The way makers prototype: Principles of diy design

Abstract

Recent research demonstrates the importance of prototyping to support early stage design efforts. There remains a substantial opportunity to provide tools that codify the leap between the logical objectives of the design effort, and an individual's intuitive design and fabrication experience. This study investigates project articles on the open source, Do-It-Yourself (DIY) design repository, Instructables.com. The database contains guides for producing low cost functional prototypes. Many entries in the repository include documentation of the design process along with instructions for fabrication. Through a systematic research methodology, we extract five prototype design and fabrication pri..