Thesis & Project Development Studio

ethnograph primer

2007-10-24T14:51:00.000-07:00

www.aiga.org
the evolution of design project
www.cheskin.com

presentation

2007-10-24T13:32:00.000-07:00

1. practice your speech
practice slide transitions
timing is important
2. slides not too wordy
Make slides illustrative-not texty
Don't read slides
3. show image to support concept
simple, surprising
4. give yourself time to improvise
5. prepare your demo
plan B-backup walk two
6. U m, like, Basically
7. voice-lood, animated, not dull, excited
smile a bit
8. visual identity/integrity
9. Not boring, no bullets
10. Introduce yourself
Tee us your title
"Elevator Pitch" briefly present your idea
11. Good use of body to express exitment
12. check out the room ahead of time
13. Good 1st sentence
14. Don't rush
don't run over
15. contextual headers on slides-hits for gudience
16. pacing of slides
not too many slides
17. make eye contact
read, react to the audience
18. supporting materials
19. scale of slides text
20. speaking clearly
21. dress

making presentation - book

reference about "tween" and young teen girls from Kathy

2007-10-04T15:24:00.000-07:00

www.whyville.com
www.zoeysroom.com
www.kikimag.com
www.platformshoes.org

Role models make a difference

2007-10-02T07:27:00.001-07:00

http://www.awis.org/pubs/magazine/34-3/techbridge.pdf

Role models make a difference

2007-10-02T07:27:00.000-07:00

http://www.awis.org/pubs/magazine/34-3/techbridge.pdf

http://anitaborg.org/files/techbridgeresourceguideforrolemodels.pdf

references from Tom Igoe

2007-09-28T05:39:00.000-07:00

LifeLong Kindergarten
http://llk.media.mit.edu/index.php

Moona(Electronic Crafts)
Jennifer Chowdhury
Kate Hartman - this device is for you

Research Paper

2007-09-26T11:23:00.000-07:00

D.I.Y. Technology for Women

Abstract
Today more than ever, importance placed on technology is increasing rapidly that job opportunities are growing in electrical engineering, computer science and other related fields. However, the female employment in these fields is still low. I believe that creating interests in D.I.Y. technology for women and their children could help increase females in all technology-based fields. When the mother and child are working on a D.I.Y. project together, the mother is shown to be a good role model for technology. This paper will explore the reason why women are not interested in technology and how this can be overcome. It will also show good examples of the available DIY projects, comparison among these projects and an exploration what future DIY projects should be developed.

1. Research Background : Electronics and Female
It’s very hard to find females who are interested in studying electronics in the technology field as a career path. Even at home, buying and repairing electronics are typically a male’s role. Furthermore, computer science, electrical engineering, and other technology related fields are overwhelmingly populated by males [1]. Even though we live in an age of technology and electronic jobs are getting popular, the gap between females and males is not narrowing. There are continuing argument about gender role and ability. However, in most cases, gender has nothing to do with the ability to learn about technology or other related fields. Instead there are factors that point to females being discouraged to explore careers in technology or stereotypes that females are not interested in any technology related jobs.

To build limited belief systems about the technology from young child age
From kindergarten, boys interests are towards computer games and mechanical toys and girls are more likely to play with dolls or be involved in more social games [2]. Moreover, mass media and family environment implants preconceived idea about the gender role. Perhaps, the best example of dividing gender with preconception is the Barbie doll advertisement when Mattel introduced a Barbie Doll in the market, “Teen Talk Barbie,” which told little girls that “math is hard.”
Researchers suggest that children internalize belief systems about “appropriate” careers at a young age (as early as pre-kindergarten). They carry these belief systems throughout their educational career and adult job tenure [3]. These internal and external elements affect to children’s belief systems, so that boy tends to occupy more jobs in technology fields.

