Digital Prototyping for Design - Micro Challenges¶
CHALLENGE 1¶
Prototyping together
Santiago Fuentemilla Garriga & Josep Martí
13-16 February 2024
Here you will find our Micro Challenge repository with the documentation of the whole process we undertook that week: https://github.com/marius-schairer/MicroChallenge/tree/main
Reflection¶
Participating in my first Micro Challenge, for me, has been a completely new and revealing experience. I started the week with a lot of ideas in mind, with my partner Marius we thought of making a very complete artifact, which could be 100% useful for our master project.
I am glad that, at that moment, I was wise enough to structure the manufacturing process of the artifact we had designed in different prioritized and independent parts. For example, there was the first block of fabrication and basic electronics (the button, the Raspberry Pi, the microphone…), the second block of basic programming (making the code to record the audio and save it as a file) and the last block of more advanced programming with Artificial Intelligence (incorporating an AI-generated response and being able to play it back).
These 3 blocks were clearly prioritized and we made the effort to start step by step. Thanks to that, we were able to move forward with the first and second blocks, without being able to enter the third, but still have a working prototype.
The most frustrating part of the Micro Challenge, for me, was figuring out which parts of the system were acting up. For example, by the end of Thursday, we had finished the prototype and the code, everything was working. And we started testing with the AI. There was a point where the button stopped working properly and became very sensitive on the wires. That made the whole system not work. What I learned the most at that moment, is that when there is a complicated problem, you have to analyze element by element, without assuming information that you don’t have.
Overall, this exercise has helped me to dig a little deeper into the world of prototyping, to confirm that teamwork with marius works very well, to be able to face a little more my research for the master’s project and to generate even more ideas thanks to the inspiration of my colleagues.
CHALLENGE 2¶
DPD + Designing with Extended Intelligence
Santiago Fuentemilla Garriga & Josep Martí
5-8 March 2024
Here you will find our Micro Challenge repository with the documentation of the whole process we undertook that week: https://github.com/LAIA-GitHub/MicroChallengeII
Reflection¶
The experience of this second Micro Challenge, for me, has been completely different. At first, I felt that we had an advantage over the first Challenge from the beginning because we already knew what we were up against. My expectations of capabilities, materials, work rhythms, available resources and possible support from the teachers, were very well placed thanks to the fact that it was the second time doing a Micro Challenge.
On the other hand, I was very happy to be able to continue with the project we had started a few weeks ago with Marius. The fact that we had already talked about it many times, had the time to look for references and information, to know how Marius and I work in this context… made the experience much more enjoyable and motivating.
The word that could define my week in the Micro Challenge 2 is motivating. I felt very satisfied with our work and how we managed the different problems that arose and the moments of stress or helplessness. This motivation, for me, is the engine that makes me continue with the project with strength and enthusiasm, and gives me the possibility to believe in myself enough to imagine designs that I would never have thought I was capable of doing.
On the other hand, the further reflection I have also includes the part of improvement that we still have left. I think that in this Micro Challenge we have not improved in terms of documentation. We did not focus on documenting every step of the process, especially the coding part, which was also new to us and would have been useful to have for the future. For the next Micro Challenge, my personal goal is to document the different mistakes and successes we make in the whole process to be able to capture it well in the repository and be useful to my future self and other people.