?ve scanned in some of the pages and some really bad web cam photos. But the point of all this is simple. As designers, or even wannabe designers like me. We don?t have to focus design purely on games and games alone. Applying design to different things shows some form of versatility.
