Lucerna

Zach Samalonis and Peter Holderith Design 3 / F17

 Introduction to the Brief....................................4

A. User Research..........................................6

B. Concept Development...............................10

C. Initial User Testing..................................14

D. Final Concept & Game play Changes.........18

E. Prototyping.................................................22

F. Finished Model............................................28
Table of Contents G. Hero Shots.................................................34

H. Final User Testing....................................46

I. Orthographics...........................................48

J. Summary....................................................52
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN STUDIO 3
The Chess Set Project

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The Brief

The chess project is the Design 3 final project

for the industrial design program. Students are
tasked with conducting research on how people
play the game of chess, and then taking these
observation points and using them to alter the
game. Alterations can come in many forms,
including changing a rule, a piece or the whole
board. The final result should be a chess game
that changes the way the two players play the
game.

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SECTION A
User Research

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 The Research

Playing a game of chess We began by observing many people playing

many different games of chess. From the start
we knew it would be important to observe a
range of players that were both good and bad
at the game of chess. We also wanted to take
a look at how the environment played a role in
how the game was played and if there was an
opportunity to alter this.

Close up of a chess board

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Behavior

When observing the players, we noticed several

behaviors that could be altered that would
change the way the game was played. We
noticed that people disliked how long the game
took. We observed both verbal complaints,
as well as motions that expressed frustration.
The speed of the game seemed to be directly
linked to how good the player was at the game.
More experienced players tended to take their
time when moving a piece while novice players
moved more quickly, having more regrets later
in the game.

We also observed that people got distracted

from the game in between turns. If a player took
a long time to take a turn the opponents tended A player getting distracted from the game. Who knows what he missed.
to get distracted looking away at their phone or
turning to have a conversation. This often led to
the player asking the opponent what move they
just made.

Players taking a long time to make a move

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 Environment

The longer we took to watch people play, we

began to notice a large impact on how the
environment played a role on how players
interacted with the game. For example, we
noticed that a lot of players set up the chess
board in random locations on the corners of
tables. The players did not take the time to
place themselves in an environment ready for
competition. We also noticed that in every game
we played the lights were on. This made us
curious about what would happen if the lights
were turned off and how it would change how
people played.

Rooms are usually fully lit when playing chess

Playing in a well lit room

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SECTION B
Concept Development

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 Intial Ideas

Taking into consideration the aforementioned

observations, we developed three initial ideas.
These ideas were presented to the class, and
feedback was given.

The Cube

The first idea was a chess board that was

wrapped around a 3D cube. The board would
rotate 360* to give players a look at the whole
board. While this idea was well received by the
The Cube Concept class, experimentation showed that it would be
extremely difficult to play, even for the most ad-
vanced players.

The Shock

Another one of our ideas was to make each

of the pieces conduct electricity and deliver a
mild shock to the player as they moved a piece.
We thought that this idea would not change the
The Shock Concept game play enough, so we moved away from this
idea.

The Heat

Our third concept revolved around heat and

how players interacted with the pieces. Similar
to “The Shock,” we thought that if we made the
pieces hot, we could alter how people interacted
with them. By placing a heating element under
the board, certain pieces would get hot at differ-
The Heat Concept ent times. While we did not move forward with
this idea, we drew some ideas from it for our
final concept.
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The Flame

Our final concept drew upon the idea that each

player would only have a limited amount of time
to move their pieces. When the time was out,
so would their piece. We thought that by mak-
ing each piece a candle, we could achieve this
effect.

Initially, we experimented with the idea of each

piece being an individually casted candle.
Through the ideation process, we found sev-
eral problems with this idea. From a consumer
standpoint, it would not be feasible to design a
game that could only be played once. This led
us in the direction of creating pieces that held
candles, similar to a candle holder. Potential ideas for incorporating candles

With this concept we had to think carefully about

how the board would be made; we wanted to
make the game as safe and clean as possible.
Up until this point, we had not done any testing
so we did not know how the wax would melt,and
if it would drip on to the board.

Brainstorming different candle types

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 Colored candles anyone?

Taking a look at various candle mechanisms

Taking a look at various candle mechanisms continued

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SECTION C
Initial User Testing

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 Above: The whole board on fire had several disadvantages to it
Below: As the pieces melted down, wax began to spread out.

