Coot

For a product design capstone, my teammates and I spent weeks brainstorming possible student needs. We eventually settled on what I consider to be a delightfully whimsical idea: a nightstand that, when automatically raised and manually unfolded, could serve as an overbed table, allowing for eating, reading, working, and whatever else the user desires from the comfort of their own bed.

Designing a piece of furniture that did not yet exist presented unique challenges. The scale at which we were working at was large, and the unfolding mechanism was challenging to design while prioritizing convenience and safety. Additionally, the big question was: where could we store the legs that we wanted to pop out on the other side of the bed? There seemed to be no perfect answer.

For the first half of the project, we planned on using a scissor-lift mechanism to raise the table due to their compressibility (we hoped to store an extra pair of legs within the unfolding segments, providing maximum stability.) However, safety and timeliness concerns forced us to change courses at the last minute, and we abandoned major planning points. Instead, we opted to use sliding rail legs powered by linear actuators. The final product was highly functional (although not what we originally pictured), and was well-received by all audiences.

As for the name, Coot, we had originally planned on painting it white with orange legs after noticing that the overall shape resembled that of a duck; however, the white paint that we ordered incorrectly arrived in black. So, what is the name of black duck-like bird? You guessed it: a coot.

Our detailed final report is linked here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cYynDgV4OW4xodAjDVmMOX6oiPzNWjqM/view?usp=sharing