The Brief Part 2 - Full Brief

Andrew Todd Marcus

Just a Reminder for Everyone-

The Brief is due Monday morning by 9:00AM. Please wait to complete the brief until you have received comments about your outline. Many outlines have already been commented upon, the rest should be completed shortly..

Remember, all documents related to the brief are found HERE. These include a note from the writing coach and the Composition Reminder Sheet.

Now that you have created an document that outlines all of the information you want to relate in the Brief, it is time to weave that information together into a strong narrative that ties together the Why, How and What and Who of your project through clear, cogent writing. Tell the story of how your idea was born, developed, and manifested.

Create 1 post titled “The Brief” in the Writing tab with text that includes the following 2 items, numbered:

  1. A 1-2 sentence project description for your transcript. This will serve as the basis of the Project Description that appears in your transcript. This description should not include the name of the project and should be written in the third person. This was Question 1 in your Outline.
    examples:
    Night Light Blankie: A child's sensory blanket that provides comfort and privacy in the high stress environment of the hospital using weight, textures, and light. The blanket transforms into a mini light up fort over a child’s head.
    Cocoon: a shroud that explores human spirituality and the concept of life after death through the use of repetitive religious iconography. Composed of over 300 pieces of laser cut balsa wood lined with space tape, the icons are arranged using a mathematical strange attractor.
  1. A 1-2 paragraph brief for your project based on the description below. This will be based off the information you put together in your Outline and should focus on style. The NuVu writing coach will give you feedback and you will have the opportunity to revise this text before the final presentation. The primary purpose of The Brief is to explain, entice, and convince the reader that your project is amazing and important. Imagine your project on display in the Museum of Modern Art. The Brief is hanging on the wall next to your work. In 1-2 paragraphs, a viewer should understand what your project is, why it exists, and how you made it, and who it is for. More importantly, the viewer should be interested and care. You will draw them into your project through a compelling narrative.

    Things to think about:
    • Use the information in your Outline. Do not simply put all of the answers together -- you must weave it together into a clear story.
    • The what is a clear statement of the thesis or problem+solution. Your project description for your transcript (#1 above) can be adapted for this purpose.
    • The why explains how your project changes the world. It is the reason your project exists – what social issue is it engaging, who is your project helping, how does the project change the world, and what important social, intellectual, or technical questions does it raise? The scope of the why can vary widely.
    • The how briefly explains what technical prowess, innovative methods, or cool materials you used in your solution.
    • The who explains who will use your design, why they will use it, and in what context.
    • Think of the reader - it is good to imagine that a college admissions officer AND a potential employer in the field of your design should both be able to understand and be excited by the project based on your writing.

Write in the Third person in an explanatory fashion. Resist using I, WE, OUR, or YOU and focus on describing the work.

Here is an example from Penelope the Pain-O-Monster:

Pediatricians and other doctors find it challenging to collect accurate self reported information from children about their level of pain due to lack of communication skills, fear, anxiety, and discomfort. Traditional 1-10 pain scales do not fully address these issues, often leading to uncomfortable children and inaccurate symptom information. Penelope the Pain-O-Monster is a cute plush toy that uses integrated pressure sensors to allow children to express their source and level of pain through play.

A previous project, The EmoOwl, helped children with autism to express themselves by translating motion into color. Penelope the Pain-O-Monster grew out of the desire to expand children’s health menagerie with a different stuffed animal, one that makes the pain charts patients use to express their pain more interactive and easier for a child to use. Because research has shown that playing with stuffed animals can take children’s mind off pain, an additional “Fun” mode was added to distract from pain and anxiety. The handcrafted stuffed animal uses force sensors in different body parts that light up from blue to red depending on how hard they are pushed to show the child’s pain level. The hope is that, as one of many future healthcare friends, Penelope can help sick children feel safer while providing more useful information to care providers.