The Boards on Fire

When we began experimenting with the pieces as candles, we initially thought that it would be cool if all of the
pieces were lit at once. Upon playing the game we saw several disadvantages:
-The pieces that were lit first burned first
-It was difficult to move the pieces
-The board gave off a lot of heat
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 Lighting pieces one by one created a more manageable game

Introduction of “tools” to move pieces

One by One

We then decided to light pieces only after a piece was moved. This led to a more enjoyable game with enhanced
strategy. While we still experienced some of the same problems, such as moving the pieces and dripping wax, we
were convinced that this was the way to go. With further development, those problems could be solved.

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 Turn Down the Lights

Because each piece we were experimenting with was a candle, we were also able to change the environment we
were playing in. By dimming and turning off the lights, we were able to observe how this changed the game. We
were also able to observe some cool shadows that we would attempt to change later on.

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SECTION D
Final Concept and Gameplay Changes

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 WAX

At the start, we began designing pieces that

were 100% wax. While this idea was intriguing
we moved away from it was not practical from
both a production and consumer standpoint.

OIL

After the wax, we thought about the possibility

Organic forms were experimented with when
of making each piece a mini oil lamp. Doing
considering wax this would still create a piece that was on fire,
but would eliminate the mess of the wax. After
we designed a piece, we realized however that
oil would be just as messy and create other
problems for the players.

SHADOWS AND COLUMNS

The final concept emerged as we were thinking

about a way to incorporate a standard birthday
candle into a chess piece. We knew that if we
Several oil lamp designs were considered
casted pieces we could create eye catching,
detailed pieces. We also knew from playing in
the dark that the candles provided just enough
light to cast shadows.

The final concept: Columns and Shaddows

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 The final concept: Columns and Shadows

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FINAL PIECES

Through our development, we wanted to create pieces that felt great in the hand, while combining multiple ma-
terials together. We settled on three separate materials, all with unique properties to create a piece that could
hold a candle. The tops would be made of 3D printed stainless steel. These pieces would allow for the flame
to get close and not catch on fire. The middles would be cast in concrete, to both add weight to the piece and
withstand the heat as the candle finished burning. The bottoms would be turned ash wood, which would be the
distinguishing feature for each side. On the one side, the bases would be burned and opposing side would be
unburned. This theme would be continued into the board, with alternating squares being burned and unburned.
Initially, we thought that the pieces would be smaller; however, once we 3D printed the assembly, we decided to
scale the pieces up 1.5 times. This proved to be the best move, for it gave the pieces more presence. The game
would be played the same, the only change being that when a piece burns out it is removed and when the king
burns out the game is completed.

Final Concept Pieces

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SECTION E
Prototyping

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 THE COLUMNS

To develop the columns, we started by taking

the Soildworks models and 3D printing them.
Once we decided on the correct sizing, we
printed each of the columns individually. When
designing the pieces, we considered the mold-
ing and casting process. We made all of the
rooks, knights, and bishops all the same height.
This allowed us some freedom when casting the
pieces and in turn meant less molds to make.
3D print of column. These will be acetoned to provide
a smooth finish.
The molds were made from a dense silicon, pro-
vided by Smoothon called MoldStar35. This sili-
con would provide some stretch, but was dense
enough to not rip during the demolding process.

The final concrete/cement mixture took some

time to arrive at. Initally, we started with Quick-
rete 5000. This proved to be problematic, for
some particles were very large and would not
cast properly. This led us to sift the mixture to
get only the fine particles. After the first demold,
Gluing up molds for the 3D prints
we knew that Quickrete 5000 would not work
because it did not provide the detail we were
looking for. In addition, the set time was over 12
hours, something we did not have time for.

Next, we tried Quickrete Fast Setting. We ran

into many of the same problems as 5000 mix-
ture. The detail was still not what we wanted.
While the set time was down to three hours, we
were still concerned with time constraints.

Creating the molds with MoldStar35

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 THE FINAL MIXTURE

After some research, we tried Rockite, a fast setting cement powder similar to quickrete. After several tests with the Rockite,
we discovered we were able to get the detail we wanted in under 45 minutes. We also learned that the rockite would set soild
even if too much water was mixed; it would just take longer. This allowed us to experimented with viscosities of the mixture.
The final mixture contained one part Rockite powder and half a part water.

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TURNING TIME

The bases of each piece would be turned individually.

This was a challenge on the lathe because the size
Turning the endgrain into round stock for the bases
was so small. After several attempts and broken piec-
es, we developed a method that allowed us to turn up
to three pieces at once. We took into consideration
the end grain of the wood, for we knew that this would
look better for both the burned and unburned pieces.
This made using the lathe harder because the end-
grain is the hardest part of the wood. We chose ash
for the bases because of its light color and the beauty
of the end grain when it is finished.