To get into preconception that women is not greater than man in technology ability
The general misconception about mathematics and technology is those women are afraid of it so that they don’t want to learn or use it. Conversely female and male have similar mathematical and mechanical ability. Patricia Campbell supports by insisting “there is no convincing evidence of innate gender differences in mathematical ability” and “there is almost no difference in the performance of male and female students who have taken equal advantage of similar opportunities to study mathematics.” [4] In most cases, females are not encouraged to express these subject interests. If they are given the opportunity to express their interests, they will be able to prove their abilities.
Not able to find female role models in technology

To be Hard to find a role model
Most of the famous scientists, mathematicians and successful pioneers of technology are male. Gender discrepancies in the field of science, math, and technology can be attributed, in part, to public media images that focus success in these areas focusing on boys. Parents, teachers, and guidance counselors are not encouraging girls to pursue science, math, and technology classes, clubs, and careers. [5] As a consequence, a girl does not have the same opportunity to pursue these fields. The role of a mother in the family often limit their daughter’s career interests by not exposing their child to a wide array of possible careers. Therefore, if the mother was given the means to educate their child about the available opportunities in technology, their daughter's interests in these fields will translate to the increase of females in technology-based careers. It is very difficult to change the attitudes of mothers towards electronics and other technologies.

As we have seen, female have the possibility to learn and enjoy technology just as their male counterpart. But they are not as interested in learning about technology as males because of limited access to these opportunities at a young age. By overcoming the external elements and expanding female’s interests, the mother will educate their child, who will be active in the technology field, then hopefully teach her daughter about females in technology. It is very difficult to change the attitudes of mothers towards electronics and other technologies. One approach might be to couple electronics with female-centric hobbies to spark interest.

2. Recent projects of DIY Technology for women
Traditionally, crafts usually involving clothing, fabrics, and other materials have been popular hobbies share among mothers and their children. Recently, D. I. Y. (Design it yourself) culture is gaining popularity though the Internet primarily because of the ease of sharing and obtaining DIY instructions. The hope is to increase women participation in technology through DIY instructions and expose future generation of women to technology-based career paths.

There are very interesting phenomenon about learning technology and building DIY project by users on the Internet site. It’s getting more popular in open source system with Web 2.0 because people can easily publish their own contents and distribute to others. However, most of the readers of Make magazine and authors of technology DIY instructions on Instuctables.com site are still heavily dominated by males. That’s why the craft magazine was published one year later for women’s readers to fulfill a perceived need to publish a separate electronics hobby magazine for women. With comparing between technologies oriented DIY sites and general women’s DIY site, women are still willing to learn technology through their own DIY project. Only a few artists and creators are aware of these problems and start to develop technology DIY project to expand women’s interests and contribute more to technology.

2.1: A Construction kit for Electronic Textiles

Figure 1. An electronic sewing kit
Leah Buechley, who is a Ph.D. student in Computer Science at the University of Colorado and a member of the Craft Technology Group, has developed various kinds of electronic circuits with fabrics for novice. The first sewing kit was designed to teach about circuit through sewing. The kit has a simple function of turning on a LED with a coin battery, so user is able to conduct craft in their caps, t-shirts, and bags. She recently has developed more advanced circuit kit “electronic textile kit” and “Lily Pad” that is easy to construct circuits using a micro-controller which easily attaches on fabrics; perfect for wearable computing.

Figure 2. An electronic textile kit

Figure 3. LilyPad
Her crucial point for education is that the users learn programming and general electronics design and build a final project by themselves. According to her paper, the kit tested with high school students using Arduino programming. She also is exposing elementary students to sewing with her first electronic sewing kit. She’s classifying taxonomy of strategies for design of electronic textile and children’s crafts are “Electronic”, “Fabric”, and “Software” craft activities in which children may interact with these new technologies [6]. In many cases in her studies, the kits was tested at class room with workshop to provide instructions and learn basic skills to impart the practice of educational and children’s crafts. [7]
The first sewing kit and “Quilt Snap” projects was focus on to educate women, but latest project “Lily Pad” have focused on users of both gender, to empower novices to work with electronic textile. Even though users are able to conduct their own project with her kits, it is still hard for woman and children to learn about programming and the complicate chips including microprocessors. Her kits are suitable for user over high school students or creators who are interest wearable computing.

2.2: Electronic Crafts
Mouna Andraos who is an EyeBeam researcher and teaching Physical Computing class at Interactive Telecommunications Program in New York University was “Electronic Crafts” for thesis projects and web site. On her website, there are D.I.Y. information with step-by-step instruction of material and processes. The intent is to help users and creators understand the technologies driving everyday electronics better, modify them to fit their real needs and possibly create new ones all together. It also allows for new distribution scenarios while it explores and refines a methodology of electronic crafts based on the practices spreading trough already emerging open source information networks [8].

