AE 8803 Project

These are some images for my final project for AE 8803 Product Lifecycle Management, a special course that I took in 2004.

The goal of the project was to familiarize us with Catia and the suite of related software that can be used to plan and archive information about a project at various points through its life. I was assigned the Toyota Highlander as my project as I was the only Mechanical Engineering student in the course -the rest being Aerospace Engineering, Architecture, or Civil Engineering students.

Given only a few weeks to do this project and little prior experience with CATIA, my goal was to achieve as lifelike a representation as possible of the basic shapes and functions of the Highlander using an assembly of parts, demonstrate the use of different materials, and show mannequins interacting with my models to demonstrate proper scale and ergonomics.

What follows is a series of renderings of my completed models that I think are fun or interesting. Please keep in mind how little time I had to start and finish this project!

First, here is a side-by-side comparison of a 2004 Toyota Highlander and my model.


This is a cutaway view of the interior of the vehicle, the first of a series of posture studies meant to show that the sizes and shapes of my model are roughly accurate. That's a 50th percentile man driving, a 50th percentile woman in the passenger seat, and in the back seat there are two low-percentile people -one man and one woman- meant to represent a boy and girl.


In this posture study, you can see the smaller child reaching for the back door.


In this shot, you can see the 50th percentile woman stepping up into the car, a move that doesn't look took awkward.


This shot was meant to show that the hood -which does look a bit mis-shapen- is still roughly appropriate when compared to the reach of a 50th percentile man.


More to follow soon!