Paintball Mask - Concept Project
Product Brief
Given the option of designing any product of my choice as part of a senior design class, I wanted to tackle an outdoor sporting good. I found a big need for some innovation in the field of paintball, since it is a rather new sport and most of the equipment has been transferred from other sports such as motocross. I wanted to design a paintball mask that's function and form was optimized for paintball.
Consumer Insight
Resolve many of the problems with current paintball masks such as, breathability, easy clean up, and range of vision. The design needed to incorporate many safety and human factors issues while improving camouflage and creating a new visual style.
Product Details
- Cover and protect: eyes, temples, ears, nose, and mouth.
- Allow user to wear glasses under mask.
- Keep lens free of condensation.
- Increase air flow into and out of mask.
- Allow total field of vision to be viewable.
- Easy to clean.
- Adjustable to fit any size head.
- Camouflage head and face.
Research
Research centered around paintball masks past and present. But also delved into other types of head protection, including: firefighter, police, and armed forces gear, and even futuristic types of masks in fictional situations. Materials research comprised of every thing from paintball clothing and gear to the Aeron chair, which lead me to my final design utilizing a stretched fabric.
Concept Sketches
Refined Concept Rendering
The final refined direction made use of a stretched fabric design that increases the airflow into and out of the mask. The use of "floating" panels not only allows for more flexibility of the mask, but also make it possible to break the mask down to be placed in a dish washer for easy cleaning. However in reevaluating this design it did not conform to one of my main objectives which was to allow for glasses to be worn under the mask, this lead me to a single lens design rather than the dual lenses shown above.
Exploded Sketch of User Detachable Parts
Easy removal of these parts allows the mask to be cleaned in any dishwasher. The lens is made out of one piece of molded lexan and is easily snapped out of mask. Button snaps are used to secure all of the panels of the mask to the goggles.
Final Model
All panels are easily removed by unsnapping the two snaps for each panel. All of the panels overlap each other to fully cover the face.
The lens is easily removed by pressing the pressure fit retainers molded into the lens. The retainers snap into the slots on the side of the mask.
The mask provides cover for all of the face, neck and ears, where the most protection is required. The netting type design helps airflow through mask.
