What is a Prototype & How to Build a Prototype - Tips for Creating a Prototype

The prototype comes between the design and production, which is helpful for obtaining satisfying products for customers. How is the prototype defined and what should you do for creating a prototype? In this article, you can find a detailed explanation of what is a prototype and tips for how to build a prototype of the product.

What is a Prototype?

A prototype is an early example of a product that can be used to visualize, test, and iterate part of an idea or concept, this means that it may only demonstrate a single piece of the idea such as mechanical, electrical, or physical properties. A prototype is an artefact, that is an approximation of the final product. This is done so you can test each piece cheaply to make sure it works and that people will want the product by making the prototype of a smaller part. It can be tested easily and any changes can be made without rebuilding the entire product. The materials used for a prototype are often cheaper and easier to work with so that changes can be made easily as the prototype is iterated. Depending on the material, the prototype can be touchable or experiencable. The materials used start to resemble the final product more, this also allows for the prototype to be changed and improved quickly based on feedback and testing, this process is called iteration. The first prototype is usually a rough sketch to make sure that the idea is clear for everyone working on the different parts of the design, it should include a clear breakdown of each of the things to be tested using annotations, the testing of a prototype requires careful feedback, the testing needs to reflect the prototype’s function. If the prototype is testing an electrical feature, then feedback on its mechanical strength isn’t useful, through constant iteration, a series of prototypes can come together to form a polished final product. Rapid prototyping is a group of fabrication techniques for getting a prototype quickly.

How to Build a Prototype - Tips for Creating a Prototype

Building a prototype of a product needs to go through multiple stages. Click here to get more details.

The prototype usually starts with the homemade version, before this, you probably have some sketches or a rough idea of how this thing might look, what the dimensions might be, how the user would react and interact with this product, you’re basically just trying to get something rough, it going to be the homemade prototype in terms of design, almost no functionality, you don’t necessarily have to have this thing working fully. After you have the homemade version made, you might have some other questions, it’s kind of similar actually to writing a business plan, which makes you think more deliberately about this business that you’re starting. When it comes to the homemade prototypes, you might be asking yourself like what kind of materials do I need to get this made out, what are the actual dimensions going to look like, how is the user going to use this, these are the questions you’re gonna have.

Once you get past the homemade stage, then you might get it a little bit more sophisticated things. For example, you might go into 3d printing, if you’re looking for something more in production types of materials, you might use CNC milling, you might basically around this stage, you’re kind of getting a little bit more serious about the design files, these are what you’re eventually going to have to hand over to a manufacturing company. To make this product when you’re just here, you might be able to work fine off of your sketches on a graphing paper as you’re getting a little bit more into a prototype, that looks and feels the way the actual product is going to be, then you’re getting a little bit more into the actual design files. Looking at the 3d renderings and getting it off the whole 2d stage and just sort of this next level here, there are other things you can do as well.

The next step is to create a working prototype, so this is actually as close to the real thing as possible, you’re creating something that has the functionality and the design that you eventually are going to offer to a customer. To see how this thing actually works and does it perform all the promises that you’re going to make with your marketing material, this is a complex stage, because it really does depend on your own skill sets, if you’re not an engineer, you might have to get a mechanical engineer or an electrical engineer involved, you might have to work with other companies out there to get an actual working prototype for you. If you get here, this is probably the pretty much when you’re getting very serious about the business, you can show this to other people, they can try it out, you can get the reactions, this is when this begins to sort of shape up into a real business.

The final step is thinking about manufacturing, so it’s actually kind of hard, it’s easy to make one of something, but it’s hard to make a thousand quality products of the same thing and to get that out there to people in a relatively seamless fashion. So with manufacturing, this is all about supply chain management, basically, what manufacturing plants are going to be used in order to make a hundred or a thousand products, are you gonna go with the same manufacturing plant or gonna source these materials from different plants, when is this going to be assembled, when are the molds going to be made, are you going to be using injection molding, what are the processes and the technologies that go into this, what are the materials, etc.

What is a Prototype & How to Build a Prototype – Tips for Creating a Prototype

What is a Prototype?

How to Build a Prototype - Tips for Creating a Prototype

Related Articles：