For the previous class we spent a good amount of time knowing about the project itself and moved right along discussed as a group about how we should develop our ‘machine’. Like every other project, the beginnings are often the most challenging part. For this project( focusing on this class), there are three main objectives that we want the achieve:

1. The map

2.The goal of the machine

3. Method of reaching the goal

After watching the video, “this too shall pass” from Ok Go, we got a better understanding of what are we supposed to do. But at the same time- we don’t. What does a machine suppose to do? What is considered good for a machine? How should we make it? Is there any special requirements for it? These questions popped up instantly after we knew we have to make one our own. Of course, I was really excited when I heard that we are going to create a machine. Afterall I am a boy and I get excited when I get to make things. haha. (My female groupmates were upset after knowing they will have to make a machine.)

Rube Goldberg machines!!! unnecessarily awesome!

 

The first step of making it is to create a map- personally I would say it is a blueprint for the machine that we are trying to make. But here is the funny part. We don’t even know what does our machine do and how is it going to look like. So the process solely depended on the research we did on chinatown. So we referred back to our photos collected from our field trip. Anne suggested that our map can be in any format- it could be a timeline, a hierarchy or even a tour guide map. Choices are good but where there are too much of them you will have trouble picking the best option. So we ended up spending a lot of time deciding what we want to do with our map. During the brainstorm we noticed our group is kind of different from the other ones- for the field trip we agreed to focus on Canal street, which is the main street of the chinatown. Through this way we can gather more closely related information and use our different perspectives to discover one street. So speaking of this, Bhavyaa suddenly came up with an idea. She suggested that we can use the board game Picnic as our source of inspiration. Since this matches our direction- a time based tour route, we were very glad to use it.

Instead of Paris, we did chinatown in ny. What a contrast.

Based on the images we collected, we decided to put down the shops we saw during our field trip. It took a while for us to figure out the sequence of them- but because of this step we understood Canal street better. In a long way this might help us in building the machine since the machine is all about the street. So our minds can get ready with the making of our final product. This triggered me to think before having a great design, we should know our object/ client first. A huge misconception about design is to hold tight to a “master plan” throughout the process and try to adjust every details to compensate with the plan/design. So to get rid of this problem, Anne gave us the spaghetti challenge.

As a person who loves challenges I was all pumped up when I heard this challenge- I was thinking why would Anne give us such simple tasks (which is very not her style!). But after we got into the 18 minute challenge I then realize it is not easy. At all. Our group fell into the typical working style as the video showed us:

spend three minutes planning

spend ten minutes executing

spend three minutes realizing the plan did not work

spend the last two minutes panicking

spend a lot time mourning how the heck we failed

Of course we did not foresee our failure. Otherwise we wouldn’t take our challenge like that. However, this revealed something extremely interesting about our working style. Since we were young, we were trained to solve problems. But one thing about problem solving, we were never encouraged to try out things as we move along- since accuracy is what people most want. But the reason why this challenge is now world- known is because of it promotes the importance of prototyping and how failures can teach people when they are trying to accomplish their goals.

 

Moving right along, we were then asked to start thinking of our machine’s goal. Wow. A machine’s goal? Again we were so confused. Still I wasn’t able to get rid of my tendency immediately after learning my lesson from the challenge- I tried to sketch out the rough design of the machine before we came up any goals for the machine. Soon enough I realized that is not going to work and we started discussing on the goal we want the machine to achieve. For sure it can get very hard as we are making a Rube Goldberg machine for a neighbourhood that represents different senses other than vision!  So after some brainstorming, we came to the conclusion: to break a fortune cookie.

So the project will continue as we agreed that we will start gathering parts of the machine in this week. For myself I collected three pieces of unwanted materials on the streets (a.k.a garbage). Looking forward to know what did my groupmates prepared for tomorrow’s class.