For our independent project, Jasmin and I went back to a prior studio.That previous studio had created clothing based on planets from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a book by Douglas Adams.

    The group that inspired our work chose a very rich planet, so rich it is basically a workshop for creating other planets through white holes on its surface. A white hole is the opposite of a black hole: instead of sucking things in, it  pushes out, making planets.

   We decided to use the idea of a white hole to create our dress. We looked at many precedents of different space-inspired dresses to get our ideas. It was difficult to decide on one design to portray such an abstract concept. After much thought, we came to the conclusion that somehow we wanted to show the white hole itself making the dress, with the dress representing a planet. 

    Our first iteration was a dress made out of black felt. On one side, it had half-circle shapes of descending size, made out of hot glue and wire. The bottom of the dress was the largest piece, while, up by the arm, the pieces were very small. On the other side, we had wire and felt half-circles of the same size. Unfortunately, this design was really unflattering and also we felt that the design detracted from its essential statement.

    In our next iteration, we kept the descending size side of the dress, while taking away the other side, and just pinned it together. This made the dress more sleek, dramatic, and attractive, and also emphasized the descending half-circles on the left side. In this iteration, we made the dress strapless because we thought it would look more stylish that way. To keep it from falling down,  we added a gold, folded, over-the-shoulder sash. It is supposed to be coming out of the white hole and symbolize the creation of planets.

    For our final iteration, we moved to white felt material since we are representing a white hole. The beauty of the white is it emphasizes the shadows. In this version, we did cut-outs in the side of the dress and also on part of all the half-circles. These cut-outs are supposed to symbolize pieces of the planet that the white hole is creating.These pieces come together in a one shoulder strap. This strap not only works well with our white hole idea, but also is functional, as there is now no fear of the dress falling off. When we created this dress, it was too difficult to sew our idea under the time constraints. Instead we compressed the half-circles slightly; therefore, they pointed out of the dress but also wrapped around the back. We really liked this step since, not only does it make the dress more aesthetically pleasing in the back, but also it continues the symbolism of the white hole creating a planet, which is the dress itself.

    Our project was to create a dress inspired by a white hole. The final product represents a white hole in many ways. To be symbolic, it is made out of white felt. Then we added many cut-outs of random shapes. These shapes are supposed to symbolize pieces of the planet that the white hole creates. Using that idea, we made a one shoulder sash out of similar shapes to show the white hole pushing out and creating a planet. This sash is functional but also voluminous and looks as if it is from outer space. The side of our dress has ovular wire and felt shapes that are supposed to be a white hole, and the dress is what the white hole has created (a planet). These ovals continue behind the dress to make the entire dress interesting to view, but also extend the white hole implications. Overall, our dress turned out well. Through many iterations, we were able to make a sculptural dress that represented the white hole from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

In our final model of the spring loaded pull down mechanism that provides a private and comforting space when sitting on the couch, we modeled it 1/5 the size of the actual couch. This final model is twice the size of all our other iterations.

Our biggest challenge was calculating the math of two restrictions: 1) The length of the mechanical arm in order for the top drawer to clear the bottom. 2) The distance between the hole cut on the top and the hole cut on the bottom when the two drawers are sitting next to each other. To solve for these restrictions, we made diagrams and designed triangles within them using the Pythagorean theorem to solve for the missing side. The distance between both holes has to be 69mm and the length of the mechanical arm has to be 79.75mm in order for the top drawer to clear the edge of the bottom one when being pulled down.

Our design prompt was could we improve the folding chair that had been built in the previous Montessori furniture studio.

We were tasked to redesign our folding chair from the previous Montessori furniture studio. Our group began by brainstorming how to improve upon the previous folding chair. We were aspiring to allow the our next chair to be more space efficient, versatile, and dynamic. The apparent change that needed to be made from our previous chair was allow it to fully fold and become a flat surface. We planned 

We spent a lot of time brainstorming how we could improve the folding chair and make it more space efficient than the one that was previously built. We came up with the idea of building a chair that folds into a box that can be easily carried around and stacked on one another. Originally we also decided that we were going to build a separate folding table to accompany the chair but we ended up deciding to combine the two together to make a chable. Our final solution was a chable that folds up and fits in a box.

Our first iteration was a separate folding chable and chair. Our idea was that they would be easily portable and one could bring them with them on trips like camping and going to the beach. The table would have legs that swung down from the main body of the table and the table would fold into quarters to make it small and easy to transport. The chair consisted of three pieces that would come out of the box which would act as the back leg. The three pieces were the back rest which would just come straight out of the box. The seat and front legs which would be attached to one another by a hinge. One problem with this was the table was not really any different from various existing folding tables. Also we were having trouble putting the chair together since we hadn't designed any locking methods and tracks for it. We decided that we should combine the two ideas into one making a chable

Our second iteration combined the easily portable chair and table into one design. We designed it so that the chair would still come out of the box and it was still very similar to our previous design for the chair. The big change was the table portion of our design. As previously stated it was combined into the box. The legs were cut into the bottom part of the box and swung down from the box. The legs by them self were too short so we had a piece in each of the legs that slid down to extend the legs and make them longer. The problem with this design is it didn't look very good or work so well. The legs weren't stable and the leg extenders didn't work, they would just bend and the table would fall over. We decided that for our next iteration the table legs will be inside the box as well and it would use the same pieces to be a table and a chair.

