Built in SketchUp: Kit&Co Uses 3D Modeling

[Music] kitten ko is a design and fabrication company that makes furniture kids not like the particle board kits you get at the big stores but really unique thing in that they send assembly instructions and metal parts and you supply your own wood it's really cool if you're the kind of person wants a hands-on furniture making experience maybe you don't have the time or energy to build something from scratch the cool thing is they do their design work and Sketchup and even cooler is they sent us a kit and I think it's getting here right now building is gonna be a great way to experience kitten coast product plus I know just where we can use a new end table let's see what they sent us whoo-hoo instructions for our new side table what kind of software they used to get that that looks nice these are kitten Co multi tools but this is the important part this is the actual kit part of our furniture this is the metal that will be the base of the new side table and loulou this kitten Co t-shirt how did think oh I like t-shirts we just know something all right I think I'm ready let's go put this thing together [Music] [Music] overall I had to say that was pretty cool and kind of fun cooler part though is the guy's a kitten Co invited us to come out and see where these kits are made so like we got to go check that out [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] we're here in Cazenovia New York to talk with Chris Ryan Tim Ryan and Ben cook founders of kitten Co they invited us to Ben's house talk a little bit about how kitten Co started hey thanks for having us absolutely thanks for coming tell us a little bit about kitten Co what does kitten code you in your words we were just seeing a lot of furniture that we didn't like it was sort of disposable cheap or was really expensive we basically developed a lot of this hardware as a way to help ourselves build our own pieces of furniture without having to have a lot of shop space or a lot of tools so we provide the stuff that's we think is more unique and we provided in a nice dense box of Steel it's up to you to choose what kind of wood what kind of finishes you know whether it's from a specific joinery need for like a two-sided or a three sided connection or a type of table that we're looking for the sort of general theme is always flexibility and customization like that's what we're really trying to do is help the customers really make their own cool product but there's a new product a new kit you want to create how does that work where does where's that idea come from I would say I definitely jump right into you know three-dimensional modeling to just really start just testing and really letting ideas go you know working quickly you know because the 3d models are so easy to to iterate with it gets in there really quick and then will prototype really quickly as well because we're just assuming we have to you know iterate but it allows us to basically be building the types of product that we want to be creating to the qualities to the specification that we want and constantly sort of be pushing the product and the quality of it and what we want to see created I thought that instructions were very clear good illustrations the 3d models in particular allow you to kind of annotate and explain you know how it's supposed to go together everything that you see here is available for download on our website you can download it as a couple different file types for whatever you're using as a 3d modeling program and you can mock up your own thing whatever software somebody has a wood slab or something like that and they want to see you know what's the work look like on these legs or something like that they could actually just go grab your stuff prototype it digitally yep before they even order a piece products like Sketchup I mean that's what we have used predominantly and that's what a lot of people have access to and we offer that as a one of the download types just like a lot of people out there we like having cool things that we've built ourselves that have a story people go and do their own project on top of it and that's when it's that's awesome debt so Ben you've actually made a lot of the perch around your houses or if you could walk me through and show me some of your pieces yeah absolutely love to so get this table here it's kind of a live edge maple 3/8 steel rod bent there so the the Cobblers kids do have shoes as it happens yeah and then of course the the original basic board kit the support table reclaimed cedar from a 100 plus year old silo one of the cool things about this is every board was stamped with a number and a letter so that they knew how to put it together in sequence and if you look closely at the milling of the tongue and groove its milled on a little bit of a can so when you stand them up and put them together it makes a tight fit in a circle oh wow all right Chris well let's let's take a look at some sketch about see how you design the parts for kid encode our designs whether it's hardware or a piece of furniture kind of start in a file something like this where we're really just very quickly just trying different things testing dimensions testing whatever the idea is just as quickly as possible just to try to hone in on the direction forward so this is a leg obviously it's it's own Sketchup model that we can use as a component and drop into kits that use that leg for us as we're working in making drawings as we change that original model it will update the drawing you know for us as a small company that kind of sort of streamlined process is really really helpful because without that it's just so so much labor to just draw things right it allows the feedback loop to be really quick so today we're in Syracuse New York and we are headed to the kit shop and first we're gonna stop at one of our vendors where we're having a bunch of hardware powder coated and some of it our new prototypes that we haven't actually even seen yet kind of a lot of new stuff today so you guys are here on a very exciting day for for the kit crew this is basically everything we've been talking about taking that initial concept proving it out through design in 3d modeling and then now actually prototyping getting fabrication done and we're gonna actually be able to hold a piece that like you're saying about a month ago was just an idea caldor's its Katsura s-- we provide for our customers here at sketch I appreciate that the heavy lifting portion of the day they've already got their red markers fired up to write what they want to change about this batch and how to make the prototype even better before going to production this idea morphed into the wide air plate and then you know we didn't make it a square we made it a triangle again because it helps with the stability oh yeah that's what I'm in looks this is better this is gonna last forever great this is better yeah this is the the current leg and then this is the prototype the new leg and you obviously you can't feel it but it actually it feels lighter and just as actually a little sturdier I can actually squeeze this Fleck that together this one's not moving at all I mean this has got to be 30 percent of the weight and this doesn't look bad but that's cool-looking I mean that that looks cool 3/8 from the edge okay because we're moving it at a 45 to the side I don't know how far it needs to move in but I'll just offset it and the resulting dimension will be what it is yeah but I think we definitely put emphasis on these and see how it plays like this is the future to see the where that goes from that world right there to just invisible good grinding good sanding good finishing good golly [Music] big thanks to kiddin Co for inviting us out to show us their design and fabrication process do you sketch up for design or fabrication or know somebody who does we would love to hear about it let us know and thank you [Music]

Channel: SketchUp

Views: 12,521

Keywords: SketchUp, 3D modeling, Built, Kit, Kit&co, Interview, Customer, user story

Id: 0iiZ86n-coM

Length: 10min 3sec (603 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 02 2020