Project Storyboard!
Here is an interactive storyboard of our design process!
The MEng project is a year-long project required by the MEng program at Cornell. With a group of 8 other students, we were tasked to redesign the student experience so that they don’t just get by but thrive.
Group members: Nirmal Antonyselvaraji Jhon Leonard Ar, Lingxiang Cai, Grace Chen, Italivi Diaz, Yu Guan, Jinfeng He, Qisheng Su, Haolin Wu, Wenhao Zhang
Advisors: Sirietta Simoncini, Robert Shepherd
Team name: SAVI
Simple, Assisting, Vital, and Innovative savvy technology to help your everyday needs.
Our product: SAVIpress, an acupressure inspired massage foot rest
“Savi” is also latin for a wise person, or a sage.
Fall 2024:
Project Timeline:
Project work done in conjunction with and on top of Innovative Product Design (MAE 5340)
Empathize & Unpacking Phase:
6 September 2024 - 18 September 2024
- Empathy field work (EFW)
- Unpacking EFW
Modeling Phase:
18 September 2024 - 25 September 2024
- Create emotional donut
- “How might we” diagram
- Flow of thoughts
- Creating personas – persona descriptions & personas flushed out
- Persona context diagram
- Criteria comparison matrix
Ideate Phase:
25 September 2024 - 2 October 2024
- Brainstorming sessions
- Desirability vs. feasibility graphs
- Choose 3 final concepts
- Product concept sketches
- Persona concept sketches
- Branding/logo creation
Our top 3 ideas after brainstorming:
1st Review
2 October 2024 - 7 October 2024
After 1st review with industry advisors:
7 October 2024 - 28 October 2024
- Chose what project idea to work on (we chose the acupressure inspired massage foot rest)
- Create our first rough prototype with cardboard and tape (Design Zero)
- User testing
- Modeling the results from our user testing
- Conjoint Analysis
- Iterate our prototype based on feedback from user testing and conjoint analysis (Design One)
Design Zero
Features of our first prototype (Design Zero)
- Materials: cardboard and tape
- Rocking chair inspired rocking mechanism
- Ball and socket joint connected top pad to baseboard (middle picture)
- Removable acupuncture mat function (picture on the right)
Design One
28 October 2024 - 8 November 2024
Features of our iterated prototype (Design One)
- Materials: acrylic, foam, ABS, COTS acupressure mat
- Inclined angle for more comfortable foot resting position
- 3D printed rocking hinge joint that connects base to board
- Removable and customizable pad feature
2nd Review
8 November 2024 - 11 November 2024
After 2nd review with industry advisors:
- Explore manufacturing processes
- Discuss industrial design – how to make our design more visually appealing
Design Two
11 November 2024 - 5 December 2024
Features of our final fall prototype (Design Two):
- Materials: MDF, ABS, rubber, foam, glue
- Chinese acupressure inspired massage pad made from ABS and rubber
- Inclined angle for better comfortability
- Foam underneath acupressure inspired massage board allows for many degrees of motion for the foot (instead of just front and back like in Design One)
Final Fall Showcase
9 December 2024
Fall Semester PDS Report
10 December 2024
Fall Semester MEng Report
16 December 2024
Spring 2025:
Throughout the spring semester we continued to design, iterate, and test, specifically improving and adding the following:
- Improving acupressure pad:
- Changing the material to a dual material: silicon and 3D printed PLA inserts
- Changing the acupressure zones to a foot like shape
- Adding electric modules:
- Vibration module
- Heating module
- Fan module
- Button module to control the other modules
- Changed the inclined angle to 20 degrees
- Materials: 3D printed PLA, memory foam, electronics, silicon
Spring Semester MEng Report
17 May 2025
