This was a school project at Budai Rajziskola (Budapest, Hungary) . The task was to create a portable bag holder which is collapsable. It turned out to be the longest and most industrial design-like project for me so far. I had to draw several sets of blueprints, as the design changed throughout the process. It was clear for me from the beginning that the use of fold out arms would be ideal, since they provide compactability, whilest keeping the connecting mechanism sipmle.

My choise of material was aluminium, mostly becouse of its light weight. What I also like about this metal is that you can anodize it, which enabels it to have a long lasting and enduring color. I have no anodized prototype yet, but I am planning to get one done in the future. When closed the piece is held together by magnets.

These are the first drawings, and designs I made. Here I have alredy settled on the idea of the folding wings, as well as the magnets holding the wings shut. Needless to say that the round design was rejected, mainly becouse of difficulty in manufacturing, but also for resons of sructural strengh.

Here you can see the hinge mechanism cutaways. As you could see in the beginning I wanted to use a solution with a screw, becouse the reassembility the finished product was initially desired. I later decided that this would not be ideal, for when the screw is tightened too much it would jam and wear down the inside of the hinge fairly quickly. This could be avoided by designing a new screw and inner thread of the wing, but that would create unnecessary complications.

Instead of the screw I decided to use a pin solution, this is still dissasamblabe fairly easy and far from the complication of the screwing mechanism. Also, it keeps the design simmetrical. As you can see I sticked with the pin troughout the second and third sets of plans.

Screw and pin blueprints.

As you could see by the hinge cutaways alredy, there was a time when I planned on using a two-part main body. The idea behind that was to make manufacturing easier. The two parts of the main body would be held together by a pin as well. After some time I realized, that for the amount of prototypes I planned on making this would crateate unnecessary complication, and so I stuck with the solid body solution. So the final plan mached the first, the only difference is that on the final plan I alredy drew the holes for the magnets.

The design of the wings did not really throughout the planning. The only major difference trough the design process, was the rejection of the screw solution. As you can see on the first set of drawings, the adding of the thread in the shaft, and the change of diameter of the borehole, creates a lot of complication. 

For me this project is of great importance, partly beacouse I am very satsified with the finished product, and also beacouse I have learned such a lot of things during the making.

While manufacturing I have gathered countless new skills and expiriances, like working on a mill and lathe, and the drawing of precise blueprints. I am very thankful for the people who helped me during the making, and tought me these new things.

Thanks for watching, and let me know what you think in the comments!

Pictures by: Anna Fábry