Assignment Week 6

Part 0 - Document on the blog

Some of you haven’t documented all of your mechanics and light pieces on the blog yet. Document all 4 pieces by Tuesday at noon.

Here is a reminder:

Write about your pieces touching on the following for each:

-name of the piece

-how your prototype evolved from the original idea to the current prototype

-ideal visitor experience

-problems you encountered/next steps for this piece (adjustments, rebuild, new ideas, let go of…)

All of your prototypes are interesting and might find a place in a different context, even if you are not pursuing them for your final pieces. The blog is our way to share all the ideas you came up with with friends and colleagues in the exploratorium. This week, my colleague, Ryan Jenkins will join the blog. He works with the tinkering group and is excited to see your work and process.

Part I - Address and solve key technical issues and material sourcing for your prototype

This part should be done before moving onto Part II and III, since the results will impact what your sketches look like.

Part II - User-test your prototype with at least two people independently

Before you do this, make sure you refine the interaction enough to be able to step back and let the users do their own experimenting instead of guiding them thru the experience. If needed, give them instructions on what to do to get started, but not on what to notice, where to look or other things to try. Observe carefully and take notes on what the users naturally do with the prototype. 

Part III - Sketch your prototype

Produce sketches on letter-sized paper. You may produce the sketches using paint or drawing programs if you like, but however you produce your sketches, they need to be 1) put on the blog before Friday's class, and 2) printed out and brought to Friday's class.

Sketch 1: isometric view of your exhibit

-show user interaction (includes a person). How many visitors interact with the piece at a time, do they sit or stand?

-show at which places the exhibit is accessible. Does it have a front side and a back side, is it placed against a wall, or accessible from all sides, or mounted on a wall?

Be conscious about scaling your current prototype. What is the ideal size for your phenomenon? Be thoughtful about placement of components and the overall ergonomics.

Sketch 2: side view, top view of your exhibit

-show dimensions on the side view/top view.

-annotate key components showing the material or the part specs. Be intentional about material choices based on physical needs of the exhibit and appearance.

-show graphics label placement if graphics are needed.

-for light pieces, propose a structure that provides light control.

Optional additional detail sketches: Close up on area of interaction

-produce any needed additional sketches that zooms in on places where the user interacts with the exhibits. The sketch shows the user's hands or other body parts used to interact.

To help you get started look at the sample sketches of two exhibits in these blog posts (the Magic wand sketches are a good example of an isometric view and a top view/side view). As a side note, the sketches are of an old version of “magic wand”, if you have a chance to look at the exhibit on Friday, you will see it’s quite different now.

http://dfe2013.blogspot.com/2014/02/sample-exhibit-sketch-magic-wand.html

Assignment Week 3

Create two or more mechanical devices. Your devices should be made of appropriate materials to achieve the requisite precision and rigidity for proper functioning. Often this means wood. Do not limit yourself to working with the cardboard frame structures we used in class. There are many ways to structure and support a mechanical device. Explore them; they can be a source of interest for your piece.

While you are free to pursue any (mechanical) direction that interests you for this assignment, here are three strategies to consider:

1) Create a mechanism that drives some very interesting/beautiful/whimsical behavior, in the hopes that this interesting behavior will lead the user to want to investigate the mechanism responsible for it.

2) Create an interesting/non-intuitive/beautiful mechanism that celebrates the mechanism itself.

3) Use extreme contrasts of scale, and/or unusual combinations to create non-intuitive behaviors. (e.g. large light things with small heavy things, long arms with short arms, fast with slow, identical size but different weight, very close to the fulcrum with very far from the fulcrum, changes in direction of movement, large motion with small motion, etc.)

Assignment Week 2

Part 1
Document your mirror exhibits on the blog.

- Give it a name/a working title. That helps to define the intention and it helps us to talk about it.
- Include at least one photo of your exhibit.

- Remind us what the ideal interaction would be.

- Keeping in mind that all the projects you will be doing for the first several week are prototypes of potential candidates for your final exhibit: What would your next steps be in moving this toward a successful final project exhibit? This can range from: "adjust a mirror" to "get more material and rebuild completely....". Be as detailed as you can about this. You could add a photo of a certain part that you think needs work.

-Optional, but strongly recommend: other ideas you would like to do related to "reflections". These can be ideas based on your own project, or on your classmates' projects, or some combination. Lots of ideas came up in our discussion yesterday. Document and build on those. No idea comes about in a vacuum. Build on ideas others have shared.

-Labels: AssignmentWeek2, Prototype: Mirrors, [Student Name]

Due date: Tuesday end of the day (We want to be able to comment on your posts between Wednesday and Friday).

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Part 2

Watch Palace of Delights and extract some guidelines for exhibit development. Email the guidelines as bullet points to Sebastian. (Email subject line should start with "[DfE]".) Briefly discuss your thoughts on those guidelines. What was surprising? What was missing? Be prepared to Discuss the film next week.
Due Date: Thursday, 10am

Here's the link to the movie. I recommend you download the entire file before attempting to watch it. It is 344MB.
http://philo.exploratorium.edu/sebastian/Palace_of_Delights.m4v

Please don't hesitate to contact John or me if you have any questions.

AssignmentWeek1

Part 1

Create an interactive station that communicates one aspect of mirror reflections with little or (preferably) no mediation. Your piece may include some brief assistive/directive text. The main purpose of your interactive piece is to be engaging and to serve as an entry point for further self guided exploration.

Materials: Use materials similar in quality to those used in the workshop.

Presentation: We will set-up the pieces on tables in our classroom in Stanford. We will spend a few minutes with each piece. We would like to hear what explorations you envision the user to be doing with this piece and which problems you encountered/improvements you would suggest.

Also, be prepared to answer these questions about your mirror/reflection piece when we meet next Friday:

      -You are probably working on this because you find this personally engaging/interesting. Why is this interesting/engaging to you?  (It's important not to forget why you found this interesting in the first place!)

     -Where did you encounter problems? What would you like to improve and how?

     -Did you encounter opportunity? Did you decide to go down a different route during the process?

Due: Friday, Week 2, beginning of class

Part 2

Give a critique of an exhibit that worked very well for you, and why; an exhibit that didn't work for you and why; and suggestions for fixing the latter. Illustrate your descriptions with photos and/or videos of the exhibits in question. It might also be helpful to illustrate your suggestions with drawings or altered photos.

Labels: AssignmentWeek1, [Student Name]

Due: Tuesday morning, 10am

Part 3

Read each others blog and comment as appropriate.
Due: Thursday noon