Overview


Purpose:  Class project for Physical Prototyping
Instructor:  Noah Posner
Timeline: August 2019 - October 2019
Tools: Concept Sketching, Pink Foam, Digital Calipers, Technical Drawing, CAD modelling, Solidworks
Team: Individual project
Contributions:  Created concept sketches of multiple objects, Modelled 15 iterations in foam, Sketched orthographic views of the final iteration and created its CAD model in Solidworks

Concept Sketches

Initial exploration of objects


In the critique session, a majority of votes were in favor of the eighth glue gun design - a hot glue pen. I decided to go ahead with this object since the design was relatively novel and unexplored. It would be interesting to experiment with factors such as grip, length, thickness, shape of the nozzle and even placement of the button.

Foam Modelling

In the land of rasps, drills, band-saws and pink foam dust




I started by making the first hot glue gun with an arbitrary dimension, followed by user feedback as insight to make the necessary change in any one variable for the next iteration. Finally, after two weeks of cutting, shaping and sanding one pink foam model after another..




The first few iterations involved getting the scale right so that the pen would not feel bulky while using. The radius of curvature and placement of the glue-stick display cut-out are other features I worked on. It was important not to keep the glue stick too close to where the hand would go, because hot glue is something people want to be careful of. During the later stages, when the ideal size was determined, I went on to explore nozzles. The tenth design was where I tried to make the nozzle as an extension of the pen itself, but that did not go well with most users so I went back to the previous iteration. From here on, I worked on making grooves and depressions for the thumb on the sides and even for the knuckle region on the back of the pen. The latter forms are clearer in the side-view of the models. While there was no clear winner, the thirteenth model was found to be the most ergonomic.

Technical Drawing

Orthographic views of the hot glue pen, drawn to scale - to be used as a blueprint for modelling in Solidworks


CAD Modelling

Presenting . . .







Future Work


  • ○     More iterations to explore grips, indentations, curvature of nozzle and button shapes and sizes
  • ○     Improvements in the curves and smoothness of the CAD model
  • ○     Experimentation with different materials and color patterns for the pen