Thesis reflection – March 18 2018

This past week has been a great challenge in learning and adapting for my project. Halfway through preparation for my critique (organizing the slides, collecting documentation, last minute research/readings), I decided that I had not really even skimmed the surface of my intentions for the project. It felt like a huge, booming failure– even considering how much progress I made in my MVP! Of course this moment of clarity came at 3am on a Sunday night, so it was too late to go back to the drawing board. I went into the critique week already knowing that I had tons more work ahead of myself if I was planning on sticking to my initial thesis goal.

The presentation itself:

I made my concept, context, and intended contribution very clear. This I made sure of. Moving onto my current iteration, I was much more uneasy – as I was certain that the state of the project was no where near touching the end goal. I also ran out of time while presenting, which was frustrating because I was also timing myself – and thought I had another minute to wrap up. It definitely left things abruptly. I should’ve spoke up and requested that extra minute I thought I had. For the following presentations, for whatever reason it definitely felt as though they were able to indulge in more time.

The critique I received:

Truly appreciated the critics taking the time to understand my project. As the first to present, it takes some time to understand the specific context and issues I am addressing. With that being said, it was quite frustrating to hear that one of the critics “completely missed” the point of my thesis, and had several questions regarding issues I already took the time to address. I was told to be more repetitive and always go back to the main thesis idea. As it made up the majority of my critique, I couldn’t help but be disappointed. I would much rather focus on the CONTENTS of my presentation rather than my (not ideal) rushed presentation skills.

The only feedback I received on the contents was that I was still not getting to the root of my concept with my current product – I’m still hiding too many aspects of the convolution matrix process that were integral to understanding it. I appreciated this comment a lot, but wish I received additional guidance on how I might address this. I definitely needed help with this part of my project all along, and still moving forward.

Production Calendar:

 

My much more detailed calendar can be found here.
In brief: the main features I am adding are: 1) Story mode, 2) zooming functionality and 3) hooking up a small photo printer in the exhibition space.