Product Design Studio
Target shooting is becoming a popular sport among women and young people. Spire Ranges, a provider of shooting range systems for both law enforcement and commercial use, recognized that most range systems were aggressively male, and intimidating.
Spire had designed a new high tech range control system, and they needed a modular stall system with a more inviting aesthetic that allowed ranges to customize their systems according to their specific needs and budgets.
Spire has two types of customers with very different needs and the new booth system had to accommodate each. Military and law enforcement customers need their users to move down range while training. For obvious reasons, commercial ranges absolutely do not want their users to move into the range.
Swarm began the research for this project with the following design parameters:
Air flow. Shooting ranges have a very high lead content, thus a large amount of air flow within and around the booth system was required.
Interior Environment. There could be no obstructions; however there needed to be a shelf for aiming and containing commercial shooters within the booth. This shelf also needed to be movable to suit the height needs of the shooter and allow law enforcement users to walk into the range.
Materials. The panel materials needed to provide protection from a bullet, furnish sound abatement, and be interchangeable based upon budget.
Aesthetics. The booth needed to have customizable lighting for different shooting scenarios and a modernized feel that was brandable and could fit into existing ranges.
Swarm ultimately developed three environments and utilized Virtual Reality to deliver the product prototypes to avoid extensive prototyping costs. Spire was able to see the details by walking into the VR environment of each booth, stand in it, test the components, and get a true sense of each design. By mimicking the use of each booth, they were able to quickly make decisions about the final design direction they wanted to pursue.
Services
Research
Concept Development
Industrial Design
Materials Research
Engineering
Virtual Reality Product Prototyping
Physical Prototyping