Creo Customer: Designing Away Violent Crime

By GEOFF HEDGES | Published: SEPTEMBER 26, 2011

Some products attract crime–so says researcher R.V. Clarke, Rutgers University. “Many ordinary manufactured products provide the means or the temptation to commit crime,” Clarke writes. Such products, which he calls “criminogenic,” might include cars or credit cards because they’re popular targets for thieves.

While many would argue that criminals cause crime, not products, Clarke doesn’t see it that way: “A growing body of theory and research undertaken in the past 25 years has established that offenders are as much drawn into crime by easy opportunities as they are pushed into crime by criminal propensities.”

Intuitively, we know this. We lock the car doors and don’t leave expensive cameras on the seat. Reduce a product’s criminogenic properties; stop property crime.

Designers know it too. Today, your car may have VIN numbers etched in its glass; your credit card may include a hologram to prevent counterfeiting. Designers have innovated tamper-proof packaging for food and medicine, detachable face plates for car radios, and large packaging for small electronic items–all in an effort to foil bad guys.

But what about violent crime? Can design play a role in preventing violent crime?

Britain’s Design Council thinks so. The group challenged Creo (Parametric) customerDesign Bridge to tackle  glassing injuries.  Glassing, a widespread problem in both the UK and Australia, is an attack using broken bottles or pub glasses. In alcohol-fueled conflicts, some find it all too easy to grab the base of a pint glass or a bottle neck and start swinging. The U.K. government estimates 87,000 of these attacks occur every year. As you might imagine, the injuries are devastating.

Design Bridge presented the Design Council with two alternatives for manufacturing a safer, less criminogenic pint glass for the pub.  See more about the design brief, why previous solutions failed, and the Design Bridge solutions in this video:

Creo Customer: Zenvo Builds World’s First Luxury Supercar

By GEOFF HEDGES | Published: SEPTEMBER 19, 2011

A lot of people dream of owning an expensive sports car. But I think readers of this blog are different. I think many here dream of designing an expensive sports car! Maybe you made sketches or carved models of your dream car in high school. Maybe, for some, that dream led to a career in product design. Maybe that dream is the reason you’re here reading about design software right now!

Creo Parametric user, Troels Vollertsen, took the dream farther. Vollertsen is CTO and co-founder of Zenvo Automotive, a Danish company that has spent the past seven years designing and prototyping just one car–the Zenvo ST1 supercar.

The ST1 has a supercharged V8 and accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 3 seconds. It reaches speeds of 375 km/h (233 mph), but also runs quieter than any car in its rarefied class.

“If you own a supercar and are driving along in Dubai or in Abu Dhabi and you hit traffic, you need to be able to drive quietly at five km/h too,” says Vollertsen.

Zenvo made sure its car was comfortable and easy to drive as well. (Many supercars are not.) “My mother should be able to get in, and without any instruction, drive the car and totally succeed,” says Vollertsen.

Combine that ease of use with the power of race car and you get the car of Vollertsen’s dreams, the first luxury supercar on the market.

Zenvo plans to make 15 cars available, each with a sticker price of €850,000 ($1,170,000 US).

Image By Zenvo Automotive 

Creo Customer: Norton Reengineers a Classic

By GEOFF HEDGES | Published: AUGUST 16, 2011

Norton Motorcycles has a long, rich history dating back to 1898. A small manufacturer in Birmingham, England, Norton started out building fittings “for the two-wheeled trade.” Within a few years, the company was producing popular motorcycles for both street riding and racing. At its peak, Norton was tapped to manufacture 100,000 bikes for the British military during World War II–about a quarter of that country’s fleet.

Unfortunately, the postwar years weren’t so kind. The company sputtered, sold, merged, and was sold again. By the 2000s, the brand was in the hands of a mechanic in the United States who went from restoring bikes to leading a multi-million dollar effort to bring the Norton back. (To see how that played out, wait for the documentary). Finally, in 2008, British businessman Stuart Garner bought Norton and returned the brand to the UK.

That’s where Creo comes in. Garner kept the classic look of the Norton bikes, but reengineered everything else. For example, he introduced fuel injection engines so the motorcycles would meet emission standards. In fact, Norton designers say “there is not one component of the bike that we didn’t re-engineer.” All in about 12 months. All with Creo Parametric.

So how’s it working out for Garner?

