Today, as a group we got lots of work done. We began with writing down our goals for the day, which were finishing the sensors, making a prototype, and beginning the presentation and for the most part we completed all of those things.

Sammi and I focused on getting the speaker to work which took a very long time because we had to set it up, find different power supplies, get the sounds, find how to upload it to the soundboard, and eventually get the speaker to play the recording.

While we were working with the speakers, Jules was hard at work on our prototype cutting things out on the laser cutter, sewing it all together and ironing it. As a group I think we are all really enjoying ourselves and looking forward to finishing it up tomorrow and putting it all together.

Today we started the day learning how speakers work. Becca showed us using a coil and attaching alligator clips and placing a magnet in the center, but it didn't work so she showed us a video instead.

We took a neopixel and connected it to the Flora to see if we could get it to work and managed to use the simple code. After we tried another code which got the LEDS to make lots of different colors in a variety of patterns. We decided that the rainbow fading in the pattern was our favorite so we deleted the other parts of the code.

After we began focusing on what to record for the information about Boston and thought about recording people's stories from different places. We changed our minds numerous times about what the prompt should be, but settled on memories. We also had to get the speaker together and soldered the pieces together and attached it to the breadboard. Jules also laser cut pieces of felt for the actual design and we will need to focus on that tomorrow. I'm really happy with how the project is going and I'm having lots of fun.
 

We began the day with Becca giving us the challenge to create a new idea using a neck pillow and not attaching the piece to a chair. As a group we brainstormed new ideas such as having the piece under the chair that you pull it out  and use or going to a store to buy it a bring it on the bus with you. We felt that if we wanted to continue with our idea of making everyone a tourist we would have to keep the headrest/ pillow on the bus. We decided to change the look of the headrest as well making it like a shell for the head and neck and placed the speaker a bit behind the ear instead of on top of it. We wanted to incorporate something that would make the piece Boston and after brainstorming, we decided on sports and made the part that you place your head in the shape of a baseball glove. We made two different prototypes, one out of clay and the other out of cardboard and duck tape. Later on in the day we used Arduino  and learned how to make different sensors using Flora. It was cool to see how they all work and it will be cool to incorporate them into our project.

On Friday, we began the day coming up with three ideas and making prototypes of them out of paper. Our ideas were headphones that would tell you about the city while you rode the bus, a helmet that would tell you information about the city and make it more comfortable to lean against the window (we also made a pillow version), and a map of the city that went all around the perimeter of the top of the bus. We ended up choosing the headrest/ pillow because we felt we would be able to apply our new skills like sewing and making sensors. After, we made another prototype out of duck tape because we felt it would be easier to mold. We attached it to the chair to get an idea of how we would attach the pillow in the bus and made another model this time out of clay. We finished the day making pressure sensors with the felt and the fibre-optic thread. I'm looking forward to working even more on the project and see what else will happen.