• Describe your project.
For this Drama unit we were asked to choose one of the seven options for the “Drama Adventure Project”. After watching Mrs. Northcott’s introduction video and looking at the samples from other students, I found option 2 the most compelling to me. Option 2 is to make a 2-3min vlog of the day of a student in Beijing during Covid. I kept track of our progress on the project planner by setting goals for each lesson and providing corresponding pieces of evidence (mine are screenshots of my work) of what we have completed.

• What was your process in creating this project?
I first completed a project planner to plan out my time so that I know the steps I need to take to make the Vlog and how I am going to spend each lesson on them. So, the process of making this vlog is first, brainstorming the scenes I want to film; second, start filming the short video clips I need (waking up, online classes, going outside, doing homework, covid testing, other interesting parts of my life…); third, editing the videos (trimming the clips & putting them together, adding BGM & transitions+effects, adding narration+captions); and lastly, posting the vlog on Blogs. I followed these steps based on the project planner every lessons.

• What did you learn from this process?
learned how to create a project independently and effectively organize my time to complete the works I need to finish each lesson, by using a project planner. I also learned the steps of making a Vlog during the process of this project (I have never tried to make a vlog before this).

• What can you still improve in the final product?
I believe I can still improve on the editing part of my vlog. I could search up online to learn how to make a vlog more interesting through editing (creating the transitions between each scene, adjusting of the time length of each video clip, or even just learning how to choose a BGM that fits the mood).

• What are your proud about?
I am proud of myself for choosing this option (making a vlog) instead of learning a dance, which is something that I’m more familiar with. As I have mentioned already, I have never made a vlog before this project. It is my first time trying it out and I feel it turned out better than what I expected (I imagined that it would be quite hard to do the filming and editing), because process of making it could be considered as an enjoyable experience. I also proud about the fact that I worked on & planned out this project independently.

This one is the best of the three trials. It feels soft and is more moisturizing than the first two lip balm. The color of the lip balm and the container also matches. I think I will just use this recipe.

2 g shea butter
1.95 g grape-seed oil
1 g beeswax
0.05 g of essential oils

The second trial turned out much better than the first one. It’s more moisturizing and feels softer. I’m also glad that there’s no hole in the middle of the lip balm (I was more careful when I was pouring the liquid into the container).

#2:

1.9 g shea butter
1.9 g grape-seed oil
1.15 g beeswax
0.05 g of essential oils

#3:

2 g shea butter
1.95 g grape-seed oil
1 g beeswax
0.05 g of essential oils

In this unit of product design, we were asked to design a bluetooth speaker box with a certain design aesthetics. I used the organic aesthetics because I was inspired by an image of a beehive on google.

Struggle & challenge:

I struggled with making the kerf bent box because it was difficult to create one with the right bend radius so that the bent panel won’t break. To get this final product, I did multiple trials with both cardboard and wood. It kept on breaking because the width of the cut line was too small.

A new skill:

Over the course of this project, I gained the skill of using affinity designer. I learned how to create shapes and assemble the shapes together to make a more complex pattern in Affinity Designer.

An aspect I’m proud of:

I’m proud of the holes I made for the buttons because it turned out that my measurements were perfect, therefore the sizes were also just right. It only shows the buttons and leaves no extra space that will show the inside of the box.

Organic Bluetooth Speaker pdf copy

Client brainstorm paper pdf

Design sketches pdf

prototype photo pdf

Prototype Photo pdf

For our first Product design unit, we were asked to come up with design that will help reduce and prevent the happening of food waste. We were divided into pairs and small groups of three. I first chose two problems my “client” of this project—Mika—reported to have with her favorite types of food/drink that would possibly lead to the occurrence food waste: fizzy drink no longer fizzy & cold, and rice being too sticky or too hard. After further discussion and seeing my design sketches for each problem, my client chose the first one—the design for soda problem—to be made a prototype for.

Something I learned about myself during this project is that having have been through practices and having the experiences I got from last year’s design class, design skills such as brainstorming a design idea and drawing sketches (showing the different perspectives & including labels) for modeling have become things I am now comfortable with; in other words, they are gradually becoming my areas of strength. I was able to quickly notice this change because during the planning stage of this project, I was able to come up with various ideas with using both mind map and listing in a shorter time range. When searching for inspirations on the internet, I as well knew clearly what I should be looking for and how to “apply” those ideas into my design—with a similar, but new usage as their original function.

Overall, I think my prototype is a success because as you can probably see from the above pictures, my initial design sketch and the final prototype I created are mostly similar in their overall outer appearance; despite there are some changes I’ve made about the details of the original design sketch, such as the where the switch and control panel are placed. Additionally, the final prototype came out being very alike to my initial idea and all the different parts I decided to put onto this design “made sense”—looks reasonable.

Biggest obstacle: However, my biggest obstacle was also in the making part of the final prototype. As I was making the prototype, I realized it wasn’t as easy as my prediction to make out the shapes of the different parts of my design with a completely different material—foam–I designed them to be—mostly steel. Fortunately, I was still able to make out the basic shape of my design by attaching cardboard to it, to give it a stronger support for standing—as you can see in the photo above.

One piece of advice for a future student doing this project: My advice would be, before actually starting the “making” process of this project, brainstorm your idea fully and plan out what you are going to do thoroughly. These two procedures may include coming up with various ideas as alternatives for the one you favors; planning out your time efficiently to ensure that you have enough time to finish what you want to build; and making sure the final idea you choose is one that is “feasible”—possible to make a prototype for in the given time range. I learned this from my own experience in this project, and also from others’. I favored another idea—that isn’t the one I chose—at first, but due to time constrain I didn’t choose that one; at the end, it was proven to be the right decision.