In addition to turning the pieces on the lathe, we

Turning three bases at once
needed to burn the bases of the opposite team. We
decided to experiment with this on the lathe. With a
little practice we were able to burn the pieces just
enough to provide a perfect burn on the end grain.

Torching the bases on the lathe

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THE BOARD

When designing the board, we wanted it to have

a connection to the pieces that it would interact
with. We decided to create an end grain board
with alternating squares, burned and unburned.

Initially, we thought we could do this slowly cut-

ting the end grain on the chop saw. We tried
several speeds, which created various types of
burns. While we liked the “extreme” burn, when
we went to glue the pieces we realized it would
be too difficult to keep the board both flat and
square.

To solve this problem we arranged the squares

in order and shaped up the ones that did not line
up. We then glued these in rows, planed, and Three types of burns: Light, Medium, and Extreme
joined each row of pieces. This removed the
burn on the top, but would be readded later. Do-
ing this produced a much cleaner looking board
which was flat and square.

To readd the burn on the board, we created a

template of a single square. We could use this
to block off sections of the board to burn. We
also created singular rectangles that could be
used to finish off the squares.

Slowly cross cutting the squares on the chop saw

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 Gluing the board together

Reburning the square Closeup of the template

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SECTION F
Finished Model

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INCOMING... THE CROWNS ARRIVED

After designing the crowns in Soildworks, we sent them out to ShapeWays to be 3D printed. The ma-
terial that we chose was stainless steel for several reasons. We knew that the steel would be able to
withstand the heat of the candle. The steel was also much cheaper then other printable metals, such as
brass. Because of this process, we were able to create lots of detail in such small pieces.

Detail view of bishop crown Detail view of bishop crown

Detail view of all the crowns

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 Testing several different polyurethane finishes: clear satin, clear semi-gloss, and clear

Finished column with semi-gloss spray Columns as they dry

COATING THE COLUMNS

After test fitting the columns with the bases and crowns, we decided that the columns looked not as finished as the other
pieces. We decided to test three different types of polyurethane finishes: satin, semi-gloss, and full gloss. We settled on a
semi-gloss finish, which gave the piece a nice shine but not too much.

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 Test fitting the bases on the columns

First set of finished bases Gluing the columns on the bases Comparing the two bases

FINISHING THE BASES

Each base was sanded and then mineral oil was applied. A small hole was then drilled on the top to ensure that there would
be enough surface area when epoxying the bases to the columns. Epoxy was then added to the bottoms and around the
brim of the hole, properly securing the base to the column.

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 OILING THE BOARD

To finish the board, we

sanded it down both be-
fore and after the burn.
After sanding, we add-
ed mineral oil to the top
and sides and finished
by sealing the board
with bees wax.

Applying oil to the board

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Sanding the board down Oiling the board up

Applying the wax to the board for the final seal

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SECTION G
Hero Shots

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SECTION H
Final User Testing

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The candles added a fun and interesting element to
the game.
The small lighter made it difficult to light the pieces
Forks with longer handles would help make the game
a better experience
THE POSITIVES
Many of the behavioral and environmental
changes we hoped would change did infact
change. By creating pieces that housed candles
users had a very limited amount of time to move
a piece. Eight minutes to be exact. Playing in
the dark also changed the behavior of the game.
Players were more engaged and less likley to
look away from the board. If they did, it was very
easy to tell the difference, for either a new can-
dle was lit or one was quickly burining away.
THE SHORTCOMINGS
However the game did have its short comings.
While the forks were worked well when the
board was more than half lit it became very hot
to move a piece. In addition, the mouths of the
forks should be slightly wider to allow for a full
gripping motion on the pieces, especially the
pawn. Also the board and each square should
be twice the size. The smaller board was a re-
sult of manufacturing errors. Players also men-
tioned that a larger lighter with a longer neck
would make the gameplay more enjoyable.
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SECTION I
Orthographics

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Pawn Rook

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 Bishop Knight

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Queen King

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SECTION J
Summary

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 Moving Forward
If we were to take this game further we would make a few changes to how the piece is crafted. Forks
with larger mouths and longer or altered handles would be created. In additon the board would be
expanded allowing for easier play. A longer lighter, possibly a custom one would be supplied with the
game. We might also look in to different types of candles that could fit in the pieces, or possibly craft
one of our own.

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