As the semester comes to the close this is a summary of what I’ve gained and learned from the Digital Making Class. For me, it was a different experience taking a class that is project based. However, it was nice to have a change of environment and pace for a change. In the next couple of paragraphs, I will highlight what I expected from the class and what I actually got out of it.
I was introduced to this class through an instructor. In high school, I volunteered at the Museum of Science and Industry in their Fabrication Laboratory. I love to learn through experimenting, so I thought the class was a great opportunity to get back into fabrication. I did not know anyone who took the class at the time, so I skimmed through a couple of the blog posts and saw interesting topics such as Arduino learning and 3d printing. Therefore, going into the course I expected it to be a hands-on, interactive space to explore various topic connected with fabrication. Looking back some of my expectations were met but not necessarily all. Most of the class time was spent learning about other people’s stories and completing brainstorming exercises. However, I came to realize that it was good that we were doing a lot of reflection. I remember a quote from the beginning of the semester that stressed the importance of analyzing the problem instead of being quick to come up with a solution. Although the class was not quite as I expected, I still felt challenged by the prompt which was to design assistive tech.
What I learned:
Technical Skills:
Throughout the semester we completed a couple of hands-on workshops in the Fab Lab. One of those workshops involved building a watch for physical therapy patients from scratch. As a result of this workshop, we learned how to use and code an Arduino, sew, laser cut, and use a software program called Inkscape. This workshop took us about three class days to complete. Before coming to college, I learned how to use a laser cutter and Inkscape. I’ve also worked with a Raspberry Pi before which is similar to an Arduino and had previous experience with sewing. The individual workshops were helpful I talked about all of them in some of my blog posts here.
Earlier in the semester we also had another technical workshop hosted by Autodesk. A representative from Autodesk taught us the basics of Fusion 360. In the workshop we designed a phone case stand, I talked about the experience in this blog post here. To my surprise Fusion 360 is fairly easy to use. Although for my team’s project we did not utilize fusion, I still found the tutorial to be beneficial.
In general, the technical workshops were my favorite part of the course. I am a hands-on learner, so it was exciting to actually fabricate. However, I wished the course was comprised of a variety of workshops that happened more than a couple of class days.
Creative Skills:
The course also encouraged the building of what I like to call creative skills. This happened when we spent class time in our groups brainstorming. Since we had a fixed prompt it was essential that we all collaborated. Being in a team with business and design students made that collaboration easier. Throughout the semester we had brainstorming exercises such as writing important ideas on post-its and designing prototypes. The most memorable was coming up with designs. Knowing what we wanted to create we essentially had to figure out what design would accomplish our goal. We came up with nearly impossible designs and designs that we could implement in a couple of hours. I talk more about this exercise and others in these blog posts here. The area in which creative skills were essential was the interview we had to conduct with our mentor. Going into the interview we did not exactly know what it was that we wanted to create. The interview questions that we asked had to be constructed with a lot of curiosity and creativity. With simple questions such as, “what is your dream car” we were able to gain a more personal perspective of our mentor Ryan. These creative skills that we gained were not only very helpful but also applicable to everyday life.
In conclusion, this course was not exactly what I expected it to be. However, I am glad that I went outside of my comfort zone to learn in a different way.
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