Henry Kvietok

Design Software: Rhino, Fusion 360, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator

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Time Frame: October 2018

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After brainstorming some potential ideas, I narrowed down to a futuristic avalanche beacon. I love to backcountry ski, so I thought it would be neat to conceptualize a beacon. Today's beacons are used by backcountry skiers to find another skier wearing a beacon who is buried during an avalanche. I wanted to make my beacon useful before an avalanche by implementing a camera and screen that allows you to preview avalanche danger. I imagine that it would take into account data like temperature, recent snowfall, and slope angle to create an overlay for slopes.

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My design for the beacon started out as more curved and ergonomic to a human hand; however, I realized that I wanted to maximize the screen space for viewing so I transitioned to a more rectangular design. Some critiques brought up the point that a slimmer design did not convey the "ruggedness" that a beacon should have. So, I decided to model a design that was thicker and more similar to a durable phone case. 

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After modeling in Rhino and rendering in Fusion 360, I created my final shots using Photoshop and Illustrator. The last step was to add some simple branding ("Avy View"). I feel that this font choice portrays the durable, yet futuristic, nature of my beacon design.