Design100 by Esther

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Aesthetic of The Great Gatsby

This novel describes the disillusionment of a dream bitterly and sincerely. At the same time, it perfectly predicts the tragedy of the author's own future destiny. The film adapted from the novel perfectly presents these. There are many banquet scenes, gorgeous dresses and jewel, luxurious castles and famous cars in the movie. The scene of the film is beautiful and prosperous. 

This kind of aesthetic feeling gives me an unreal and illusory feeling, because I know that these beautiful things are just an empty dream, people are immersed in it, but sooner or later the dream will be broken. It's a great design inspiration. Many of the scenes in the film are very touching to me, such as Daisy's swan headdress and diamond necklace, which are very consistent with the flashy style of 1920s America. In addition to flashiness and beauty, I also want to show works that can shock, grieve and make me think.

The three words that encapsulate my aesthetic are dream, destruction (disillusionment), and illusion. ‍ Gatsby is a simple and romantic man, but he is not simple pure and sincere and got rich through improper ways, but his purpose of getting rich was so romantic and simple: to attract Daisy. It is because Gatsby is mixed in the selfish and dirty crowd that his pure love and romance become more noble and beautiful. His actions are in line with the word dream, and bring me the inspiration of design. ‍

Later Gatsby found out that Daisy was not as innocent and kind as he thought and the tragedy also implied the breaking of the "American Dream" of that era. Gatsby's success and his bleakness in disillusionment of his dream is a unique aesthetic feeling, which gives me aesthetic and inspiration.

The story of Gatsby tells readers that if a dream has only the pursuit of material and the desire to become a "big man", but it lacks the thinking of why to have wealth and how to survive after having wealth,  such a dream is a dream After all, thinking is illusory, and it must be a short-lived and unsustainable dream. This is my understanding of the beauty of the word illusion.

The creation background of the film is around the 1920s. 1920 is a short and special period in the history of the United States. It is known as the "noisy age" in history, which refers to the 10 years from 1919 after the end of the first World War to 1929 before the great economic collapse of the United States. 

This period is in the period of rapid development of capitalism, automobile manufacturing, electrical appliances and factories are developing rapidly.

The prosperous and vain life of the upper class is well described, and the grand and beautiful banquet scene is in striking contrast to the tragic ending later. Fitzgerald himself and Gatsby's fate coincide. He predicted his own tragedy perfectly.

This is an example. After Gatsby's death, the author describes it as follows: "One night, I heard the sound of the car and saw the lights stop in front of Gatsby's house, but I didn't look into it. Who is the guest from the end of the world? I don't know that the party is over. " The lines and scenes are full of beauty, and the writing style is beautiful, regular and neat.

The reflection of my 3d model is this is  simple for a chess but the sphere shows the lighting and diamond headgear.

The three oval spheres are similar with the shape of the pearl, as a metaphor for prosperity and vanity. The combination can show a sense of beauty and design. ‍

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This is our app of tracker students

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the prototype of our website.

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Design phase

At this stage, we discussed how to choose the three final ideas according to the 100 ideas sorted out last time, prototype them and got some feedback.

There are 100 ideas：

3 ideas we chose:

The app that tracker students’ habit and patterns

One website that models a restructure of a uni timetable

An app (game) to Improve the user's emotion and achieve psychological balance

prototype online

The habit tracker app: 

I personally think the outstanding aspect of this app is that it can give you 24-hour care and record, and many small details of personal work and rest time will be recorded.

 And intuitively put it in front of the user's eyes, such as the round statistical chart, such as using monthly and daily as the unit, and using colour icons to display the work and rest time. More direct, more beautiful, more convenient and fast.

One website that models a restructure of a uni timetable：

video of the app names Patterns: [ please click me ]

video of the website names NewUni: [please click me ]

how we test? 

Change  environment

The advantage of online prototype is very convenient and diversified. But the physical process and production can bring us some more practical experience. For example, we can observe the user's face-to-face expressions and activities, and make improvements to meet their standards.

After discussion, our group decided to make an app. And let other groups of people try it, and we record the process to get some feedback. For example, some people will show confusion and struggle when using our app, while others will show happiness and interest.

Build and run prototype

In the process of using 5-6 people, we first introduced the rules of using the app to them. At the bottom of the page, there are three mood buttons: study, social and sleep. When you press the learning button, the blue flower representing your own mood (PS: can be any representative object, I choose to call it flower) will walk down. When the user presses the other two buttons, it will go up, but the user can't let the flower go up or down, because it will fall into the mouth of the shark at the bottom and the bird at the top. They have to press the button properly to keep their emotional balance.

About some feedback: I especially noticed that although the advantage of this little game is that the design is very simple, sometimes because it is too simple, some users don't know how to use it correctly（ For example, the first user). 

-  So it is necessary to add some notes, or add a scale beside. It's similar to the emotional scale of - 100 to + 100, so that users can understand that when the value falls to the bottom, they are "dead". Users can more easily and directly understand how to use this app.

here is the feedback from classmates:

- The second point is that people's emotions are complex and diverse, but there are only three emotion buttons on the page. This is too simple, can be increased to 5-6 mood button.

- Points system and Ranking system need to be added.

-The process of opening the app is more convenient and concise, so that users can more easily open and find the software in the mobile phone screen.

- Lack of guidance and teaching for novice users.

- Need to add appropriate decoration and patterns to make the app page more beautiful.

