Arrangeable Modular Desktop Organizer

thingiverse

Working at home, whether for a job or school isn’t easy. This transition has been hard for all of us, and it can be overwhelming to suddenly be in an entirely different workspace for the whole day. I created a design that organizes school/work supplies in a space-efficient manner, making them easily accessible. My design consists of two parts that interlock to form a base platform and four modular components that can be arranged and placed on the platform. The first component is a post-it note holder that was offset slightly and has an indent where you can remove each post-it. The second component is a general writing utensil organizer for all of your pencils and pens lying around. The third organizer is a calendar that quickly tells the user what day of the year it is. The calendar pieces are organized in slots in the back of the organizer. The displayed date can be removed by knocking the piece out from the back of its holder. The last component is an extraterrestrial "phone home" that includes a bonus movie quote. 1. I experienced several issues when developing this design. First and foremost, I had trouble deciding on my final design as opposed to other ideas I had come up with. Once I had a basic idea for my design, my next problem was making sure it was compatible with the objects it was intended for while taking into consideration that they would have to fit on the base platform. Initially, each organizer component consisted of different dimensions, but I ran into issues because I wanted the user to be able to arrange each piece in any order they wanted. However, I found that if the components were not a uniform shape, only some combinations of the components were possible to fit on the platform. Additionally, when the components were different dimensions, they would block the other components, making them harder to access. I combatted these problems by making the components have uniform dimensions and by constructing the platform in the shape of a long strip so you could move around the components in any order without blocking one another. 2. If I could redesign this print I would change the phone holder component to allow people to charge their iPhone while in the holder. 3. 3D printing helps strengthen my design because it involves frequent revising, and trial and error. After all, many components needed to fit together to create this print. I used parametric modeling, so I could quickly iterate various changes to my design to identify the best way each component fitted together. As I designed each component, I tried to minimize the amount of filament it would take to print it whenever possible. Also, 3D printing is also affordable and conserves a lot of material compared to other modes of manufacturing.