It is really, really hard to describe how much I LOVE this class.
It all started with my “Plant dairy”. I thought it would be fun to observe the plants every single day and record how they’ve changed. So I had this dairy on goodnotes in the first place. Then I realized it was too much work to open my ipad every single day to document, so I made this “website” with notion :) I didn’t invite my teammates to co-edit because I also want to experiment with my capstone ideas ((so far I want to visualize/ physicalize my research results, who knows what will happen after 2 years!
So … here it is!
I am honestly proud of, and I appreciate every single failure I had. I would never have grown this much without them. Whether it is experimenting with how to print the fabric, how to remodel the fabric, how to print other components, how to connect circuits, how grow seeds, or how to build things, it took me, it took us almost a month and a half to develop this project. Things have been breaking down since Wednesday, May 8th, and it lasted till Friday. Marcela, Korrina and I kept fixing things for hours. Every time it always worked for a little while, then broke completely. I once thought the whole world was against us. But we did it!!! We DID IT!
I really hated the bugs around the plants before. I had the impulse to “kill them by accident” because I can’t consciously kill them. However, after growing the seeds several times, I found it okay to co-habit with them. They are a part of the ecosystem we live in, they have the rights to live here. In fact, it could also be argued that we human beings are invading their habitants :P. Also, without documenting the plants every day, you wouldn’t know how lively they are! Feeling amazed by the power of nature 🌱🌱
I also love the concept that we are interacting with the nature through our project. The idea of growing plants on the dress pushes our concept to one of its climaxes. Dealing with the leaves and roots was fun as well, although if I don’t process them immediately after cutting them down, they will go bad. I wonder how long will the paper I made last.
I didn’t know how to work with motors, electrical components or Arduino before. But I thought, now that I am taking this class, why not use this opportunity to learn something new? (and arduino may be unavoidable if I want to build things in the future) So here it goes, me trying to experiment with the circuits and codes, mostly using tinkercad. ((If it doesn’t work on tinkercad, I probably shouldn’t make things that way in real life.
I am also very happy that each one of us in this team was able to do things we are good at, and learn new stuff in this process. Tania’s embroidery looks really amazing. She learned how to hand embroider using the sewing machine in this process. Korrina already knows a lot of things, but I think she was experimenting with the materials as well. She was the one who first started to grow the chia seeds. She built a really cool container with waterproof material that can keep the seeds moist. After realizing the 3D printing pen didn’t work, she tried to solder the TPU fabrics together. Although I built some of the circuits, but it was always her who connected the circuits when testing the motors on the dress (( because apparently we couldn’t afford the consequences of me burning the whole circuits :D). She also taught us a lot during the process. It was really nice to have them as my partner.
Wire: When taking pictures for documentation, Korrina found out that other type of wire (wrapped in white) was much stronger than the copper wires we used for the spine/ top piece. (the wires broke right before the show) So we would definitely love to change it into another type of wire next time.
Motors: I wasn’t able to find the motor Rudi gave me online, and the motors I ordered weren’t working well at all. If we had the opportunity to improve, I’d like to see how the top piece works with milder motors. (The DC motor now works in such a violent way!) Given enough knowledge, I’d also like to experiment with the Boa system.
Spine: The spine was made by Korrina using wires. If we had enough time (and the ability), I would love to figure out how to make the spine similar to the one on Zendaya’s dress.
Plants: We didn’t incorporate lightings in our piece because we were concerned it might be too much. But when growing the plants, having enough exposure to lights would be really helpful. I also have this crazy idea that what if we play music to the plants? Will they grow better? Research shows that plants do react to sounds!
Teamwork: It kind of looks like our team was working separately. While it is true that we first took on the things we are good at, and later assembled everything together, I did wish to have taught my teammates more about how to use Rhino. The thing is I myself am exploring Rhino every time I use it, so when other people are watching me modeling, my brain always goes blank. If I get more familiar with Rhino, I’m sure these kind of things won’t happen :’)