Figure 4. A soft circuit

Figure 5. Pillow Music
The advantages of Electronic Crafts are providing information about what material to buy and instruction with detail explanation and pictures. However, this project is not for mothers and children. She said her project is for young artists who don’t have any skill of electronic fabrication in her interview. Materials such as conductive thread and fabric, and electronic components are easy to find and order for them. The DIY projects often require specific skills such as soldering and casting skills.

2-3: Switch
Switch an online D. I. Y. video show for teaching young women about electronics through fashion and design. Although there are just few D. I. Y. projects and recently the characteristic of the show has been changed to interview of other famous artists, the Switch projects include very detailed instruction and is can be made by materials which is found around us. The show understands women’s needs and their abilities and developed projects to meet their desire. Alison Lewis who is a main host of the show said “I want people to make what they want, and be inspired by what they can create. By the way, Patsy and Filly are possible for the advanced SWITCH audience” [9]. Also, the instruction made by movie file so that women are able to watch and do the DIY projects at the pace of the show similarly to cooking show on TV.

Figure 6. Material list for Talking Frames
The Switch projects minimized to use solder and make full use of other easy tools such as hot glue instead of soldering iron. Also, project’s idea is attractive girls and easy to build. However, the show’s focused on making things and not about knowledge what they are making and why the projects are able to working. So, it makes users difficult to apply the idea to design their own idea.

Conclusion
In brief, helping women to gain interests about technology, electronics and science can be the good way to form a good role model for their young daughter. For the reason, the technology DIY projects are the best solution for a mother and their children. The DIY projects should be developed to meet the user’s needs to enjoy and learn about technology and electronics. To encourage female users, the DIY projects should be designed to be aesthetically attractive and different from typical wire and circuit, which are mainly targeted to males. As we analyzed from the other DIY projects, the materials of the projects and tools should be easy to find around us and use them. Online instructions of pictures, text and video can be good to learn how to conduct the project. When those conditions meet women’s desire, the technology DIY may impact not only mother's lives but those of their children as well.

References
[1] J.Margolis and A.Fisher. Unlovking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing. MIT Press. Boston, MA, USA, 2001.
[2] Yu-Chen Yeh, Technology Gender Gap, http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/articles/gendergap/index.htm
[3] Dr. Mary Gatta and Dr. Mary Trigg, Bridging the Gap: Gender Equity in Science, Engineering and Technology, 2001.
[4] Campbell, Patricia. “No Virginia, There is no Math Gene.” http://www.campbell-kibler.com/no_virginia.htm
[5] Dr. Mary Gatta and Dr. Mary Trigg, Bridging the Gap : Gender Equity in Science, Engineering and Technology, 2001.
[6] Leah Buechley, Electronic/Computational Textiles and Children’s Crafts, IDC ’06, 2006.
[7] Leah Buechley, A Construction kit for Electronic Textiles, IEEE International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC), 2006.
[8] Treehugger, Electronic Crafts: Open-Sourcing the Green Electronics Revolution , http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/06/electronic_craf.php, 2007.
[9] Interview with Alison Lewis, we-make-money,-not-art.com, http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/009191.php, 2006.

Resources
Leah Buechley, Electronic Textiles Kits, http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~buechley/.
Mouna Andraos, Electronic Crafts, http://www.electroniccrafts.org/.
Alison Lewis, Switch, http://iheartswitch.com/.

gender issue from Jean Piaget

2007-09-19T22:00:00.000-07:00

Jean Piaget on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Piaget

Developmental psychology
Stage Three - Concrete Operations (7 years to 11 years)

Jean Piaget Society
http://www.piaget.org/links.html

Research - Parents education

2007-09-19T01:02:00.000-07:00

Parents Understand Importance of Science But Student Achievement Lags Parental Expectations
http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2004/03/03162004.html
African American Parents Consider Science Important Part of Children's Education
http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2004/03/03162004a.html

Parents' Attitudes And Expectations Regarding Science Education: Comparisons Among American, Chinese-American, And Chinese Families - Statistical Data Included
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2248/is_142_36/ai_79251800

Research - D.I.Y. culture

2007-09-19T00:36:00.000-07:00

Sue Thomas, Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
http://con.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/12/4/383.pdf

Democratic society claims to have opened up equal opportunity to people.
Jane Oh, "Oh, Chandelier?"
http://itp.nyu.edu/projects_documents/1179275356_paper.pdf

