Final presentation

Cole Krivak and Nate Besthoff

Handshake Bot

Nate Final Brief:

The Remote Hand helps businesses and people form new partnerships during COVID-19. It always you to have contactless handshakes and interactions socially distanced or over video calls. Many people are having meetings over zoom now but closing a deal over the internet lacks the trust and authenticity of a handshake deal. The Remote hand is supposed to help bring that custom into the age of social distancing.



Final Presentation

Silvia Askanase and 2 OthersOri Scharf
Luke Gunter

Silvia's Brief:

Virtual Touch was inspired by the social distance required to keep the pandemic at bay. During the pandemic, it is difficult to give someone a hug so the project was made as a possible solution. The project is an armband where you can send a “squeeze” from one person to the other over a long distance. The project works when one person presses the button, the other armband then activates and contracts, applying a “squeeze”. The armband consists of a Mckibben Muscle, some bristol, a pump, a button, and two Arduinos to power it. The Mckibben Muscle was woven through the bristol and then attached to the pump. The bristol and Mckibben Muscle were then shaped to form an armband. 

Luke's Brief:

Physical touch is vital for mental, emotional, and physical health. It makes you happier, relieves stress, and helps with human development. During this pandemic, however, people are experiencing a lack of physical intimacy due to social distancing. Hoping to remedy this, Virtual Touch is a remote armband that connects two people at any distance.  

This project started by questioning what physical intimacy actually means to the human body.  From this, it was decided it would be made up of two components, the sending of touch and the receiving of touch. To communicate the concepts through the robot it needed three parts, the ability to read touch, the ability to send information to another wearable, and that wearable having the ability to translate this touch the original robot received. This concept could be put anywhere on the body but it ended up as a wearable for the upper arm. 



THE PRESENTATION POST

This post's privacy is set to Everyone. This post showcases your final design by telling the comprehensive story of how your idea was born, developed, and manifested. The arc of the story should encompass the, How of your project in a compelling narrative. It showcases your design process including your brainstorming, each of your iterations, and your final prototype. It allows the viewer to delve deeply into your process.

  • Every Slide should have a Title and Caption.
    The body of this post is The Brief. You should include a version of the Brief for each collaborator in the project.
  • This post will be used in your review presentation at the end of the session.

You are encouraged to make your narrative as compelling as possible. All of the content below should be included, but if you would like to rearrange the material in order to tell your story differently, work with your coach.


INTRODUCTION PORTION

Your presentation is a narrative, and the introduction sets up the scene for that story. Here you introduce the project, say why it is important, and summarize what you did.

TITLE WITH TAGLINE: This slides shows a crisp, clear final image and the title of your project. with a pithy blurb describing the project. The image, name, and tagline should draw a viewer in. 

Examples:

  • The Fruit - A line following, light tracking robot
  • Segmented Vehicle - A vehicle that conforms to the landscape
  • Cacoon - Wearable sculpture exploring the concept of transformation and death

EVOCATIVE  IMAGE: This is a single image that shows a clear image that evokes the soul of your project. This image helps set up the why in a compelling way, sets the stage for your narrative, and will help frame the entire presentation. The caption of this slide (set with the Edit Captions button when editing your post) should discuss the context of your project. No Text on the slide.

THESIS STATEMENT: This is a TEXT ONLY slide for which briefly describes the Soul and Body of your project. You can use the project description from your Brief or write something new. This statement ties together your narrative.

Examples:

  • The Cocoon:  A wearable sculpture that explores the concept of transformations and death. The Cocoon explores the spiritual journey beyond the human experience; what it means to be human, how wonder effects us, and the concept of what happens after death.
  • Body Accordion: A musical prosthetic that translates the wearer’s body movements into a dynamic multimedia performance. The Body Accordion converts flex sensor input to sound through Arduino, MaxMSP, and Ableton Live. 
  • Seed to Soup Animation: A whimsical animation about the slow food movement. Seed to Soup showcases a holistic method of cooking. From garden, to kitchen, to dinner table.
  • Antlers: A wearable sculpture inspired by antlers found in the deer and antelope family. "Antlers" explores the comparison between armor and attraction. 

PROCESS PORTION

The Process Portion of your presentation tells the story of how you iteratively developed your project. Somewhere in that story you should include conceptual and technical precedents that guided you at each stage as well as brainstorming and process sketches and clear photo booth imagery for 3-4 stages of your process.