Ella's photo

Ignacio Heusser

Process

William Drubner and Hudson Roddy

Process (Wearable Meditation)

Abby Park
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Often times, stressed caused by everyday bustle can be overwhelming and sometimes inescapable. My project serves as a wearable meditation device that offers stress relief for those around the wearer. Initially, I was going to create a device that could isolate the wearer in busy crowds in order to allow them a breif respite from all the surrounding activity. I was inspired by feather collars that are often seen on runways, but I could not figure out the mechanics of how the device would raise and lower in my first prototype. The first prototype would serve the same purpose as jewelry for the wearer, but it would not benefit anyone else, except for maybe a momentary distraction. I did not complete any other complete prototypes until my final version, so I mainly worker on the mechanics and design. First, I recreated the shapes from the deep-breathing gif using popsicle sticks and screws. Using this model, I considered all my options to create the blooming motion that I found so appealing about the gif. The first option I considered was shape-memory alloy. However, after attempting to 'program' the alloy, I realized that it could not hold the more defined angles that my design required. My next option was servos. I didn't want to use 30 servos (the number of joints in my design), so I tried to figure out a way to unfold the shapes using only one servo per shape. This prooved to be very difficult and time consuming, so I moved on to my third and final option: gears. Since I wanted my device to unfold in the same manner as the gif, I wanted the triangle to come up first and the heptagon to come up last, but I only wanted to use one motor. Using gear ratios, I was able to manipulate the motor's motion to bring up the triangle first but still have it reach its peak at the same time as the heptagon in the back. Once I designed and lasercut the gears, I encountered the challenge of having them turn without getting caught or disconnecting. So I 3D printed the smaller gears as one piece and separated the larger gears with acrylic pieces to reduce friction. Since the extensions would only be rotating from the bottom corners, I designed the extensions in Rhino to be more attractive since they would be the more passive aspect of the device.

Process

Benny Klaiman
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Sometimes objects fall down, and we either can't or don't want to pick them up. Regardless of the case, the Trunk is here to help. This is not your ordinary household grabber, either; the Trunk has a unique piece of bendable wood that curves around objects you want to pick up at your command, as opposed to the standard claw mechanism. It can move in two directions, to open and close.

My original idea was to design something to the standard claw mechanism so that it could be opened and closed at the push of a switch, but after the idea's conception I was encouraged to go further and redesign the claw part entirely. To start brainstorming, I looked how various animals carried objects, specifically insects.

It was later that I then decided to look at elephants for their trunks (natural progression, I know) once I realized just how truly unique they were; instead of simply picking something up with little appendages, elephants use their trunks to curl around objects before bringing them to their mouth. It was here that I decided on my final general idea, and where I eventually decided on the name for the final product to be "the Trunk" (as well as the affectionate working title, Project Elefante).

Once all that was set in stone, I decided to go ahead and make the first iteration. For this design, I had a piece of cardboard in the shape of a long trapezoid split into 17 segments. Instead of slanted edges, they were set up like stairs (each segment was slightly longer than the last.

Brief

Max Ingersoll and Nina Cragg

 

 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.

ON DISPLAY

Rosa Weinberg and 3 OthersFlora Doremus
Ilan Barnoon
Mathew Paul

ON DISPLAY

Rosa Weinberg and 3 OthersNina Cragg
Nya Rudek
Teresa Lourie

Breaking Bread

Andrew Todd Marcus

Presentation

Maddie Mullin and 2 OthersIzzy Gordon
Ryan McClennen

A device that lets two people support the body weight of someone who is disabled and unable to support themself, allowing him or her to dance freely and return to a sport they love.

Our project is a device made to help a women named Marina, who suffered a traumatic brain injury that resulted in a partial loss of motion on the left side of her body and the inability to dance. Dance brings a story to life, animates a feeling, and spreads cultural awareness, but most importantly it's an expression of creativity and self. Dance brings beauty to the world and everyone in it. The device we developed will allow Marina to return to the art of dance, an activity that she loves, with her siblings who will be there to support her physically and emotionally. Our project addresses the post injury issues of exercise and physical interaction. By helping her to dance, Marina will be able to spend time with her siblings doing something they all love. In order to make this device we used PVC pipe for the two poles that makeup the frame and between them is a metal "Lazy Susan" with a harness in the middle. This allows Marina to spin around without needing to worry about holding onto something or falling. The pieces that attach the "Lazy Susan" to the pipes were 3D printed as were the pieces that stop the "Lazy Susan" from sliding to far up and down the poles. Additionally, caps on the ends of the poles which hold strapping that attaches to the support harnesses is also 3D printed.