Last Week: Corn hole Board

Last week in Innovation Diploma my group (Brady, Kiki, and Nolan) and I were assigned the corn hole board. At first, Mr. Edwards had to show us where everything is, how to use the tools, and what safety percussions to take in the Agency Workshop. We started with the base and used a miter saw to cut the best measurements. We continued to work on the base and top for the next couple days. I think we were taking our time in the beginning so we had to work quicker towards the end. Nolan and Brady worked on the stand and hole, while Kiki and I worked on the design on the corn hole. I think that Kiki and I hit a roadblock with coming up with the idea. Most designs were either too difficult to work on with the time that we had, or too simple. We tried to sketch a couple of drawing like a tiki statue and a underwater themed drawing, but those didn’t work well. We finally came up with a bee hive pattern, since the space we were working in was called the hive. We used vinyl stickers to stick on the board as stencils with the outlines of hexagons.  We had to change some things like the thickness and size but at the end we got them printed. Once the corn hole was completely built, we painted it green. Next we had to paste the hexagon stencil, but there wasn’t enough transfer paper (paper that sticks on to the design that is made and then pasted on where is wanted) so Nolan, Kiki, and I went to the lower school to get some. We pasted the stencil, painted black on top of it, and then ripped the stencil out.

Here is how it turned out:

We hit some roadblocks, but we worked together as a team and finished in time.

 

Experience with the D school at Stanford: Reflection

Over interim break, most of the Innovation Diploma cohort traveled to San Fransisco and Palo Alto in California. There were many factors that changed how I thought about different things. There was one highlight that stood out to me the most where I completely changed what I thought about my fellow friends and classmates.  Ashante, a very nice man that helped the process of the day on Friday, came and talked to us. At first I had no idea what was going on. He was introducing himself as he passed papers and friends passed the writing tools. He asked us to write three things that other people viewed us. I wrote international, and somethings else I can’t remember. Then, on the back, he asked us to write 3 things that we usually don’t talk about, emotions or anything that came to mind. I have to admit, the mood in the room was a little tense. The mood quickly changed though when he told us to crumple the paper up, close our eyes, and on his call to open our eyes and have a snowball fight with these papers. It lasted for only 45 seconds until he told us to pick up a “snow ball” and sit back down.

Ashante told us about the kids that he helps every week and how they need someone to talk to about what they really feel and not about what they are on the surface. He told us to open the paper up and look at the back of the page, where the real feelings were written. We went around in a circle and each read one word that was written. I don’t know what’s worse: the fact that everyone’s paper had something negative, or the fact that I know who’s the paper that I read was. This is the moment where the entire room fell silent and the mood was just really sad.

I didn’t really think before about what people really felt and what they showed on the surface.

Eyris: Design Brief Project #2

These past weeks my group (Nina, Maya, Robyn, Anna Kate) and me were assigned to create a display that shows everyone in the cohort’s strengths. We used the tests from StrengthsFinder as our data to put in our project.

Strengths Finder is a survey that a person takes; it shows the top five strengths of that person has. It is very accurate (it is actually kind of creepy). For example, my top strengths were: Relator, Positivity, Discipline, Individualization, and Restorative. At first I looked at the literal definition of each word and I thought to myself “that’s not how I am…”. But then I looked at the deeper meanings that the website gives and then it got deeper into specific areas.

Our team and I wanted something interactive and interesting to look at for people to look at strengths in our Innovation Diploma Cohort. Since each person is unique we thought to use something that would display that element; Eyes. Robyn drew a sketch of an eye and we all decided to use everyone irises (the color of the eye) and place it in the drawing so that it can have some form of organization and connectiveness. Every person in the cohort is different in some way, but we all bring our strengths to work together as a team.

The team was divided up:

• Maya- coder
• Nina- manager
• Robyn- artist
• Melina- Photographer
• Anna Kate- Editer
• Kiki- display and co manager

This was just the start, just a simple idea. This is the drawing:

The next day, we brainstormed some ideas for what the display would look like; Would the display be physical or would it be displayed on an electronic?

We came up with:

• We would divide all the 36 strengths into 4 groups: Relationship Building, Influencing, Executing, and Strategic Thinking.
• We placed each person in the group their strengths were mostly in.
• We decided that the display would not be physical, but would be projected.

There were a few bumps in the way but we ended up making a intriguing display.

Here were the steps:

Taking pictures of everyone’s eyes in Innovation Diploma

Maya worked on the coding, Anna Kate and I worked on editing the eyes into the drawing, and Kiki and Robyn worked on the physical interactive display.

This is the finished display

Overall, I think everyone worked well as a team and learned new things. If we could improve anything, we would improve the explanation of the actual display, because it seemed as no one could really understand what was happening unless there was someone there to explain it.

Logo Project

For the past week and a half, The Design Brief team has been working on logos. We started out with a Ted talk that was really interesting; Roman Mars was showing his expertise about flags and was talking about what factors makes a good design (for a flag). Mr. Boden and Mr. Edwards were talking to the team and instructed us to choose a symbol, color, and object that makes us, us. I chose a globe for my object, since I have travelled all over the world, a tree for a symbol, since I have a large family who made me who I am (family tree) , and light grey or white to highlight the symbol and object. The week after, we worked on making this logo come to life. Mr. Boden showed us a presentation that showed what really makes a good logo. Nina, Kiki, Robyn and I used a different method than everyone else. We drew our logos with sharpie (so there is a black and white contrast), and used the Adobie Capture app to take a picture of the logo. The logo was transferred to a computer; it was edited and printed in the printer. Overall, it was a great experience to learn some skills and learn how to use different softwares and programs. I pasted my logo on my phone case :).

