BMW Door Handle 2.0
As part of my coursework in Stanford's ME113 during my Junior year, I teamed up with three other students to investigate the future of door handle technology. Dubbed Door Handle 2.0 by our sponsor BMW, our project sought to replace the company's state of the art capacitive touch handles with something cheaper, more fluid, and more enjoyable to use.
In the end, we settled upon a concept called SABINA which involved a strip of dark fabric stretched seamlessly across the door, from which a customizable LED-lit handle could emerge as an owner approached their vehicle. This organic behavior effectively conveyed the sense that the car was intelligently "alive" and ready to respond to its owner's needs.
Our decision to use fabric was based on BMW's shape shifting concept vehicle known as GINA, as well as user research suggesting that human users prefer it to traditional vehicle materials like dull plastics and cold metals.
After several weeks of brainstorming and concept development, we constructed a working prototype of the system (pictured below) which went on display as part of Stanford's Design EXPE in June of 2009.
