Camping Catan, Winter 2018
A Camping-Friendly Redesign of a Classic Board Game
Camping Catan is a reinvention of the physical elements of the game, Settlers of Catan, which allows it to be used outdoors. This project takes the native game elements and enhances their construction and interaction to both increase their durability and improve the ease of gameplay on uneven ground. The game board itself is comprised of interlocking wooden hexes, which are each laser-etched with unique artwork to represent different natural resources in a style suggestive of camping in the outdoors. Auxiliary components of the game are similarly etched with artwork and seamlessly integrate into the board game.
The 3D-printed wood-filament case is divided into two parts. The clamshell portion opens up to both store the playing cards and game pieces, as well as serve as an organizational tool for the bank of resource cards while playing the game. The other half is designed to store the hexes in a slot that hugs their geometry, and screws onto the clamshell portion to close the container. When stored, the case fits into the water bottle side-pocket of a backpack, thus eliminating most of the space necessary for the original game, while allowing for durable transport.
*Featured in the Fresh Looks 2021 Exhibition
Ideation
I came up with the idea of a camping-friendly redesign of Settlers of Catan via mind-mapping exercises, which are shown below. After deciding on my project prompt, I continued to utilize mind mapping to hone in on specific functional and aesthetic features that I wanted my product to achieve, which I then further explored through rough sketches.
Iteration
After producing rough concept sketches, I proceeded to create the linework and vector artwork that would be used to laser cut and engrave each of the tiles in Rhino and Adobe Illustrator. I continued to refine these vector files and machine settings via preliminary material testing with 1/8th-inch birch wood until I achieved stable connections between interlocking tiles and a desirable level of legibility in the artwork. From here, I began 3D modeling the carrying case in Fusion 360 and producing rough PLA prototypes that would prove incredibly useful for solving design flaws in the case’s hinge and remedying issues with fit. I concluded this iterative process by producing my final prototypes.
