People who live in small spaces often find it difficult to find space for their furniture. The Hoberman Chair is piece of furniture that transforms between two phases, a lounge chair and a space-efficient table. The chair uses the three-dimensional scissor mechanism invented by Chuck Hoberman, and popularized in the Hoberman Sphere, to expand and contract in three dimensions. The elegant and mesmerizing motion of the petal shaped pieces gives the user the impression of a flower blooming.

The table is formed when the outer segments meet together in the closed phase, and the piece sits parallel to the ground. In this phase, the legs are also oriented with a support that holds the table upright.

The chair is formed when the mechanism is opened, achieved by pulling outwards on the table. In this stage, the segments open up into a ring. The piece is then tipped onto its side, and rests on the edge of two of the four legs. Elastic string is weaved in the area inside the ring, forming a seat for the user.

The Hoberman Chair is a piece of furniture that transforms between two phases, a lounge chair and a space-efficient table. The chair uses the three-dimensional scissor mechanism invented by Chuck Hoberman, and popularized in the Hoberman Sphere, to expand and contract in three dimensions. The elegant and mesmerizing motion of the petal shaped pieces gives the user the impression of a flower blooming.

The table is formed when the outer segments meet together in the closed phase, and the piece sits parallel to the ground. In this phase, the legs are also oriented with a support that holds the table upright.

The chair is formed when the mechanism is opened, achieved by pulling outwards on the table. In this stage, the segments open up into a ring. The piece is then tipped onto its side, and rests on the edge of two of the four legs. Elastic string is weaved in the area inside the ring, forming a seat for the user.

The project is a physical manifestation of what goes on in Leslie's life, from dancing and ballet, to burlesque and sideshow. This wearable sculpture embodies her elegant and badass nature.

The sculpture bends the idea of a traditional tutu. It allows the audience to attempt to see who Leslie is through the piece in her performance. We tried to incorporate her past present and future together in this single sculpture. The overall twirling shape represents bandages being taken off on one of Leslie's major surgery. We have taken her ideas and tips to make this wearable specific to her. Her loving of the Harlequin diamond really motivated a push in creativity towards the end product. The flowing pattern shows grace and elegance. However the subtle differences across this wearable bring Leslie's idea to life. This piece should make the audience think about the show and Leslie. The use of wood over any other material should reinforce the point that this is indeed a wearable sculpture, not a dress. however the main idea is that beauty is everywhere. 

"Faces" is a short film that tells a story through metaphors. We found inspiration in other short animations, TV shows, and photography. We wanted to tell our story using our two unique art styles. We made a story about two different versions of our character, one growing flowers to signify growth and self-acceptance. The other version of our character has a snake coming out of its mouth, signifying the girl's inner doubt and self-loathing. We started our creative process brainstorming different plots. At first, we wanted to make an animation of a person morphing into different people. Then we started thinking about self-exploration and self-acceptance. We eventually decided on a story line of a girl become more and more depressed in a time-lapse style, but we also wanted to make her get better and become happy. We decided that one person would animate her getting better, and the other would animate her getting worst. We wanted to have them play at the same time, so we made them the same amount of frames.

The final product consists of the two sequences playing side by side with a wall that forms between them, showing the split within our character. At the end, the wall is lifted and the snake is showing moving to the other side of the screen, showing a reconnect between the two versions. We made both of the versions of the girl in separate files, then merged them together adding the wall and the snake coming to the other side.

We had some issues when merging our files because they were slightly different sizes we had to resize our animation which moved some of the components. If we had more time, we would want to make the girls interact with each other and have some way to clarify that they are the same person. 

A short animation exploring the different sides of a person. Through watching our short film, you will begin to think about how what used to be your fatal flaws can actually turn out to be what you needed the most.

We wanted to make a short film talking about how often people feel trapped and alone, but there is still a part of them who is growing and succeeding. We made our animation in Adobe Animate, an animation software. We started our creative process with brainstorming and character design. We believed it was important to incorporate both of our art styles into our piece. Our first brainstorms where about mental illness and depression, but we started going more into how people are inside and how to show different sides of people. We continued developing our storyline as we started making our character. Then we both made different animations both representing different parts of our character.

