Angles just got fun.
Introducing the ZeroPivot Protractor
The Making Of • All Entries
I’m back with Progress in Pieces of the protractor! Both of our suppliers have finished their samples, and now it’s just a matter of days before they arrive.
As the title heavily implies, it is time to pay my supplier and finally get the ball rolling on production! In this first run of 2 samples, I have 3 primary goals…
“You can’t judge a book by its cover”, yet you definitely can judge a product by its packaging!
I’ve been wrapped up in the process known forebodingly to many as designing for manufacturing, also known as DFM.
This entry will be a bit different—a travel log of sorts, tracing the Miles and Meetings that brought me to HK AA Industrial.
I think it was the sheer speed and scale of the responses to the RFQ that surprised me. Within 48 hours, I had received 8 quotations…
It is finally time to find a manufacturer, and the process began surprisingly simply!
I think I promised that we were going to contact manufacturers the next time I write… Well, apparently not.
The logo came just as the annual STEM Expo rolled up around the corner.
At last, the company has a logo, and I love it.
It is time! The designer has gotten back to me with the first version of the logo, and it doesn’t look quite how I expected it to…
This day marks the 1-year anniversary since the start of the “Run of Record” series of entries, and it is also where I plan to leave it.
It’s time for more legal headaches! To formally operate a business, several agencies need to be notified…
When I began designing what I now call version 3, I had good intentions
With a domain name, the next step is actually building the website that is to be hosted on it.
At this point, it is a good idea to think about the future for this project.
It’s been about 2 months since the ZeroPivot Protractor has been released on Printables…
Being a few months into the project, and having reached something I am satisfied with, I thought it was about time I had someone else see this design.
This is the first in what I plan to be a series of revision-style articles, acting as a change log and a progress update on the 3D model of the protractor project.
In the phase of engineering I would like to call “brainstorming”, there are many dead-ends one can run one’s head into…
The idea struck after days of frustration, idleness, and thought.
The Problem
The protractor is ubiquitous and instantly recognizable.
Yet its design has hardly earned that itself this place. Ever since elementary school, we’ve tolerated a tool that is awkward to use, and confusing to read. It’s been the source of countless hours of frustration across time and culture.
Key Issues:
Drawing is slow, tedious, and inaccurate
Measurements for short segments are unreliable
Unable to measure along the edges of objects
Despite a century’s progress in design and manufacturing, the protractor has remained virtually unchanged since its first patent in 1894. Until now.
“We’ve been bending over half-circles for over a century — it’s time they bend for us.”
The Solution
The ZeroPivot Protractor exists to do what the classic never could.
Using a Protractor has never been simpler. Slide, mark, and measure all in just one step.
Innovative guide rail system helps keep extenders in track.
Knurled handles offer a firm and precise grip.
After almost 2 years since its conception, I now hold within my hands an actual aluminum copy of those lines on my paper long, long ago.