Foam Mock-up

This week we made a prototype model out of foam to get a very rough idea of the overall shape and form of our VR Headset.The foam model was the exact size and almost the exact shape we wanted our headset to resemble. But due to poor detailing that the foam cannot possess, some features like the front of the headset appeared very “tacky” and not accurate enough to our liking. During the end of our crit session, our whole team concluded that the front of the headset was indeed tacky and unprofessional; it also appeared very bulky on all sides which were not our intention. Because our VR Headset is used for medical training purposes, we decided it needed to be a lot more slender and sleek. Thus we decided to shave down all sides of the foam model and remove the tacky front face of the headset as a whole.

Vacuum Forming

Late we tried vacuum forming again after a discussion with Prof. Ken. We became more aware of our faults during the first trial of vacuum forming and decided to try again with the school’s larger and more powerful machine. The final product for this second trial left us with a much better result than our first trial, but it still was not what we were hoping for. The result was a headset with awkward “hole marks” in the styrene, as well as harsh and sharp edges at the bottom of the headset if we were to remove it.