D.I.Y Movement

Do it yourself, often referred to by the acronym "DIY," is a term used by various
communities that focus on people creating things for themselves without the aid of
paid professionals. It reflects the frustration and criticism that arises in the modern
consumer culture setting the populace as passive buyer, not as an active owner of the
object. This complements with my study in modular systems — the building process
that the DIY movement offers is one of the important aspects in my project.
Through the DIY experience, people expect to gain personal involvement with the
objects they consume, occurring with the entire process of planning, getting
materials, and building the object. They value the contextual stories added to the
object, which differentiate the creation from any other products in the market.
There are many open source instructions available for DIY activities.
Makezine, Craftzine and Instructables are magazines and web blogs for open
source instructions. One of the merits for these sources is the easy access and
deliberate sharing among people. Stores such as Home Depot also have been doing a
successful business with the high demand of people who would get their own hands
dirty.
Many of the instructions for DIY are complicated and time consuming, which
discourages people from getting into the action. Compared to the DIY system,
modular platforms provide simpler and friendlier approaches to the playful
experience of creating own design. Modular systems, on the other hand, have less
flexibility on the choices of styles.

Do it yourself from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_it_yourself
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIY_culture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arts_and_crafts_movement

Research - textile & computation & warable

2007-09-18T23:17:00.000-07:00

Post, E., et al. E-Broidery: Design and fabrication of textile based computing. IBM Systems Journal, 39,3-4 (2000), 840-860
http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/393/part3/postaut.html

Joanna Berzowska, Electronic Textiles: Wearable Computers, Reactive Fashion, and Soft Computation. Textile, Volume3, Issue1, pp. 2-19 (2005)

Despina Papadopoulos, Wearable Technology Portable Architectures and the Vicissitudes of the Space Between (2007)
http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~buechley/images/press/architectural_design.pdf

Research - Electronic D.I.Y.

2007-09-18T22:48:00.000-07:00

An Electronic Sewing Kit
http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~buechley/diy/diy_e_sewing_old.html

http://www.aniomagic.com/

electronic crafts - soft circuits
http://www.electroniccrafts.org/?n=Main.SoftCircuits

Research - woman on computation and technology

2007-09-18T22:31:00.000-07:00

Leah Buechley (2006) "A Constuction Kit for Electronic Textiles"
1.
Computer science, electrical engineering, and related fields are everwhelmingly populated with males.
J. Margolis and A.Fisher.(3001). Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing. MIT Press. Boston, MA, USA.
2.
The enrollment in the endergraduate computer science program at our university was 8% women for 2005 and the enrollment in the underfraduate electrical engineering program was even worse, at 7% women.
University of Colorado Ofiice of Planning, Budget and Analysis. Percent female enrolled by college, fall 2005. Available: http://www.colorado.edu/pba/div/FemalebyCol.htm

Childhood is one of the most creative periods of our lives. We must make sure that children's creativity is nurtured and developed, providing children with opportunities to exercise, refine, and extend their creative abilities. That will require new approaches to education and learning - and new types of technologies to support those new spproaches. The ulimate foal is a society of creative individuals who are constantly inventing new possibilities for themselves and their communities.
Mitchel Resnick, Computer as Painbrush: Technology, Play, and the Creative Society. In Singer, D. et al. (eds.), Play = Learning. Oxford University Press, 2006
http://web.media.mit.edu/~mres/papers/playlearn-handout.pdf

Women, Gender, and Technology
http://www.amazon.com/Women-Gender-Technology-Mary-Frank/dp/0252073363/ref=pd_sim_b_1_img/103-0384124-2691041

Leah Buechley, et al. Toward a Curriculum for Electronic Textiles in the High School Classroom.(2007)
It is clear from the pattern of underfraduate enrollents in engineering and computing disciplines that the population of students gravitating toward these fields is overshelmingly male.
National Science Foundation. Statistics, Science and Engineering Degrees 1966-2001.
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf04311/sectb.htm

