Problem, Concept, Product:
Problem
At the begining of the 2020 covid pandemic, my company, a digital printers in London was closed on guidelines from the UK government and all staff were placed on a furloug scheme
and told to stay at home.
I thought it would be the ideal time to get some solid golf practice in and hopefully lower my handicap, wasting no time I immediatley purchased a golf net on Amazon and a high end putting mat from Wellputt in France.
As the months passed I found an annoying problem with my home golf setup, Although the putting mat was perfect for feel there was only a printed target, nothing to focus on and aim for.
I purchased a couple of putting aids which I found in no way resembelled a golf hole and gave me no visual feedback, I was looking for an adjustable putting ring but there was nothing on the market.
My only other option was to design something to solve this problem.
Concept
It took a few months of using Sketchup a 3D CAD software before I was able to produce a few basic putting ring designs. They were exactly what I had envisioned so I invested in a 3D printer and began to producing working prototypes.
Hundreds of prototypes followed some were not heavy enough others the hinges felt weak & occasionally the body broke when dropped, however my main problem was creating focus.
I needed a design that the user could visualise the target area and feel confident.
After a few weeks of research I stumbled upon research by the German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus. He was working on images to trick the brain and created the ‘Ebbinghaus Illusion’
creating an illusion using small circles equally spaced around a larger center circle visually increasing the larger center circle.
Product
To house large outer dots the body of the PuttX had to increase from a 10mm deep body to a chunkier 25mm which could could incorporate multiple 20mm black dots around its circumference.
A few months of designing and many more prototypes the final version was created.
The design of the puttx evolved with a few more versions and redesign from scratch to work around the constraints of using injection moulding for mass production.
Future
After the first production run of the PuttX it is inevitable that tweeks and upgrades will quickly follow
to create the ultimate putting aid system.