Our third and final iteration was the best of the three and the only one that actually worked well. for the design we took what we previously had and continued working on it. We designed it so that in the sides there were little cuts that could be used to lock the seat in place and prevent in from bending. For the back rest we cut holes into the seat that would hold the back rest. Additionally we had decided that we were going to use the seat as the table so we designed another piece that would fit over the seat and act as both the seat and the table top. Our final iteration worked pretty well and looked cool as well. 

Our final product is a chable that folds in on itself and fits into a box for easy space efficient storage. It can act as both a chair and a table by just manipulating the pieces in it. It is made by cutting pieces of wood using the laser cutter and putting them together. Very little construction is needed besides gluing the box together and adding hinges to the legs and a wire to act as a locking device for the 

The main idea is to create a collapseble, space efficiant and affordable foldable chair that easily transforms into a table or desk. Our design prompt was redesign our privous folding chair from the first studio of the term. One problem that we faced was that almost every classroom and office is the lack of space, with our design we were able to reduce the space need in order to have the most choices for a combansion of chairs and tables. 

In this project, I sought to tackle the largely publicized issue of oversexualization of women in media, along with the slightly less publicized issue of ageism in the media. To combine these two issues, I addressed the question "Why can't elderly women be attractive?". I answered this question by Photoshopping a series of images of advertisements featuring oversexualized women to make the women seem very elderly. I used advertisements from different cultures (American and Japanese) found in different parts of Central Square. Here is the series of five Photoshopped advertisements, followed by the original five advertisements.

We started brainstorming in order to see what we wanted to base our cinemagraphs off of.  We were thinking of different ideas such as Humans of Beaver or Humans of Cambridge.  We decided to do two ideas reflections and a continuation of Humans of Cambridge.  Reflections came to us base off of the firefighter and firetruck reflection we did earlier in the year.  We went searching for different reflections.  We used car mirrors, rims, windows, and puddles.  For Humans of Cambridge we went to the MIT campus and took videos of the tours and the students.  We also walked down to Kendall and Harvard Square to incorparate more scenery.  In cinemagraphs you need a repeated fluid motion.  One motion that will not look choppy if it replays over and over again. 

I started this project by sketching out ideas and conceptualizing how I wanted the device to work.  I knew that I wanted to completley deviate from the idea of a zero-gravity rowing machine and focus more on making the device much more practical in terms of usability and aphordability.  After lots of sketching and brainstorming I knew that I wanted to create an ergometer that would attach to the wall and the device could be folded down from there, and be used using elastics for resistance.  The building process was very long primarily due to the fact that it was difficult to design pieces that fit perfectly with eachother.  I did not have multiple iterations fo the whole device all together, but I had many different iterations for each of the individual pieces.

Seat Iterations:

I had three different iterations for the seat.  The first seat was the same size as the origanl with two triangular pieces on the bottom where the two armature pieces would fit in between.  The next iteration for the seat had a handle that extended down from the seat so the user could grab the handle and lift the seat up and out.  However the handle was far too thin and bended whenever pulled as if it was going to break.  In addition I ran into a challenge when gluing the triangular pieces into the right places.  I than put slots into the seat where the triangles can fit in.  

Armature Iterations:

There are three parts to the armature.  The first is the piece that attaches to the wall.  Initially I had just one piece that would attach to the wall.  I than realized that if I was going to use a hinge, I would need about three of those pieces glued to eachother in order to make the hinge more stirdy.  In addition, this pice includes a groove where a pin fits that doesnt allow the armature to rotate past 90 degrees which is full extension. In addition it has another slot that fits between the other two armature pieces and fits a nylon spacer, thus allowing the device to fold flat into the box.  Each iteration of these pieces was simply trying to get it to fit the device and allow it to fold flat into the box.  The other armature pieces are the ones that attach to the seat.  these are simply to pieces of wood that are screwed to the joint between them and the piece attached to wall and to seat.  

The Box:

The body of the box only took one iteration on box maker.  However, the details of the face of the box had to be altered on Rhino three times.  The first two times the face of the box was cut, the device could not fit through the slot that I had designed to be cut out due to the fact that the bolts and the rubber bands glued on the side of the armature where wider than the lot.  In addition the top of the hole for the box was not high enough because the box was hitting the edge on the way out of the box.  In order to combat these issues I redesigned the face of the box twice more altering the width of the slot for the armature and the size of the hole for the seat.  This took me two prints to get the device to fit the box without hitting the edges of the face.  

The main manufacturer of rowing machines (ergometers) is a company called Concept 2.  The cheapest ergometer one can purchase from them new is $900, these are expensive machines.  This is primarily because of the technology that they use.  These machines apply resistance through a fly wheel that is attached to a fan thus proudcing air pressure.  All of this is shown on a monitor.  Therefore, the price of an erg would be more than halfed if one were to apply the resistance through a different mean.  I decided to just that and apply resistance through elastics.  This way, one would get the same resistance when pulling as they would with a normal erg.  However, there would actually be more of work out the elastics could there would be  more resistance on the way back to the front end of the stroke due to the tension on the elastics.  In addition, Concept 2 ergs take up a lot of space, this collapses into a box that would mount on the wall, and when wants to work out they would unfold the erg out from the wall.  In addition, the only way to know you are rowing with poor technique on a normal rowing machine is if a coach tells you.  This device would be used off of the ground and the user would be kept up by the elastics on the handle, however, the user would still end up hit the ground if they were using poor technique.  Therefore, in order to not hit the ground one has to maintain good technique thus making the device self correcting so anyone can use it.  Therefore this device is deviating from the focus of simulating rowing on the way and putting more of a focus on getting a good workout.