Tech D.I.Y. Thesis statement

2007-09-18T22:04:00.001-07:00

Thesis statement 09/16/2007 Ji Sun Lee

Physical computing or D.I.Y(Do It Yourself) technology is not easy for people with little knowledge of electronics. Although there are many people who may not be concerned about physical computing, many men want to buy tools at places such as HomeDepot or Lowes and make something special in their garage as a hobby. That’s why Make magazine, the Instructables website and thousand of electronic shops are very popular with them.
Most customers of electronic shops are male and there are still low percentages of females at graduate schools with an educational focus in electronics, robotics or technological innovation. Make magazine was published in January 2005 and after almost one year, in mid-October 2006, Craft magazine was published. Most of the readers of Make magazine are male, but target customers of Craft magazine are female. It interesting that there was a perceived need to publish a separate electronics hobby magazine for women.
When I went to Maker Faire 2007 to exhibit my project Interactive Cake, which was inspired by my daughter’s birthday party playing, most of the attendees at the fair were parents who had brought their children to encourage and educate them about technology and science. Although there were many interesting technically oriented exhibits, mothers and daughters often went to the craft section and made something cute and simple. So, I thought if there were technology D.I.Y. kits which are very interesting and cool, and also very cute and beautiful, the kit would teach them basic knowledge of electronics or electricity. This would be very useful and helpful for them, especially, for the mothers and daughters. If the D.I.Y. kits help females make beautiful things using sewing skills or other craft skills, it will be a very interesting hobby for them.
To help encourage women to gain interest in technology, electronics and science, I would like to develop a Tech D.I.Y. kit that mother and daughter can make and enjoy together. The basic principles of the kit are, firstly, it will be used as an education kit. Secondly, instructions inside of the kit will help the mother explain the fundamentals about what she and her child are making and they will learn while having quality time together. Thirdly, it will be easy to start and make.
Although there are already lots of kits for making robotics such as Lego’s Mind Storm, it’s still not cool for female children. Furthermore, most D.I.Y. instructions such as Makezine.com and Instuctables.com don’t provide materials and it's very hard to make an order through the online store because of lack of information about part numbers of the materials and unfamiliar category and material names. For this reason, Tech D.I.Y kits will include all of the materials to make the project along with paper and video instruction. IN addition, there will be more focus on external form with decoration to stimulate female’s interests, so that they can see that technology crafts can be attractive without exposing wire and circuits. Themes are also selected from feminine oriented interests.
The Tech D.I.Y. kits will be safe. Though soldering includes lead and is very harmful for children and fertile women, soldering skill is still required to make to electronic projects. Also many electronic products radiate electromagnetic waves. For this reason, if it is possible, the D.I.Y. kit will not require any soldering skill and the main circuits will be covered by an electromagnetic field shield.
The Tech D.I.Y kit will enable mothers, daughters, fathers and sons in families to begin participating in technology hobbies together. They can start to have common interests in making electronic projects together and can gain knowledge. The kit will initially act to encourage them and can expand their options for the future.

5 milestones for project

2007-09-13T02:50:00.000-07:00

Almost same as thesis class

week 2 Researches
- Concept building
- Idea sketch (at least 7)
- Develop one prototype

week 3 Concept confirm
- Develop DIY kit for one idea
- Shoot video instruction

week 4 Design & development portfolio
- Gather feedback about site, DIY kit
- Build more DIY prototype and kit
- Build project site and start to post idea

week 5 Design & development elements
- Gather feedback about site, DIY kit
- build more DIY prototype and kit
- update website
- shoot video instruction for the DIY prototype

week 6 mid-term presentations
- mid-term presentation

week 7 mid-term presentations
- Open site to public- start user testing with DIY kit

week 8 prototype development
- Collect feedback from site and user test
- Develop DIY kit
- On-going user testing

week 9 prototype development
- Collect feedback from site and user test- develop DIY kit
- On-going user testing

week 10 Ongoing Prototype Developments and Feedback From Users
- Collect feedbacks from site and user testing
- develop DIY kit
- On-going user testing

week 11 Practice presentations
- Analysis user testing results
- Write thesis paper
- Store process documentations

week 12 Practice presentation
- Presentation
- Complete thesis paper

week 13 Thesis presentation

inspiration about Tech D.I.Y. project

2007-09-13T01:21:00.000-07:00

1. LilyPad http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~buechley/

pro
Leah Buechley developed soft computers using the Arduino circuit on fabric that enables a user with very limited knowledge of physical computing to build a project by themselves. It's easy to add functions on project
con
Even LilyPad user can make interesting stuff, still it seems difficult for the user and hard to find materials to build their own project. Instruction on the website is vague and unclear

2. Electronic Crafts http://www.electroniccrafts.org/

pro
Mouna Andraos conducted electronic crafts for her thesis at ITP. Excellent guide with specific information about the materials. Basic explanation about physical computing.
con
The guide contents are still difficult to understand for the user.

other inspiration :
craft magazine http://www.craftzine.com/
soft circuit - sparklab http://www.sparklab.la/