Project Duration: 6 weeks, Individual Tools: Solidworks, Cold working, Leatherworking↗, Prototyping
Designing a computer mouse has been a long awaited passion project for me. This mouse became an exploration on how materiality can change our relationship with a product.
One important design constraint was to stress repeatability in the manufacturing of a high craft object.
Exploring the combination of dissimilar materials excited me. Using both ancient and new age technologies led to a truly anachronistic object.
Using 3D printed forms to wet mold leather allowed complex geometry I could not have formed by hand.
Coldworking the brass gave it the spring required for clicking actuation.
Polishing bronze infused HDPLA maintained the precision needed for electronics. These are my tests polishing and heat treating samples.
Much of my design process was led by modelmaking and experiments. Switching between sketches, CAD, the anvil and carved foam models.
Each component had several iterations. The biggest challenge was translating changes to the metal and leather forms into the digital version of the mouse.
The CAD was modified from the Bambu Lab wireless mouse, making it easy to integrate the PCB with my desired form.
I made 3 mice (and one working prototype). The two on the left spent the last year on display in the School of Design and the Coulter Welcome Center. The two on the right were used by my mom and an engineer friend who does all his CAD on it.
It’s exciting to have made a product that can withstand heavy use for such a long period of time. I really like to see how each mouse has weathered over time, especially the one on the far right.