His first model was the 961 SE. If you lived in the UK and had £16,000 to spend, you might have been able to buy one for a brief time. But not anymore; they’re sold out.

The company is expanding its facilities, with investment from the British government, and expects to double staff in 2012 as it begins shipping motorcycles in response to demand from throughout Europe and the US.

And because Nortons are so handsome and cool, Gucci even features the Commando in one of its commercials.

I’d say it’s working out.

Watch for more about Norton’s new/old bikes in this ‘motobike design’ episode of the Product Design Show.

Creo Customers: NASCAR Nose Redesign Puts the “Stock” Back in Stock Car Racing

By GEOFF HEDGES | Published: JUNE 28, 2011

Here’s a design challenge: Take a tricked out race car, make it look more like a production sedan, but don’t take away any of its performance. That’s what designer Bill Ferguson was asked to do with the 2011 nose redesign of the Ford Fusion andChevy Impala for NASCAR.

Unfortunately, some of those race car extras were functional. Ferguson had to hide certain performance features to give the cars a street look.

Ferguson’s design process involved running ideas past a panel of stakeholders, wind tunnel testing, sending models out for manufacturing, and finally road, or rather, track testing. His process also involved some sophisticated design tools–in this case, Creo Parametric. And, yeah, the new more ordinary-looking noses are every bit as fast as last-year’s models.

Watch Ferguson talk more about his work at NASCAR and Creo Parametric in this interview from Planet PTC Live in Las Vegas recorded just a few weeks ago.

Creo Customers: What Goes On in the Dishwasher?

By GEOFF HEDGES | Published: SEPTEMBER 30, 2011

When I go to the kitchen, I see food and chores. Things to eat, things to clean up, things to put away, and so on. For others, however, the kitchen is so much more. It’s a design and engineering wonderland.

In this episode of The Product Design Show, Vince and Allison give us an engineer’s tour of the kitchen, including a couple shout outs to Creo customers Liebherr and Fagor, using the direct modeling approach to design the latest generation of kitchen appliances. You’ll learn how refrigerators are becoming more energy efficient, how convection ovens work, and what goes on in the dishwasher when the door is closed.  Let’s watch ….

Creo Customer: Carpigiani and Other Delights

By GEOFF HEDGES | Published: OCTOBER 10, 2011

“Carpigiani is a company that makes people happy,” says Patrick Hopkins, Head of Carpigiani Gelato University.

Is it because the Bologna, Italy manufacturer is a technology and market leader, priding itself on its innovation and decades of leadership in food machinery?

Is it because the company continually invests in research, design, and high-quality components?

Is it Carpigiani’s attention to safety and nutrition awareness?

Is it because the company has shaved 40% of its design time by adopting Creo’s direct modeling approach, replacing SolidWorks and SolidEdge?

We can’t be sure. I suggest we do more research. Much, much more research….

Creo Customer: Arc Touch Mouse a Concept Design Winner

By GEOFF HEDGES | Published: OCTOBER 18, 2011

When designers at Microsoft dreamed up the Arc Touch Mouse, they were thinking about form, ergonomics, and portability. The device lies flat for easy storage in your laptop bag, and then pops into a graceful arch when you’re ready to use it.

Physically, it fits comfortably into your hand and provides haptic (that is, a sense of touch) feedback as you scroll and click.

Modeled with Creo Parametric, this new generation of mouse bears virtually no resemblance to its rodent-like predecessors, which, it turns out, is a good thing. Sure, designers at Microsoft started with something like a familiar mouse body in early concept design, but they also explored profiles that looked like speed boats and beach mats. Everything seemed to be up for discussion.

And that’s been our point; it’s the reason we’re placing so much emphasis on concept design with the release of Creo 1.0. When everything is on the table, developers can explore, and product innovation can thrive.  At least it did for Microsoft. The Arc Touch Mouse has won two major design awards so far:

• The jury at RedDot online awarded it 2011 Best of the Best; they praised its symmetric design and well-balanced proportions.
• IDSA presented it the 2011 IDEA Gold award, saying the mouse was “executed superbly,” with “excellent tactile feedback.”

The Arc Touch has been a hit with consumers, too. In the online reviews they’re calling it “sharp” and “stylish.”  And more importantly, they’re saying its aesthetics and form are key in their decision to purchase the device. Or in the words of one online reviewer:

“I bought it because it looked cool.”