MCC Reflection

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1. What are five characteristics of our beneficiary?

  • Young people with big dreams
  • Talented at riding bikes
  • Lacking exposure to the affluent international society.
  • Oppressed/discriminated against, both in terms of gender (female) and race (black).
  • Lacking financial support.

2. What is the EI we should design for?

  1. Lack of engagement in humanitarian causes
  2. Regional poverty
  3. Lack of sustainable income for NGOs

3. What is the problem we are trying to take action on?

  1. MCC has insufficient monthly donors
  2. Lack of global awareness of the MCC
  3. There is a reluctance for people to be monthly donors

4. What does success look like?

  • 500 monthly donors
  • More opportunities for the athletes to race and travel.
  • Females and males treated equally
  • Higher community and worldwide recognition
  • Increased media exposure
  • Increased access to education and experiences
  • Cover fundamental amenities and equipment costs

 

Book response

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Title: The Big Four

Author: Agatha Christie

Page #: finished

Response to what you have read so far:

  • Since this is only one book out of the whole Poirot serie, I wonder how has the character Poirot changed through out time?
  • the character, Hasting, is a friend of Poirot and also the narrator of the book. I wonder did the author add this character just so that we could read from his perspective or does he actually influence the writing?

The Big Four (novel) - Wikipedia

Title: to kill a mocking bird

Author: Harper Lee

Page #: finished

Response to what you have read so far:

  • what does the mocking bird represent
    • in the story Atticus told jean “it’s a sin to kill a mocking bird”, so why is the title to kill a mocking bird
  • what could the town Maycomb represent
  • the theme of the story is related with race
  • how does the death of Tom connect to the theme/ history?
  • theme: social inequality, loss of innocence

shelter design reflection

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In CASE, we were given a design challenge to make a shelter out of paper with only the tools given in the procedure and the instruction of creating a shelter. I decided to come up with a certain goal or problem to solve first—which is to design a shelter for protection from rain. I found an origami of tent which I found on the internet and was inspired to make a similar roof. The shape of the roof was designed to prevent the accumulation of rain. Unsatisfied of the first version of the prototype, I made several more attempts, each including more precise measurements and better quality.

After we were done with making our prototypes, we were given a design rubric which includes a checklist of the design standards. Looking through the design rubric, I found that my design process lacked some of the important element. To revise my design, I will include and improve on my current design process. The design process includes several different stages: Define& inquire, develop & plan, create & improve, and reflect, impact and share. I will mainly focus on reflect, impact and share, which includes the standards of documenting the design process and explain the strength and weaknesses of the process, in my revision. Here are what I found to be the most important steps:

  1. I will need to connect to the problems (enduring issue) I am trying to solve and generate ideas to solve the problems
  2. I will need to identify clear issues (compelling question) in which I am planning to solve
  3. I will need to develop a detailed plan that I could refer to in the process of designing the shelter
  4. I will need explain the strengths and weaknesses of my design

mini Leather Backpack

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In Design, we were challenged to make a product out of a A4-sized leather and use it to solve our real life problem. A thing that concerned me for a long time is my backpack which lacks decoration. In response to the problem, I decided to make a mini backpack. This project includes large amount of sowing, and, since of limited amount of leather, I could not re-cut pieces. My biggest struggle is making the size of each piece precise and sow the pieces together correctly. As I have not done much sowing before, one of my take aways is learning how to sow. My skill had improved over the corse of making, yet there are still many changes I wish to have make in the beginning. first, I would have made the strips on the back of the backpack differently. second, I would attach the back piece to the zipper differently (like what I did for the front piece).

solving daily problems in design

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In design we were challenged to solve a daily problem that we face every day using a A4 sized leather. In my case, when I come to school every day with my backpack, I find other students’ backpack to be decorated by cute keychain whereas mine is bland and boring. In the next couple of classes, I will be making a keychain as a decoration for my backpack. 

Smell Detector Prototype

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This prototype is a design project I made, and it is meant to detect smell. The second picture shows the front of the prototype and as you could see, I made it into the shape of a spiral shell. On the back of the prototype, as the third picture shows, includes element of a smell detector, such as a screen, buttons, and a place where the batteries goes. so, when you press the detect button, the smell will go through the tip of the shell and the result will appear on the screen.

Story of a Bloodbath

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He was a noble. He was a cunning businessmen from the second estate, but not anymore. He had trusted his wit, but non of his wit could save him this time.

Death, blood, and crisis happened along the French revolution. The French revolution had been one of the most controversial revolutions in history as many things changed but so were many left the same. The most important consequence of the revolution is the death of many innocent citizens; this is not only because they are innocent but also because it left an awful impression, of  the revolutionaries, among the rest of the Europe, which led to French fighting the coalition in 1793. The French Revolution started because people of the third estate weren’t treated equally, yet the quality of the lives of citizens, even after the revolution, was not improved, and, in fact, got even worser. Absolute monarch was put to an end, but, by the end of the revolution, Napoleon came to power and crowned himself the emperor. However, simply looking at the short term effects is bias— there are many positive outcomes too. The old regime abolished, giving people more opportunity to flow through the hierarchy. The power of church was undermined, giving people the ability to think logically. Most importantly, a constitution was written, and this puts a limit to the emperor’s power. To sum all up, the value of the French Revolution should be determined by the effects it had on France by a longer time span; therefore, the French Revolution is successful.

Light Box

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In product design, we were challenged to make a light box of a landscape or place that’s memorable to us. I chose to make my light box London themed—I included the London eye, Big Ben, and Tower Bridge.

after I had decided my theme, I used the adobe illustrator to make the layers of my light box(as you could see, the light box is made of layers overlapping each other). this seems very simple—drag and drop the icon downloaded online into my own file—but actually I had to adjust the size and change some of the details so that the laser cutter was able to cut it out properly. when painting the layers, I used the skill of masking, for the moon in the background, to avoid painting into areas that’s already covered with another color. putting in the LED was a lot harder than I had expected, and if I could do it again, I will stack more LED in between the background and the city layer so it looks brighter than it is now.

I think I made the layers of my light box successfully, but I could have done a better job in choosing the color for my layers. my biggest obstacle was trying to put the LEDs in place (as you could see in my final product, the light seems a bit dim).

a story about the guillotine—the French Revolution in Plain English

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made by Judy&Lily

From the France Revolution I learned a lot about both this particular revolution and revolutions in general. Revolutions often begin when people gets treated unequally; for instance, the old regime system, adapted by France before the revolution, separated people into 3 estate, and the third estate(as I will mention in the video) was burdened by tax. There are many causes to revolutions, but most often it’s related with nobles exploiting pleasant. A revolution is followed by a reform in government and, consequently, the death of many innocent. Though the result of revolutions seems good, many citizens suffered through famine, war, and fear; during the Terror, an estimated 17,000 people died. Revolutions end with the change of social structure and thinking of people, giving the people more rights and undermine the influenced of church; this is particularly important since people’s thinking were no longer limited by religious thinking and science could prosper.