EarthStick

The Kit For Earth-Powered Adventures

EarthStick is my master's thesis. My initial thesis direction was portable treehouses. Midway through, research revealed irreconcilable design tensions and I made the call to pivot. Rather than start over, I audited my existing dataset and found a recurring theme I hadn't set out to study: off-grid electricity access among campers and overlanders. I reframed the opportunity, conducted additional research with 51 survey respondents and 11 interview participants, and synthesized findings into HMW statements and design frameworks that drove every subsequent decision.

The core tension that emerged (portability versus power capacity) became the creative constraint the design was built around. The result is a modular 25,000 mAh power bank with interchangeable solar, wind, and hydropower attachment modules, prototyped iteratively under a $500 budget using shop scraps and 3D-printed placeholders before committing to final materials.

User experience research, survey design, user interviews, usability testing, concept testing, design strategy, data synthesis, insight generation, framework development, industrial design, low- and high-fidelity prototyping, rapid prototyping, iterative design, design critique, AutoCAD, and Shapr3D.
The pivot from treehouses to energy harvesting was the most important part of this project. Abandoning a direction mid-thesis when the data stopped supporting was the result of an honest gut check and required a lot of rigor. The ability to audit existing research, reframe an opportunity space, and build forward without losing momentum is something I use in every project I work on.
Throughout the process I also had a few reflections on the final product: I'd eliminate the manual power button in favor of automatic output detection, redesign the hydropower mechanism for a lower-profile floating design, and add a wall-charge adapter so users can leave home with a full battery. These are changes that would support the human factors and interactions to make this project successful.

Research:

51 survey respondents

11 interview participants

Research began with broad exploratory interviews and a survey targeting campers, overlanders, and off-grid enthusiasts. I synthesized findings into themes and tensions, then used “How Might We” statements to reframe problems as design opportunities. Across the board, users wanted power flexibility across varied environments, but every existing solution forced a tradeoff between portability and capacity. That tension became the design brief.