Remote Project

For this project, I was challenged to design a remote for a fictional user to help them carry out their daily tasks. I chose to design a remote for Argus Filch, from the Harry Potter series.

If you are unfamiliar, Argus Filch lives at Hogwarts, where he acts as caretaker. His day-to-day life consists of maintaining all the systems at Hogwarts, and acts as the main security at the school, raging an ever-constant war against the poltergeist Peeves. He knows all the ins and out of the Hogwarts castle, including all the secret passageways and hidden doors. Filch is disliked by most of the school, including many of the professors, due to his extreme eagerness to punish students for minor infractions. Ever since he was young, he has enjoyed rules and discipline and takes all infractions of the rules seriously, so much so that in his first two years as caretaker he filled one thousand and fifty six boxes of discipline records. His favorite form of discipline is suspending students by their ankles, though Dumbledore doesn’t allow him to do that in his office. In fact, Filch still keeps polished and oiled chains and manacles in his office just in case he ever gets the all-clear. Filch is a squib, meaning he comes from wizard family but possesses no magical abilities. He is constantly surrounded by students and professors that can use magic, but he does all his tasks manually. Filch is very grumpy a lot of the time, and that is likely due to the fact that he doesn’t fit in with all the other magic users at the school. Filch has an extremely strong bond with his cat, Mrs. Norris, who he adores dearly. Mrs. Norris is extremely loyal to him, and will regularly help Filch with his nightly patrol, alerting him of any mischievous students. When Mrs. Norris was petrified by the basilisk in Harry Potter’s second year, Filch was absolutely devastated and vowed to find whoever had done that to his beloved companion. Luckily, Mrs. Norris was able to be cured by the end of the year.

The design includes elements chosen specifically for their visceral, behavioral, and reflective appeals. The remote was designed to look like a wand that would help him fit in to the wizarding world. The color palette was chosen based on colors prominent at Hogwarts and also match the fur of Mrs. Norris. The input components were designed so that they wouldn't stand out on the wand, and placed such that they would be accessible with a normal grip.

In addition, the wand was designed to be completely injection moldable, although the shown prototype was 3D-printed