New Brand

Today the Design Brief students watched a Ted Talk; Roman Mars, the ted talker, spoke about what it takes to make a good flag. He showed us examples of great flags and some badly made flags. The point of watching this Ted Talk was to start brainstorming some ideas on a personal brand for ourselves. We had to come up with three things that define us: A symbol, object, and color. For my symbol I chose a tree, symbolizing how I have a large family that defines who I am. For my object I chose a globe, since I travel a lot, and for my color I chose grey; it is my favorite color and it also to me symbolizes in some way of photography.

Week 1 Reflective Post

Last week Innovation Diploma took the course to the next level by letting us explore options on how to improve a shopping cart. It was a entertaining learning experience that taught me many things like:

• How to explore and take notes on a realistic experience and learn from it (going to the grocery store).
• How to use 123d Design
• How to work with a partner and how to get ideas out there
• How to try to solve a problem for many different users (elder lees, customers, employees, etc.)

My partner Robyn and I created a accessory that attaches to the top of the cart right in front of the handle of the cart. We decided to make this item for the cart that is a little bit smaller and that has two levels:

The prototype looks like this.

This would fit:

• A shopping list
• Mobile device
• Purse
• Cup of any drink

Unfortunately, Robyn and I stopped this project and continued on to another project.

My Learning Journey

I came into the room without knowing anything I was about to do. The event was located in the lightbox, a place where all sunlight comes in. I looked down from the top of the staircase, which leads to the surface of the lightbox, and saw that there were different tables placed around the room, all with a specific amount of chairs around them. On top of the tables were our playbooks – these books would become our toolkits  as we traversed through what would be my first design thinking process. I walked down the steps and looked around the tables to see which playbook had my name written on it. I found it, and there were students sitting around the table. Because I just started high school, I only knew a couple of people in my group, but the rest I didn’t recognize, which made me a little nervous.

As the day progressed the Innovation Diploma faculty assigned us a blog post. To my surprise, my group’s blog post was one I had posted two days before, which made me feel proud since I was one of the youngest of the group. This was the blog post:

We had to find our how might we, or prompt. Our group, (Margaret White, Anya Smith, Claire Jarrell, Nina Toller, and Maclean Peterson, and me of course) decided to walk outside and check out the abandoned garden. 

It was full of weeds and dead plants…

Our first idea was to regrow this garden with some nice and innovative walls with flowers and vases. To fast forward a little bit, we found out that fixing the garden brought up a lot of questions like: Who would maintain the garden?, Would the garden do anything for our users the students?, etc. So we decided to go interview Mrs. Domby, a middle school teacher who is all about the environment, to figure out something we could do.

She was very passionate about recycling and getting rid of styrofoam plates. Our group wanted to stick to the idea of getting rid of styrofoam plates, but then we realized that we had a lack of passion and need. Getting rid of styrofoam plates didn’t have to do anything with our user, only that Mrs. Domby thought it was a good idea and we stuck to it. We forgot about recycling, and also how passionate Mrs. Domby was about it, and that is when the idea clicked: How do we make recycling a priority for the students? Not many people in Georgia recycle very much. We learned that our middle school building got rid of their recycle bins due to space and the fact that students didn’t know what to throw away in the recycle bin.

Our group decided after many pivots to create a recycle bin and waste bin combo that doesn’t use a lot of space; using vertical space was the answer. If there is anything that I learned, it is that when someone is in a group, everyone needs to collaborate and communicate. Also, everyone should get their ideas out there for everyone to hear, even if the idea might be crazy.

Blog Post for the Day

Recap:

Our team designed a trash can and recycle bin that used vertical space (which means that one is right on top of the other). Since they got rid of the recycle bins due to space, our users are the students at the middle school building. Our prototype is made up of foam board.

Tasks done today:

We interviewed some middle school students during their lunch time and got some feedback. Most of the students that were interviewed said that they had noticed the difference of the recycle bin in the classroom. The sad part is that some of them didn’t even seem to recycle at all. They wanted for it to decrease in size, because it was too big for the classroom, making it look smaller. We placed the prototype in Mr. Song’s classroom. We now have moved it to Mrs. Gram’s room.

How it Affects my User

Our users are the student in the middle school. We created this recycle bin due to the lack of space in the middle school building. We created a double bin using vertical space so that there is enough space to fit. Most of the students don’t know exactly what goes in recycle and what doesn’t. This is part of our problem. We are currently working on a sign that could help the students with that.

Reflection to the Design Challenge

This last couple of weeks my team and I have been trying to figure out a way we could innovate the simple version of the recycle bin and trashcan, making sure to not use a lot of horizontal space. This is because the middle school has gotten rid of the their recycle bins because of space issues in which we (our team) need to fix.

There was a moment of “ah ha!” when Margaret White, one of the members in this team came up with the idea of using a vertical space to add a recycle bin into the mix. The top would be the recycle bin, in which would be easier to access, so that people can actually think about recycling. The waste bin would be on the bottom compartment so that it is “harder” to access. On the side there would be a door which then the maintenance faculty could pick up and throw easy. The top bin would be named “recycling” while the bottom one would be named “landfill”; it would be named that so in one student’s mind, what would instantly pop up in their head would be “Gross place where nothing decomposes” so they would think about recycling.

There would also be a label above the top compartment stuck on the wall with visuals showing what can be recycled and what can’t be. Also, it would show what happens when a recyclable material is thrown in the “landfill” it will not decompose and will harm the earth that we live in.

Last, there would be student or teacher artwork all over the sides of the invention to give it more “pzazz”.