Celeste’s Blog about Group Research Project: Make, Perform & Report

12/10/2022

1. The beginning:

When our group started discussing the project, we exchanged ideas and opinions and finally chose Cissy Xie’s Perfume Maker because the design is interesting enough and relatively more actionable. Cissy said the inspiration came from “The One Who Walks Away from Omelas”, in which people living in Omelas can always smell or emit the scent they want. At this time, we discussed the news about the perfume-making machine in the European fashion industry before – it is a machine that synthesizes different perfumes through specific chemical raw materials, but the machine can only synthesize a limited number of flavors displayed by the button, obviously it does not In line with our ideal prototype, we expect to make it more intelligent, and can customize the perfume machine by adding keyword tags. This is the prototype of Perfume Maker:

It can be seen from the picture that the raw materials are in several bottles below. After receiving the instruction, the machine will transport a certain amount of material through the tube to the mixing box for mixing, and finally, blow the finished fragrance from the fan. Finally, on how to command the machine, Nuri and Nicole think it is more reasonable to use Bluetooth to connect to the mobile app, and Cissy wants to demonstrate it with a touch screen. I propose that because the Bluetooth connection can be remotely controlled, it is more convenient than the touch screen. At the same time, it can also reduce the redundant design of the machine itself, and the sense of interaction is stronger. Cissy also agreed with our plan after that. At this time, the plan of Perfume Maker was finalized.

Then we started building the model, Cissy did the tube and the mixing box, Nuri and Nicole did the casing, I assembled those bottles and the top cap, and finally, we colored the casing of the model together with the buttons, the display, etc.

Our group met together.

Cissy is drawing the draft of the model.

Nicole and Nuri are building the case.

I’m painting the outside.

Last step and we finish it!

Of course, there’re still some problems we didn’t think about, such as the machine can’t be started from away, which means people still need to touch the button nearby the machine to let it work, but we will try to fix them next time.

2. The performance:

Our rehearsal was a bit tight due to the time conflict between the crew. It was originally planned to be Nuri as the introduction, I as the Narrator, Harvey in the first act, Nicole and Cissy in the second act, but as the show approached, due to the time and performance Yes, Nuri was also in the second act, and I was also in charge of the “sound effects” of the machine. Harvey’s lines were temporarily lengthened, but fortunately, his ability to memorize words and improvise was very good, and our whole performance was at least in my opinion coherent Yes, here I would also like to thank every team member for their efforts, and joint efforts of all of them allowed us to complete the presentation.

And this is our Q&A time, I think mostly we explained well, but indeed the model has some places which not quite good:

3. Critical analysis of one other group:

I may want to discuss the group which designed a hat, in the perform seems that the hat can make a person painful while making others happy, the good thing is this model can easily remind people about “The One Who Walks Away from Omelas” since it attached to the core of that story; however, it seemed that they didn’t show us how to do this hat work in the performance, the only thing we know about the hat is: “It’s dark in there.” For that thing, I think they should make further explain or performances about the hat so that the audience can have a better understanding of their project.

All in all, this performance makes me happy because I not only made some good friends as a group, but we also created a nice idea together, this sure will be an impressive memory left to us.

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