This portion is made up of three types of slides repeated 3-4 times. Each iteration in your process should include:

  • PRECEDENTS:  Precedents are any projects that inspired you creatively or gave you technical guidance. These can include conceptual precedents and technical precedents. No Text.
  • SKETCHES/SKETCH CONCEPT DIAGRAMS: These slides show your generative ideas in sketch form. These should clean, clear drawings. A sketch should show a clear idea. Do not simply scan a messy sketchbook page and expect that people will understand. If you do not have a clear concept or working sketches it is fine to make them after the fact. No Text.
  • PROTOTYPE IMAGES:  These are actual images of the prototypes  you documented in your daily posts. These images illustrate your design decisions and how your project changed at each step. No Text.

FINAL PORTION

The Final stage of your presentation is the resolution of your narrative and shows your completed work. The use diagram shows how your project works and the construction diagram shows how it is assembled. Final photos show the project both in action and at rest. The imagery captures your final built design.

USE DIAGRAM: A diagram showing some aspect of the functionality. These can include:

  • How one uses or interacts with the project
  • The overall behavior of the project over time
  • For a complex interactive project, this can be a clear diagram of the software behavior

MECHANICAL DIAGRAM:  A diagram offering insight on how the project is put together and functions technically.

  • Ideally, this will be an exploded axonometric
  • At minimum this can be a labeled disassembled photo  

ELECTRONICS or OTHER DIAGRAM: Additional diagrams showing some important aspect of your design. 

IMAGERY: The last slides should have an images of the final project. These images should be taken in the photo booth, cropped, and adjusted for contrast, brightness, etc. Images should include:

  • An image of the project in use (taken in the booth or at large). This should include a human interacting with the project.
  • Images of project alone. Include at least one overall image and one detail image.
  • You can also use an image In-Use. 
  • Consider using a GIF to show how the project works. 

 

Confrontation Installation

Lalita Bellach and 4 OthersSiena Jekel
Trevor McDonald
Kody White
Will Fosnot

The Charles Street Meeting House lies on the Black Heritage Trail which is a path through history that represents the movement of freedom for people of color but is overshadowed by the Freedom Trail. In fact, when walking down the path there is little acknowledgment that it is even there. The main difference from the freedom trail is that it talks about the history of black people in Boston's abolitionist movement, led by Fredrick Douglass, Louis Hayden, and John J Smith.

Confrontation Installation is an interactive installation that allows a user to confront certain figures from the past and present and one of the main figures is Fredrick Douglass. The installation itself contains a wall-like canvas covered with expressive paintings highlighting the relationship between black identity and space. The user sits across from these walls and is transported into the painting. When the user sits down, they will face the figures on the painting in front of them, with a mirror on the canvas, which will give them an opportunity to be inside the painting itself. Confrontation Installation is inspired by the artists Tajh Rust, Kudzanai-Violet Hwami and how they manipulate the relationship between black identity and space. The installation will be located in front of the Charles Street Meeting House due to its rich yet unknown history. This can be installed as a new miniature seating area for the cafe Tatte nearby. It can be an interactive way to enjoy your lunch and become aware of the history of Beacon Hill and the Black Heritage Trail. Once the user sits in the installation, they become aware of the overshadowed black heritage trail as well as rich history and powerful art. The project's main goal is to bring awareness to the trail by showing a story on at least one of the sites. Also by emphasizing black history and culture, Confrontation Installation will be displayed for a few hours in front of one of the sites on the trail which is the Charles Street Meeting House.

This project can make a difference in our community by using art to not just bring awareness to the black heritage trail but show the division in cities across the US. It also brings awareness to what we should try to fix in society, and find solutions to the problem. Today and creating an interactive experience that can also inform people of the history and the artists.

The painting expresses the battle between the different races and fighting for equality. When you look at the painting you see Frederick Douglas on the side, and there are storm clouds in the background presenting a dark scene. On the left, there is a group of people representing the many people fighting for the Black Lives Matter movement, with a mirror representing yourself in front of all the silhouettes and Fredrick Douglas. There are also waves going along the bottom of the painting in front of everyone but yourself. The waves are significant because it relates to Peter Faniul and slave trade across the seas. It is also ‘washing away’ the representation that is not clear when it comes to the Black Heritage Trail.

Portfolio

Max Berbeco and 2 OthersMadi Fortune
Elijah Rhyne

Breif

The Bonktapus is a stuffed animal that enables communication over long distances. When the bonktapus is "bonked" or hit it sends a signal to its partner that would then heat up and change color. This is an effective form of communication that doesn't feel disruptive.

Presentation

Mathew Paul and Thomas Galletti

The Grocery Store is a game simulating the struggle that many business owners are facing this pandemic. The player must design a grocery store in a way that is profitable and doesn't cause infections in their store. They must also deal with uncooperative customers who refuse to follow pandemic guidelines.

