Beckett, David & Trevor

Final Presentation

Jan.5.2024

Mag Maze

Engage and Persist

Collaborate

Physical Fabrication

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Growth Paragraph

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Concept Development

In this studio we partnered with the Discovery museum to expand a space there dedicated to mirrors. Our group made four projects each related to mirrors. I worked on mirror wall to create an interactable mirror that you can distort and bend in any way. There were a few iterations before coming up with the final which was made in the fourth scale. The first few were about bending the mirror in smooth and natural ways so that the reflection could be smooth and you could actually see yourself. The reason why I went with distorting and bending mirrors was when kids see themselves get their faces stretched or their eyes enlarge they thing it's funny. When we took our projects to the museum, we did not get much interaction due to our location. Overall I enjoyed making the projects and seeing the little interaction we got with them.

I thought that I had some growth in a few areas in this studio. When we were coming up and brainstorming ideas, I saw growth in the quality of the ideas I was putting out along with the speed I came up with them and sketched down on paper. Another area I saw growth in was my ability to talk about my projects in front of people. In the past I was not very confident in "selling" my project to other people verbally but I feel that it is getting better.

Express

Empathize

Giving/Receving feedback

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Rapid Prototyping

 This project was done in collaboration with Design Museum in Acton, the Mirrors group was tasked with updating the existing exhibit. We found we could improve the exhibit's approachability and complexity, which would in turn increase interaction. The group then branched out in four different directions to accomplish that goal.

My portion of the Mirrors project was based around infinity mirrors and the illusions they create. I created an 'infinity cube' and several intractable prototypes to teach kids about reflections and how they 'work'. [how does it work]

Once again, this studio was a struggle because of external factors. I found it difficult to juggle the concepts I needed to learn with the never-ending flow of supplementals and other college material. Seniors need more college support, or at least a way to get more done. The non-traditional approach to applications, though beneficial in the long run, hinders my ability to get traditional support outside NuVu. I truly believe I would suffer long-term mental issues if I had any more work than I do now.

I suppose I have to talk about the project too. If I'm honest, this was basically a solo project. I worked on what I was passionate about, because I felt my group mates had good direction (or that I wasn’t comfortable relying on them to complete work). Decent project, got a lot of feedback, did a lot of prototyping in all phases (initial cube w/o mirrors -> Cube w/ mirrors -> Intractable prototype w/mirrors -> my secret Santa gift for poker), expressed the wow aspect pretty well. I combined skills in material research, rapid prototyping and giving/receiving feedback.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/125mYQyWQZ4ZVGfjqM4J05wYvg4ynNDuK3ZiwpNdQKYk/edit?usp=sharing

Engage & Persist

Collaborate

Material Exploration



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Sketching and Drawing

Our museum exibit is a large mushrooms play house for young children. The previouse exhibit inhabiting the space was not getting much interactions from the kids. The space is an open hallway with a fire exit and a elevator behind the children's playhouse. We decided we wanted to continue the house into that space. It consisted of a puzzle wall, crocheted mushrooms in small gardens and a mushroom house as the main attraction. The House is 6.5 feet tall and has room for a 5 year old to stand comfortably. The crocheted mushrooms are soft so if they are thrown over the railing they wont hurt any of the people below. The garden pahces have velcro that the mushrooms are attached to. This allows visitors to pick the mushrooms and use them for games.

I started this project in a different group then I ended in, I was really struggling to communicate with my teammates becasue they were much older than me. I felt like for a while I did not actually understand what we were doing becasue I did not ask questions and tried to provide my own input because I had been planning to work in a different group and on a different project. A few day after our first museum

visit I started trying to engage with my group about our work. After that it became mush easier to work. I learned how to adjust to new situation nd let my ideas be heard so that I am part of the final product and proud of my work. Our project went through many transformations during the construction this all required our efforts to be in sinc so that we could persist through any issue we ran into and come out with a wokring product.

Empathize

Collaborate

Physical Fabrication

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Mushroom Land is an exhibit and installation proposal for the Discovery Museum in Acton, MA. Encouraging imaginative play and learning, the exhibit also encourages sensory play with different textures and colors throughout the space.

The new exhibit is located at the second floor of the museum connects and interact the Betty house, targeting the same age group(3-5). The goal of the exhibit is to encourage imaginary and sensory play allow children to play individually and collaboratively. The design consists of bright and vibrant colors to spark curiosity among kids as the display area is located next to the emergence exit and elevator. The mushroom house utilizes the corner to maximize the interior space. This element will provides a sense of safety and privacy for users. Outside the mushroom house is where the mushroom patches are located allowing kids to interact, pick, and plant with the crotched mushrooms. The mushroom puzzle is located along the railing where kids can sit floor and explore. The whole exhibit provides and area for children to utilize their hands and imagination to play.

Growth Paragraph

Over the course of the studio, I think I have gotten a little better at communicating with group members and getting my ideas out there since I was not

I think that I really enjoy being a part of

examples!



