This week is our final week of learning sessions in the fab lab. In this week, our class is separated in two parts, assembling the pieces of the watch and creating a storyboard for how our product will reach our target consumers.
Assembling the Pieces
In this week, we started with learning how to use the Arduino software to manipulate pre-packaged codes that are available in the software and load these codes to the Arduino, a single board computer. We went through how to make the LED light blink every second and how to use the tilt sensor to allow the computer detect different inputs of the tilt sensor triggered by the different movements of the tilt sensor. Utilizing the tilt sensor made it possible to assemble the watch that detects curl and twists movements. The Arduino board computer with the code that can detect the inputs of the tilt sensor is the core of the watch that can detect curl and twist movements.
After learning how to manipulate codes and load codes to the Arduino, we got to the process of learning how to assemble the watch with different parts of the watch. This process is more about following instructions, but the end result is more important to me. I think, the ability to actually assemble the watch is very exciting. I am very proud of the final product, the watch, I assembled because I finally made something. This also familiarizes me with the process that we may need to go through during the Make-a-thon. We will be making and assembling our final product during the Make-a-thon, which may need to go through the same process we went through in the Fab Lab in the past three weeks.
Assembled Watch Face 
Assembled Watch Side
Creating a Storyboard
The second half of the session was working with our team again. We worked on creating a storyboard for how our product will reach our target consumers this time. We needed to draw sketches of the steps of how our product will reach our target consumers and describe the sketches below them in words. We had ideas of how we are going to bring our product to our target consumers; however, we were not art majors. We did not really know how to draw the sketches that we had in our mind beautifully, but we sketched out what we thought in simple strokes that our teammates can understand. This exercise helped us to plan out our marketing strategy in advance and understand our target consumer better. We need to understand how we are going to approach our target consumer before creating the product because we don’t want the product to be created but has no users. I think this is the main reason why we need to create this storyboard before putting together our product.
Page 1 
Page 2
Page 3 
Page 4
I am a student who’s currently studying accountancy and management of information systems. I am graduating this year and entering the MAS program at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. I love programming and accountancy as much as I love taking photographs and learning how to play the Rubik’s cube. I love trying out new things and learning new skills. Learning how to make accessible designs utilizing digital making skills is one of the new skills I learned.
Hi Yingyi,
I think your sketches are great! As a designer, I’ve seen many people with poor drawing skills, but they are still able to achieve a lot through different methods. And I think one of them is storyboarding. If the storyboard you’ve created can be explained by the teammates during a presentation, then I personally think that’s a pretty good storyboard. And I agree that this process is very important, since you are defining who your user group is. And whenever you’re lost in your project, your storyboard is a great place to look back and reorganize your path. Keep up the good work!
Your story board layout was quite logical, so I don’t think the lack of any art skills got in the way of communicating what you envisioned! In terms of how you want to spread the word about your product to potential users, I think that while word of mouth and the blog posts we currently write up would be helpful, I think you could also potentially work with some graphic designers or advertising orgs (maybe even the the UIUC chapter of the American Advertising Federation, website: http://www.aafillinois.com/home) to get some help creating digital graphics or a social media advertising plan which can help spread the word about your product more efficiently and widely than word of mouth.