Tyson Triplett and Professor Paul Skaggs, School of Technology, Industrial Design

Model-making is an essential part of the Industrial Design profession. An idea, no matter how good, is only as valuable as you are able to present it to others. Model-making can be seen as a language by which we share and validate our ideas as designers. More than that, it is a universal language that everyone understands no matter origin, education, or level of understanding. For this reason, we spend more time learning to convince others of our concepts than generating those ideas. A common saying around the department is: “If a picture is worth a thousand words then a model is worth a thousand pictures.” If this is the case we as Industrial Designers need to embrace model making in our curriculum and strive to gain some mastery of a few basics.

A brief synopsis of my project was to explore and document model-making techniques and materials as they pertain to the Industrial Designer. To accomplish this task I took on a teaching role here at BYU in the Industrial Design department educating undergraduate designers on the basics of model-making (under the help and direction of my mentor, Paul Skaggs). After the first semester of teaching I revised my curriculum and taught another semester of to perfect my instruction. Throughout teaching I studied and wrote a simple text on desk-top model-making.

Creating and presenting a new curriculum was quite a challenge. There were a lot of hiccups along the way that I did not expect. It seemed as though the processes I thought most clear ended up giving my students the greatest difficulty. I had to revise the way I approached these topics multiple times to find a solution. There were several subjects presented the first semester that I completely avoided the second semester because I never could figure out how to present them in a thorough and understandable, yet timely manner. I decided that if the topics were that difficult to teach or grasp then they probably were too complex for inclusion in my desk-top modeling text.

Through the process of teaching I learned better ways of doing things which widened the curriculum gap between the first and second semester. By taking a grading approach of valuing effort over excellence my students found new and innovative approaches to the modeling problems I presented. I think I learned as much from my students as they learned from me. Although I believe my first semester was educational, I believe my second semester of instruction was far superior to the first. I also feel as if I were to teach yet another semester the education would undoubtedly be better yet.

This experience has offered a different perspective to model-making than I had first anticipated. I realized that model-making in general is quite specialized and leaves little room for error. It also is a process that involves a collection of specialized tools and equipment. For this reason I decided to focus more directly on materials and techniques that could be approached with little experience and even fewer specialized tools. The concept that developed was the idea of presenting some processes that could achieve relatively high quality models and be executed almost entirely from the designers desk-top. As you can imagine this limited the variety of modern model-making methods I could employ in my curriculum. I did in the end discover a series of materials and techniques that fit the bill quite well. My main focus became a total development of techniques to manipulate these few specific materials.

In the end I compiled both a curriculum for teaching future classes the basics and a small text to supplement that curriculum. Where my original proposal called for quite a variety of materials, I narrowed it down to just a few that I felt yielded that best models with the fewest tools and most forgiving techniques. I ended up with 4 materials that fit these criteria: foam-core, styrene, urethane foam, and MDF (medium density fiber-board) as well as some other complimentary materials and techniques like: Glues, thermoplastics (acrylic, polycarbonate, etc.), Silicone mold rubber, thermoset plastics (urethane, polyester, and epoxy), as well as heat and vacuum forming.

In retrospect I would probably narrow the number of materials and techniques even more. I think it more beneficial to be a master of two or three more simple processes than just be acquainted with a dozen complex ones. I also believe that one semester is hardly enough time to thoroughly learn the materials and techniques presented. I know that we must present the information and at some point move on, but I feel as thought students often divorce themselves from a subject once the class is over. I believe that the Industrial Design education here at BYU will be more fulfilling if students, when in future classes, are further required to build upon the foundation they have previously received. To solidify the things taught in my classes I propose students and educators look for ways to apply the new found knowledge in separate endeavors, thus taking ownership of the ID education.

In conclusion, I believe I learned more form this experience than any of my unfortunate students. They say ‘if you really want to learn something teach it’. I honestly feel as though this has been the greatest educational experience of my BYU education. Teaching these classes has given me sympathy for my own teachers, has challenged my understanding of the topic, and has extended me the opportunity to develop some wonderful relationships I would have otherwise never have had the opportunity to discover. My education is richer because of the experience this ORCA grant has afforded me, and I thank you.