Compartmentalizing Grief: A vessel filled with objects to explore shared family memories of loss. The apothecary cabinet has six different mementos in the drawers that are all intended to help a user reflect on their own experiences of loss and embrace the healing process. 

At the age of 19, my cousin, Preston James Hirten died suddenly in the middle of a soccer game. Being the youngest child in my family, I could not process his passing or death as a whole, as I was confused and feeling "left out". That made me feel guilty for a very long time, as I couldn't remember him as well as my other family members.

This vessel shows the story of my current journey to healing and processing of this loss, n hopes to heal myself and help others. Because I am going through the process 10 years after everyone else in my family, I have learned to grieve vicariously through my parents, aunts, and uncles' memories and mementos. When a user opens a drawer,  they will see objects, songs, books, and pictures that helped  me process loss of a loved one. In one drawer, a user will open and see a mirror. This asks them to reflect on how death shapes their identity. Overall, this vessel shows how the loss of a loved once does not have to negatively affect one, but can rather represent the beauty of life, love, and healing.

Amiyr's brief

Mountain Sight is made to alow Ed to be able to get feel the emotions of happiness. and the feeling of driving up a mountain.  in his story. It is a mountain with a viewpoint where it looks like a high mountain that has pictures of him and his sister.

the project is a box that looks like a bus window to simulate the feeling of looking out of a bus window, inside the box, there are mirrors to refect two images of Ed and his sister and a downhill mountain. the mountain will refe=lect off of the mirrors and make the drop feel unending.

Cooper’s Brief:

The Smell Step is a shoe accessory that creates in others an association between a personalised scent and the wearer. With every step, a spray bottle on the shoe disperses a scent that is meaningful to the user to be smelled by those around the user. When someone who has spent time with the wearer encounters a natural occurrence of the smell, they will think of the wearer and understand why the smell was meaningful. The Smell Step consists of an upside-down spray bottle connected to one shoe with its lever connected to the other shoe by a length of string. When one foot moves forward to take a step, it pulls the lever, spraying scented mist into the air

Tinna's Brief:

The smell step is a shoe accessory that leaves the wearer’s presence, through scent, in a room to form a connection with the wearer and the people they encounter on a daily basis who over time will form a connection between the wearer and the scent. This forms a deeper connection with the wearer and also more vivid memories of the wearer in the minds of the people they’ve encountered. The scent has a personal connection to the wearer, through a memory or an experience they've gone through. The Smell Step transform the connection between the scent and memory for the wearer into a new memory of the wearer for people the wearer encounters on a daily basis.

The device attaches to the user's shoes and legs and is comprised of a spray bottle and string. The string is attached to the spray bottle lever and to one of the user's legs. When the leg moves forward it pulls the string triggering the lever of the spray bottle, causing the scented mist to be dispensed. The spray bottle is filled with water and essential oil which produces the smell. 

Aoife Brief: 

The Sunrise Symphony: A musical coffee shelf that enhances the ritual of making a morning cup of coffee by adding a calming, musical sensation to intensify the senses during the coffee brewing process. The shelf has placeholders for coffee beans, a coffee grinder, a french press, a kettle, and a mug. The table represents the ritualization of brewing coffee and adds an element of music, thus uplifting and energizing the morning.  

The Sunrise Symphony is for the average person who enjoys a fresh french press coffee in the morning. This benefits users in the morning by creating a serene environment. The song produced at the end of the coffee-making process can elevate a user’s morning, which in effect, can improve their entire day. The shelf uses coded photo-resistors that act as a switch to play music when light is shown on them. When a user removes an appliance, like a kettle, the first beat will start as the light shines on the vacant kettle resting place. At the very end, users cane joys their hot coffee while listening to the five-layered track song. 

Ollo Brief:

A table which enhances the process of creating a morning coffee by adding a musical aspect to help a user wake up and further intensify the ritual of brewing coffee.

