The goal was to maintain a visually appealing aesthetic using rolled and bent sheet metal. The inner ring is  machined out of aluminum.  This is what a testing machine looks like:
While the process is largely automated, Distek wanted to create a cost effective and user-friendly solution for allowing human transportation from the testing mechanism to other areas of the lab.  Below are excerpts from the concept stage, after some refinement, included a rolled sheet metal concept, and several others that included milled handles and other  machined components. In the end, the handle concept was scrapped in order  to save on part costs. 
After further refinement, I created numerous renders of our 3 main concepts. The one on the bottom was chosen as the winner of the group and will go into production in early 2016.
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