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Sketching & Drawing

Empathize

Collaborate

Research

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Concept Development

Bucket Radio teaches children aged 6-9 about the mechanics of sound travel through practical example.

Through our collaborations with the Design Museum, we were given the opportunity to work around and with children in designing an exhibit.

Engage and Persist

Collaborate

Physical Fabrication

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Growth Paragraph

Giving & Recieving Feedback



In multi-sensory Exhibit we worked with a client, the Discovery Museum in Acton, Massachusetts where we worked on replacing or upgrading some exhibits. I worked with two other people in the studio to replace their magnet exhibit with a new exhibit of our own that would be placed alongside the current one. the exhibit we made was a magnet maze that is supposed to teach kids an early introduction to magnets in the form that opposite magnetic fields attract, for that, we used the standard red and blue to show the different magnetic fields on both a control stick and a 'play piece' in the maze itself and a control rod, which were color-coded. The goal of the maze was to get to the center of the maze and you could either pull the magnet along using a stick of an opposite polarity or push the play piece with a same colored stick and hopefully teaching the user that when using magnets, opposites attract and similar polarities push.

In this studio I came in more or less expecting to jump straight into working on an exhibit and get to work immediately, instead, we spent 2 days getting to understand how to design these exhibits. However, what I was more excited about was being able to work with people on a collaborative project for a second time. It was an interesting as I had to make compromises or accept that we are working on something different to what I wanted but as long as I was able to understand their reasoning I was okay to go with the flow of the project, what I feel as though I need to improve on is doing a more equal amount of work as my teammates as I felt I wasn't doing as much work as them. As what I did was mostly some formatting and presentation work towards the end of the studio and the physical assembly, repairs and installation of the exhibit which I feel as though was not enough compared to what my team mates did.

Emphasize

Express

Physical Fabrication

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Iteration

This project was done in collaboration with the Acton Discovery Museum. We were given the task of re-designing some of their current under performing exhibits. My group worked on mirrors and reflection based exhibit aimed at younger kids. After an initial observation of the exhibit we came to the conclusion that it was visually uninteresting when compared to surrounding exhibits, and lacked anything to maintain a users interest. My contribution to the mirrors exhibit re-design is an adjustable kaleidoscopic mirror in the form of a flower. This is meant as a scale model for a potentially larger exhibit mounted on or near the current exhibit table. By interacting with this through rotating part of the base platform, the mirrors fold up creating a sharper angle of reflection leading to the object in front of the exhibit to be mirrored more frequently.

Going into this project I wasn't sure on the direction I should take given how open or deliverables were. So I settled on something that served as both an opportunity to further familiarize myself with creating for a client, as well as a chance to practice my prototyping and fabrication skills more. The prototype I spent the majority of this studio developing gave me constant opportunities to deepen my understanding of simple mechanisms, while forcing me to think creatively about how I construct my prototype due to the two dimensional constraint of the laser cutter. While working with this client was overall a great experience, there were several major issues with the existing exhibit like its location within the room that inhibited the efficacy of our prototypes and user testing. Regardless of this however, the final prototypes created by my group were received well, and may be used to help further develop the exhibit.

Empathize

Engage and Persist

Abstration

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Growth Paragraph

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giving and receiving feedback

Our project was to change an exhibit to make it more appealing to children at the museum. The exhibit is meant to teach kids the geometry in dance by having them make shapes with their body in a mirror. The problem with the exhibit was that the vast majority of kids would just walk past it without a second thought and go interact with other exhibits in the museum. Anara an I had to find a way to keep the idea of geometry in dance, while also changing it enough to be entertaining for kids.

For this project I had to empathize with the kids at the the museum by putting my self in their shoes to try and understand what they would like most in an exhibit like this. we when through many different iterations for the project and eventually decided on a light up board due to feedback we received from the earlier tests. we created a light up board for kids to step on to encurage them to dance by making it more fun for them.

Engage and Persist

empathize

Iteration



physical fabrication

Project Paragraph

In the Multi-Sensory studio I worked with 3 others to improve upon an exhibit at the discovery museum that involved mirrors. We all ended up using mirrors in different ways to make an engaging exhibit. I chose to engage peoples creativity and understanding of mirrors with my exhibit. I also wanted my exhibit to be engaging and fun to play with. I made foam shapes which could be used to make patterns and would look like a mandela when mirrored.

Growth Paragraph

During this project I went through multiple ideas and iterations. At first I made a small model that gave the illusion of 4 rooms when there was only 1 by using mirrors. Then I decided I wanted to mirror drawings of participants instead so I made a larger mirror and allowed kids to draw on paper which would be reflected and have a mandela effect. I changed the design form this though because I found kids were drawing on the mirror and instead used foam shapes for the same effect as drawing. Through these iterations and me testing my project by having kids play with my project helped me see the project through their eyes, see the exhibits flaws, and improve upon them. I only wish I could have iterated more on this project as I got no user interactions at the end of the project when going to the museum.