The Coffee Music Table acts as another dose of something to wake someone up,  specifically targeted to stimulate a user's auditory system early in the morning. Underneath the table, there are photoresistors acting as motion sensors which play music when an object is removed.  As users move through each step of making french pressed coffee, a new layer of music is added, creating an entire song loop by the end. The jazz is the genre of music featured in the machine. This product contains sensors that activate when an object is removed from the table, triggering an mp3 shield to play the corresponding layer of music. While many products on the market bridge the gap between music and coffee by adding a melody to a coffee machine, the Coffee Music Table brings music into the ritual of the coffee making and consumption process.  The product is designed for those who do not like mornings, avid coffee drinkers, and/or music listeners.

Link to presentation: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c4D_ucNDzVleGZCIKFS_FKLTLUgSu066/view?usp=sharing

The StoryBox is an image processing program that preserves moments through sound. In a world full of visual snapshots of life, rarely are those moments simultaneously captured through music. The StoryBox software allows images throughout time to be captured and composed into a series of auditory experiences. 

Towns, cities, and landscapes are constantly evolving. With the threat of climate change transforming and destroying the earth's natural beauties, war destruction, and new development, an image alone can not preserve or capture the full experience of a place before it disappears. For this project, the StoryBox captures archived images of Palestine pre-colonization. As more and more land is annexed, it is important to create multiple different preserved representations of the beautiful landscape. The natural scenery and towns were then processed and programmed to create an auditory interpretation of the image. By analyzing the colors, depth, and outlined shapes of the images, the software was then able to assign notes and compose a sound. 

Hugo:

The Memory Capsule is based on impactful moments in Mary-Ann's life, particularly those involving animals or loved ones. The project is similar to matryoshka dolls, in that it is a physical representation of a very impactful memory surrounded by other, less impactful memory's representations.

The project is a physical representation of multiple slightly impactful physical representations of memories, in the form of a wooden box. It is made out of wood and is multiple objects wrapped around each other to be unraveled during the telling of a story, and at the center of all of the boxes is a mirror, to show how all of these memories come together to create the person Mary-Ann is today.

Lalita:

This project is representing the different moments and memories that had an impact on Mary-Ann's life. This project is based on the matryoshka dolls where the most important memories are smaller and the less important memories are larger surrounding the smaller memories. 

The final project helps Mary-Ann (a senior at Mount Pleasant Home) tell her stories and how these memories changed her. While she is telling the stories she will reveal what is in each of the wooden figures one bye one to remember and tell her story. The boxes consist of about 4 layers: the outer layer which is a duck, the second layer represents her trip to Ireland, the third layer signifies that she has had to deal with diabetes, and the last layer is a mirror that means that all of these memories make the person that she is today. 

The Brief:

Memory Keys: This project is a vessel meant to help people connect with loved ones through music. "Keys" achieves this through sound vibrations and as a vessel that holds very important memories.

In this project, users are meant to "play" wooden keys that resemble the action one would use when playing the piano. This  project is based off of the piano but uses simpler mechanics to achieve sound. Instead of a hammer hitting a string, "Keys" uses a metal ball to hit copper to create sound. Apart from being somewhat of a meditative tool, "Keys" is based on a special form of communication I had with my grandmother.  For me, this project is a very important part of honoring her memory and moving on. For others, when using this, my hope is that they can connect with people they may have lost and help refresh their memory of them. 

The Family Tree is a living time capsule for extended families, allowing each family their own specific branch to share memories, hardships, or joyful moments with one another as a means to bring the family closer together with these shared moments available to share for generations. 

In my Family Tree, the trunk represents my cousin, Brad, who died of a brain tumor at age 13. During the one year from when he was diagnosed to when he died, all 75 extended family members connected in ways we never had before. I thought it would be appropriate to create a base in his memory, with “B LISKA” written on the side of the tree trunk, which was the license plate he wanted oto have on his first car. I created the branches to represent the various extended families that make up my larger one, with caps labeling each family’s last name and designated repository. Anyone in the family can use the vessel to share special memories and aspirations as keepsakes for other family members to view and future generations to see.