T-minus- 

This video below was one of the first years that I got to participate in this week long design competition. It will provide you with a more thorough understanding of what the T-minus event is. The project that I have decided to feature was during my third year in which I was a junior. It's the juniors that get the chance to lead their teams through the projects and the challenges that we might face. We got to work with Ganondagan State Park that third year.

**Captions available by pressing the CC icon in the vimeo player** T Minus is an annual Industrial Design project hosted at RIT. Every class (freshmen through grad) forms into teams to complete an assigned project given each year by a sponsor. This year's sponsor was Allegion, challenging students to design one of three different lock assignments in one week. The condensed nature of the project allows students to be involved in the entire design process and work together under tight deadlines. As an alumni of the Industrial Design program I was proud to produce this video for the department.

About

This project was in conjunction with Ganondagan State park. Every year RIT hosts an annual T-minus competition. This project was during my third year. Our design challenge this year was to create a trail way system that would guide the hikers on the trails and keep them within the park's boundaries. Many of the problems surfaced when people didn't know if they were still in the park or on the Victor hiking trails. That's because many of the Victor trails share space or even overlap some of the Ganondagan trails. 

Tour of the Park

We started out by visiting the site and getting an in-depth tour of where the history came from and what influenced the culture of that time

 

INSPIRATION- from other trail systems and current designs being released

Sketching

We explored different layouts and forms to use for our trail signage

CAD Models

I created the models in Solidworks and placed the graphics on them as well

Trail Book

Our final design included a book that would draw over visitors to interact more with the sign. The main challenge that we faced was that most guests got lost because they failed to look at the signs or take a map with them onto the trails. 

Trail Map

We incorporated small yellow dots that would indicated where on the property the visitors were. This would in turn allow for the park rangers to know the relative whereabouts of the visitor and thus allow the rangers to lead the visitors back to another familiar place.

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Final Presentation

We presented our design to a jury of judges, some of them included the park workers, RIT faculty, and community members who also utilized the trails.