While developing curricula for partnerships with corporate collaborators like DMC and LovePop, I would design sample products to help anticipate challenges students might encounter as they learned the particulars of the relevant design process. At the time of the DMC partnership, my tea collection at home was becoming unruly in my kitchen cabinet. With this in the back of my mind I designed a tea box as an example product for students to consider, figuring it would showcase relevant engineering challenges while appealing to DMC’s target demographic. I created an adjustable, parametric model, then laser-cut and assembled the design from birch plywood. I returned to complete the project a year later when I craved the soothing repetition of embroidery during an acute case of strep throat.
