Students’ Project: Aesthetic and Ergonomic Redesign of the Pneumatic Hammer

Every successful company aims to design successful products. The first phase of the design process, called product design, is therefore very important. Designers’ obligation is, for better break trough of the product on the market, to apply these demands and expectations to the developing product considering general, objective factors that have influence on design of specific product. Mechanical engineering design education system includes many subjects, which give to the students a lot of basic knowledge. Usually, the students study each of the subjects separately, and have thus difficulties to build the complex knowledge scheme by themselves. Besides, the traditional way of the study is theoretical and individual. Consequently, using their knowledge the students do not know how to deal with real-life problems, especially when they start to work in practice. In this respect the aim of our work is not only to present the complexity of design, but also to simulate the product real-life development process and to prepare the students for their future work in practice through the project-based teamwork. Presented project has been carried out by a group of mechanical engineering students during project oriented practical lessons. All steps, which are characteristic for (computer aided) product design, are shown on an example of pneumatic hammer. Key-Words: product design, aesthetics, ergonomics, hand tool, pneumatic hammer, students’ project