INFO-MANIA.
This week, we had four presentations: one from a Sneha Subramanian of Illini Service Dogs, John Hornick (author of 3D Printing Will Rock the World), one from Jeff Ginger of the CU Community Fab Lab and the Illinois Informatics Institute, and one from our TA Mehmet Aydin. In line with our focus on human centered design, Illini Service Dogs (ISD) had some ideas, specifically about improving disabled people’s ability to independently work with service dogs, that they were hoping to collaborate with us on. John Hornick gave us incredible insight on the meta-trends within the 3D printing industry. The three main trends that John has observed to be true of the 3D printing industry are: 1.) 3D printing spurs innovation 2.) 3D printing increases democratization and 3.) 3D printing is all about customization. John informed us on the many different groundbreaking 3D printing projects going on all around the world in pretty much every field you could think of, and it was really inspirational to hear about all these success stories and incredible innovation. I was especially intrigued by his mentioning of research in bioprinting replacement organs, an idea that I had actually looked into six years ago for a high school biology assignment. Listening to John’s presentation reminded me of all the different angles we would need to look into for our project but also reminded me of the endless possibilities – opportunities – that we have when working with 3D printing.
The next presentation was from Jeff Ginger, whose high energy and excited gestures were refreshing after absorbing so much information in such a short amount of time. Jeff let us know about the network of Fab Labs as well as the amazing resources we have available to us at the CU Community one. It was kind of shocking to realize that there were so many resources available to us as UIUC students that I did not previously know about! Jeff was really passionate about his work, and he had a way of talking that makes you want to quit whatever you’re doing and pursue fab lab creations full-time immediately, just from listening to him. The passion that we saw from him for his projects is definitely something that I will remember and make sure that I also feel in any future projects that I work on. I want to be able to be someone who can inspire others to take a chance based purely on the energy from my own passions – just as Jeff did for me.
CONVERGING ON FEAR.
When Mehmet gave us his presentation, he taught us about design thinking. he mentioned the idea of diverging and converging, and then repeating the process. Through this, I learned that I personally find the converging process difficult. I love coming up with new ideas and the many different possible ways we can implement an opportunity, but my indecisiveness and lack of confidence in my own creative abilities tends to show when I have to make a decision on which one to proceed with. In other words, I often let the fear of failure and ‘doing something incorrectly’ get in the way of my decision-making process. This was something that I have always known about myself in the back of my mind, but never before have I had to confront it head on like this. It made me grateful for the insight of my other group members, the mentors of this class, and the course itself for giving me an opportunity to grow not just in knowledge but as a person. This is not a problem that will be solved by one presentation, but finally being able to acknowledge the problem is a start.
Solestice’s brainstorming session result. 
Stories & Experience framework that we worked off of.
Besides personal growth, Solestice was able to analyze all the information we had gathered so far. Through the Stories & Experiences framework we were given, we were able to break down the emotions and the facts of our project. Being able to visualize information like this was really helpful in showing us which direction to take our tread attachment idea. We will definitely be using this method to organize all future thoughts on new information we acquire in the future, especially since we have just set up an interview with a teammate’s professor who makes shoes in his free time. Overall, this week was a week of confrontation and growth, of diverging from expectations and converging on a direction to take our project.
Salutations! I’m a sophomore studying accountancy who likes to create some art on the side (yes, I’m one of those photographer/poet/all around artist people). My passion is in advocating for equity, and I probably spend a little too much time on Hulu.
I am a part of Team Solestice with Trevor Sibby and Emma Bradford.
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