Ultimaker S5
GRO’s extensive experience designing screen-based products made us an obvious choice to help Ultimaker develop their first touch-screen enabled 3d printer, the flagship S5.
We were initially tasked with developing an elegant and useable touch-screen module that could be realized within a very tight timeline and wouldn’t radically change their existing engineering concept. To reduce tooling time and investments we challenged ourselves to achieve this with a single injection moulded part that could be easily mounted to the front of the S5.
Professionally approachable
Working very closely with Ultimaker’s design and engineering teams we also realised elegant interior hinges, magnetic door handles and a far-read blue tint for the new hardened glass doors of the S5.
Incremental improvements
Other refinements included new more opaque side panels to reduce shadowing from the interior light, new ultra-flat construction screws and work on branding and product graphics.
UI
During this intense period, we also had the opportunity to work with Ultimaker’s UI team to give our thoughts on structure, navigation and graphic identity for their first touch screen user interface.
Team work
To realize all the improvements and new ideas for the S5 required very close cooperation, effective communication and fast decision making from all of Ultimaker’s stakeholders, including invaluable input from our long-time collaborator and fellow Ultimaker consultant Michiel Cornelissen.