While brainstorming for possible ideas, we started with the problem that exercise bikes aren't a very exciting experience. While using a real bike, you get to move around, feeling the wind pass you by and go wherever you want. However, during the colder seasons, it becomes a hassle to have to go out and bike. You feel constantly cold, and being outside while sweating gives you an increased chance of catching a cold. The solution would be to use a exercise bike inside, but this doesn’t give nearly the same feeling. Normally in a basement or in a gym, some people even see it as boring, and don’t feel motivated to exercise during the colder seasons. With this problem in mind, we started listing possible solutions. Our first idea was to make a virtual reality game, to give you the feeling of going somewhere. However, we decided against this due to the fact that with only three weeks, it would be a challenge to first learn how to use virtual technology, and then to design our game. We did, however, like the idea of making a game, and started thinking of games that would give you an incentive to bike.

Jokingly, we said that we could make a game where a bear is chasing you, and you have to bike away from it so you don’t get eaten. While this idea was thrown out jokingly, the three of us brainstormed on what kind of things we could add into the game to make it more interesting for the player. Starting with the pun “bumblebear,” we thought of more and more jokes involving bears, evolving the game from a simple joke to a full fledged game. As the day went on and our puns started to get sillier, we grew excited to start on this project.

Splitting up the work between the three of us, we had one person work on the animations and art in the game, one person work on the physical connections to the bike, and one person work on the coding and programming. After splitting up the work, we started thinking of ways to make your movements connect to the game. Eventually we decided on using a magnetic sensor, and by connecting a magnet to one of the back wheel’s spokes, it would be able to read one rotation each time the magnet passed the sensor. By using this information, we could find your actual speed, and convert it into your in-game speed.

After figuring out the mechanics of the game, we thought of ways to make our game accessible, enjoyable, and challenging. To make the game more accessible, we designed the sensor and magnet to have holders onto the bike, and by using a bike trainer, you can turn any bike into a stationary exercise bike. We wanted the game to be more accessible so that it would be a hassle to use, and anyone could play the game at their home without having to pay for an expensive exercise bike. Next, we thought a lot about how we would make the game as enjoyable as possible. We decided on making the game have a  old fashioned 8-bit feeling to it. This would make the game simple to make and play, and bring the focus of the game back to your exercising. We didn’t want the game to be overly complicated and take your attention off of the exercising aspect of the game. By making the bears have simple base models, we would have room to make them look as silly and funny as we wanted. As the game had started with a bear joke, we wanted there to be multiple bears that you would face, all of which would have a funny name. This would also be an incentive to play the game; as you progress through the game, you would encounter the multiple bears and levels we created. Finally, as this is an exercise game, we didn’t want the game to be easy. To fix this problem, we had the different bears be progressively harder and harder, giving you a challenge, while also letting you see your progress.

With the massive list of things we wanted in the game, we quickly realized that we wouldn’t have time to put everything we wanted into the game. Choosing the more essential parts, we tried to fit as much into the game as we could, given the three weeks we had. While not everything we had planned made it into the base game, we were very happy with what we had made, and enjoyed every step of the process.

In the presentation, you can see some of the sketches of what we would put into the game, given more time.

The show On Display draws attention to the disability of the performers and the beauty in their movement. We created a wearable sculpture to accompany the show that represents Anita Hollander.

Anita Hollander is an actress, singer, songwriter, director, and teacher who lost her leg to cancer. Anita will wear this sculpture during a 30-minute performance in a storefront in New York. The reason we made this sculpture is to show the viewer that Anita is whole and beautiful as she is and to challenge preconceived notions of disability. The idea behind our design is an abstraction of a mermaid which is inspired by one of Anita's songs, Mommy Is a Mermaid. This song is about addressing people's reactions to her disability when she is swimming with her daughter. Anita feels a strong connection to mermaids, so we knew we wanted to show this strength and beauty in our piece.

It was for these reasons that we designed the sculpture to cover up Anita’s right leg and have each of the pieces be an abstraction of a mermaid scale abstracted in all three dimensions. Each of the pieces is 3D printed out of clear resin so that the angular holes inside the piece can be seen from the outside. Each of the pieces will be sewed onto a piece of fabric with the geometry of the shape cut into it to show the negative space on her body. The finished product will be a striking visual that sends a clear message to the viewer.