Brace Yourselves!

IDEATE

The concept revolved around picking an everyday object, study it's properties and use the essence of that property in translating it to create a helmet design.

  CONCEPT

The object I picked up was a sponge. It's most identifiable property is the porosity. Hence, becoming the basis of my concept for further development of the design.

DESIGN DEVELOPMENT

The idea was to then identify other objects that indicate the same or similar property of porosity to be able to spot materials for recreating the idea of porosity in the helmet design.

1) a ball of wool, 2) honeycomb, 3) loofah, 4) pickle ball, 5) bunch of straws

 PROTOTYPE

I decided to go ahead with exploring straws to add a spiky to indicate an idea of shock absorbing like suspension in bikes, while being sturdy to take the impact. The straws were glued together using M-seal and then painted.

<insert image of straw plus mSeal>

A frame structure of wood in the shape of the skull was first made with a division in the middle and hinged to be able to open it to wear the helmet. The network of straws and m-seal was further weaved on this wooden framework, cushioned with foam on the underside.

Moi, the model, showcasing the helmet design.

PS: This was designed back in 2016. Any uncanny resemblance of the design to any sort of virus is purely coincidental.