The Grocery Store is designed to help the general public understand the many challenges that small business owners are facing during the pandemic. It can also be played by small business owners to help them experiment with the new ways that stores must be designed and operated. The game uses the p5.play library to create a browser game with a drag-and-drop interface. The player can design their store using the built in assets and then run a simulation that will end with a breakdown of the profits made, % chance of infection and the areas in the store that are of the biggest risk. During the simulation, there is a chance that customers can come in that aren't following pandemic guidelines, such as not wearing a mask or distancing themselves from the other customers, and the player will be given choices on how to handle these customers.

Portfolio

River Doyle and 2 OthersZach Shea
Jere Nierenberg

The Hugging Hand is a mechanical toy designed to be used by kids in schools to relieve stress. In its first iteration the Hugging Hand was powered using batteries. The Hugging Hand works when a person places pressure on the handheld device by squeezing their fingers; this causes a one-to-one ratio of pressure to be brought down on the back of their hand this function and allows for someone to feel comforted--as if their hand is being held.  The fact that the Hugging Hand was electronically powered was a feature we thought could be improved so we made it our goal to make an improved version of the Hugging Hand that while still having the same function as its predecessor will no longer require batteries.Research shows that holding hands and using a weighted blanket can relieve stress and anxiety and while it would be nice for students to sit in class under a weighted blanket holding hands with their classmate this scenario is in fact unrealistic. 

dispatch final presentation

Declan McEnerney

DISPATCH: Is an interactive audio and text-based game to give insight into the call to action  “defund the police”.The player is put in the role of an emergency services call dispatcher.  


Dispatch is created to combat the misunderstanding of the phrase "defund the police". This misunderstanding causes people to be instantly turned off from the idea, instead of looking into it. Dispatch is aiming to make this information more palatable and in a more interactive format for people who are not willing/able to do this research themselves. The player's task is to send the correct response to each situation they face. Emergency scenarios range from petty theft to psychotic episodes. The game envisions a future where emergency specific response services replace law enforcement. Dispatch is a javascript based game, which will be played in a browser, making the game accessible to a wide audience. 

Chrono Cubes

Rayanne Attar and jiao jiao scott

The project “Chrono Cubes” is designed for people who want to have a more organized life. The device is a physical calendar device where you can build blocks up to plan out your week. After you build the blocks up, the tasks will connect to your calendar. The blocks will light up at a specific time that your tasks are. For example, If you have two Zoom meetings on Monday at 2 and 4 pm, at 2 pm the block would turn a color you chose like purple and at 4 pm it would also light up purple.

This device is perfect for anyone who wants a fun way to keep themselves organized. The design replaces getting notifications on the phone or opening up a physical planner. Instead, the user can build up their day and see what tasks they have based on the colors during the week. There's no distractions in this design, it's just one thing rather than going onto a phone and seeing a lot of random notifications. The Chronos Cubes were invented to be small enough to be on a desk to make sure it's easy to look at in your workspace.



Our project, the Chronos Cubes, is a product designed so be a physical calendar. Instead of forgetting your Zoom meetings and tasks around the house, you are able to see the blocks and lights on your desk. The physicality of the cube design makes it easier to remember what you have on what day by a) not being on your phone so its not as distracting and b) science says if you physically do something, you are more likely to remember to actually do that task and not just let it smack around your head like bats.

Learning about the water crisis in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, this project focused on creating a solution that could be deployed into this type of situation. The SPEW is a low cost, portable emergency water purification system that can be used after a natural disaster or when there are other disruptions or impurities in the water supply.

Interruptions in water supplies are quite common.  A 2017 USA Today study showed that 65 million Americans have been exposed to unsafe drinking water over the past decade. The World Health Organization indicates that 2 billion people globally drink contaminated drinking water. A full month after Hurricane Maria, 25% of Puerto Rico’s 3.4 million people still had unsafe drinking water.

The SPEW Purification System uses traditional filters and reverse osmosis (RO) to make nearly any fresh water safe to drink. The system removes organic and inorganic compounds down to 1/10,000 of a micron. An additional ultraviolet unit or disinfection cartridge can protect against bacteria, cysts, viruses, and other microorganisms.

The SPEW can produce 50-75 gallons of pure, safe drinking water per day, enough for several families.

The SPEW can be powered by solar, battery, or plug-in power. The batteries last a full day and can be recharged by solar. The SPEW can be operated indoors or outdoors.

The SPEW can be connected to a faucet, hose, or spigot to purify municipal or well water. It can also pull surface water from rivers, lakes, or ponds (not saltwater).

The complete SPEW System, including pump, filters, RO unit, solar panel, batteries, and transport cart, can be easily assembled with about $200 worth of readily available parts.