06/12/2017 – 06/16/2017

On Monday, June 12, I looked up templates for glasses on Tinkercad. After settling on a template, I headed downstairs to the 3-D printing and laser-cutting laboratory where I printed a miniature model of the glasses pictured below. I struggled with creating a stable base for the glasses, but I succeeded on the third try by printing the frames first and then the temples.

Anne and I met with Ben at 1:00 p.m. Ben had reviewed our paper on his own time, so the meeting mainly consisted of him walking us through his suggestions for the paper. I spent the rest of the workday preparing and submitting the ShareLaTeX document for peer review. After work, I began watching the first session of the participatory design workshop that Ben conducted in the spring.

On Tuesday, June 13, I headed downstairs to the laboratory sharp at 9:00 a.m. to begin printing another pair of glasses. Good practice dictated that I 3-D print a smaller test version before the life-sized model, so I spent most of the morning configuring and printing the two pairs of glasses. After lunch, I drafted a large portion of the draft for the introduction of our paper. I also began peer-reviewing another team’s paper. After work, I headed to the GRE course, where Dr. Hartwell walked us through the issue task of the essay portion of the GRE.

On Wednesday, June 14, I spent most of the day prototyping. I designed an attachable Lilypad-light sensor module for the glasses that I printed yesterday. Sewing and orienting the electronics on the module was definitely a challenge for me, but I did it!

I completed watching the first participatory video that Ben gave us. The video gave me insight into how older adults conceptualize technology and the ways in which they would incorporate technology into craft and their everyday lives.

On Thursday, June 15, Anne and I met with Katie at 9:00 a.m. in what I have now learned is called the “Fishbowl,” or the conference room with glass windows. We revised the draft of the Introduction but spent most of the meeting brainstorming ideas for the toolkit. Several ideas that were tossed around were making the Lilypad or Flora easier to sew to fabric or connect to harder material. We would do this by using conductive fabric strips  that could be inserted into the holes of the Lilypad/Flora or a snap-on piece that would connect the microcontroller to a piece of plastic or other non-fabric material. After the meeting, I finished peer-reviewing the paper for Week 4 and submitted my feedback. I then completed the plagiarism detection training and took an evaluation to receive a certificate of completion, which I pushed to Github. The last deliverable I checked off my list was the outline of the abstract for our paper. At 6:00 p.m., Dr. Hartwell introduced us to the verbal section of the GRE and we reviewed several practice questions.

On Friday, June 16, I wrote my portion of the slide for the Prohealth meeting. At 10:00 a.m., the students and mentors convened in the conference room to share their progress over the week. Dr. Shih returned from his travels on Thursday, but everyone met him formally at the meeting. The theme of the meeting was time travel, and I chose to travel back in time to the Renaissance period in Tuscany (present-day Italy)!  At around 1:00 p.m., Dr. Siek took us to Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts to buy any extra materials that we needed. We ended up purchasing fabric, buttons, magnetic clasps, puffy paint, and fabric cutters, among other items! Katie dropped us off at the Informatics building and I grabbed some lunch from the IMU. Near the end of the workday, I finalized my blog and continued working on my prototype for the example object.

*** This blog is dedicated to my dad, who supports me no matter what. Happy Father’s Day to the best Papa in the world! I love you! ***

Food of the Week: Pumpkin Pancakes from Uptown!