Super smooth! The latest version of the Office Walker
After 3 weeks of waiting, the new side elements finally arrived last week. And they were a disaster! My hopes were high, but once assembled, the Office Walker was terribly loud.
Luckily, I had already signed up for a local makerspace with a large CNC machine. So on Friday, I went there for the first time, not expecting much. But turns out, I was able to produce one set of side elements.
And the result:
Super smooth: New iteration of the soft-touch Office Walker
The new soft-touch version is so much quieter than before. Plus, it's a lot smoother and more responsive compared to the wooden one. You can see in the video that I don't have to walk at the very front anymore.
Note that the design changes in the video aren't permanent. I just left out the holes in the body and used thinner wood to speed up the milling process.
Having learned to edit the CAD drawings and use the CNC mill drastically speeds up development cycles. What would have taken several weeks or even months, I can now achieve in a couple of days.
This version is still not perfect. You can still hear a rattling noise. But I'll go to the maker lab again on Monday to produce a couple of versions with minor tweaks. It feels like this will be the final round of product optimizations. Really excited about it.
Color options
A couple of days ago, I placed an order for 3 sets of soft-touch slats in two tones of dark gray and one in black. They should arrive within 2 weeks, so I hope that I can show you a dark version of the OW before the end of the campaign.
Production location
Last week, I received an offer to rent a small office and production site. It's 3-4 rooms between 20-36m² each. It's more expensive than expensive but has a few nice perks like a short cancellation policy (important if we need to scale quickly), plus a maker lab with a large CNC machine (ideal for further prototyping). I'm still looking for alternatives, but if I don't find any in the next 1-2 weeks, I'll take that offer.