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Define Phase

Brainstorm: we target people who are sometimes stressed. The solution is the mentoring system, two teams mode. One powerful person helps another who needs help. Mentorship makes pairs and people can talk face to face.

Define Phase activities:

here are three ways to achieve our goals.

The first is to promote the communication between the target group and others, such as common hobbies, interests or sports. Secondly, there are some warm and relaxing places, because the impact of the environment on people is also very important, such as public study houses, public kitchens and gardens. Then there are clubs for quiet people and encourage people to join, as well as online communication and group, meeting, such as teammates when playing games. And the ultimate goal of all these methods is to change the inner state of the helped, so that they become insensitive, lack of care and state of tension and depression.

for example：

    The community kitchen and gardens. the community study rooms.

    The online lecture streams with a focus on tutorials and online meeting for the quiet or introvert people.

     The hobby groups, people with common interests can get together and do things outside of study. Like travel or sports.

Here is Mind Map:

 After discussion and thinking, I can conclude that everyone's definition of pressure is different, and their ability to bear pressure is also different. Everyone's psychological condition is not the same, so the criteria are not the same. But everyone has a critical point and a balance point. If we use positive and negative scale to describe it, negative emotions such as extreme pressure and sadness represent - 100, extreme happiness and happiness represent + 100, and the balance point between them is 0.

And the critical point for that emotion can be set at about - 70. If it exceeds this critical point, the psychological state of the observation object is dangerous sub-health, and it needs human care to help him adjust his mind. I want to encourage people to ask for help. Some people can find out where their source of stress is and why they feel depressed. But some people are not aware of their inner pressure, in a tense state, and they can't be aware of it. For people who can find their own pressure, my team and I have thought about many ways to open their hearts, vent or relieve their pressure.

Sketch holder analysis：

AEIOU:

My team and I chose to target people who sometimes feel a lot of pressure but haven't completely collapsed. Rather than a small number of completely closed self, extremely depressed people. Our target group has the ability to receive help and release pressure, so I think the above channels and ideas can work on them and improve their mental health. There are experiments or prototypes to help me verify.

In addition to these, I have also compiled an effective method to help students who can't assess whether they are in a state of anxiety or have excessive inner pressure. That's making a schedule. Circle chart or bar chart is OK. To make this form, mobile phone is a good tool and carrier. For example, sleep time, when to get up and when to go to bed, when to use mobile phone Entertainment (ChAT), when to study, when to go out, and so on. 

By recording your daily itinerary on your mobile phone, you can reflect whether your work and rest are normal or not, and also understand your inner health. Studies have shown that people who are in a state of anxiety get poor sleep and have different work and rest times. Anxiety, depression and other negative emotions will also affect work efficiency and thinking ability. So if you can detect your emotions as soon as possible in a negative state for a long time, you can improve earlier and get help earlier. Minimum the loss.

For example, my own iPhone automatically records how long I use my phone every day. Yesterday, I used my phone for four hours and 57 minutes. More than half of the time is spent using entertainment software (games, video and chat). My alarm clock is set at 9 a.m. every day and I don't set it on weekends. About 11 p.m. - 1 a.m.

“ This study highlights the prevalence and impact of anxiety and depressive symptoms in the primary care setting. The prevalence of both anxiety and depressive symptoms in this sample was high, with almost 40% of the sample reporting anxiety symptoms and 30% reporting depressive symptoms. Furthermore, the impact of anxiety and depressive symptoms was pervasive across all domains of functioning: both anxiety and depressive symptoms were associated with poorer functioning in all domains of quality of life. Almost 40% of the sample reported anxiety symptoms and 30% reported depressive symptoms. In both unadjusted and adjusted models, anxiety and depressive symptoms were significantly associated with all domains of quality of life. ”

research from this website: [click me ]

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discovery phase

brief: our group’s general theme is about student mental health and stress problem.

Here is the survey about stress problem :

After the investigation, I can clearly summary the specific situation of college students facing pressure. The preliminary question is: more than 70% of the students surveyed think that study is the biggest source of pressure, followed by work. 

 As for the fact that study and work are the two main sources of stress, I think this phenomenon can be analysed as the influence of age and occupation. Most of the investigated college students are between 18 and 21 years old. They have to complete their studies and prepare to enter social work in the near future at the same time. These two sources of pressure are very common and difficult to solve. Secondly, the pressure from society, economy and family is about 40% - 30%, which is relatively average. It shows that the main sources of pressure are still study and career.

Discovery phase summary：The reason why these two pressures are difficult to solve is that the quality of academic performance determines whether students can find suitable jobs for themselves in the future. On the other hand, whether the work can meet their inner standards (such as salary, a lot or little workload) is also an important issue. Therefore, many people have to study (work) hard. 

If their academic performance is poor sometimes, or they encounter some troubles when they are working, it is easy to cause long-term pressure on students, thus forming psychological diseases. The solution is to reduce the pressure properly and learn to release the psychological depression. Try not to let stress affect the pace of your life.

If there is a disease that is difficult to ignore, such as depression or anxiety (contact the survey and interview below), be sure to seek help and treatment in time.

The research about the mental health of the students:

Also we do some interview : [ click me !!! ]

Through the above three observation objects, I clearly understand that everyone has different psychotherapy. Mental health is a relatively private and complex survey. Interviewing three subjects can help us to summary how everyone overcomes stress.

Discovery phase summary:Through the communication with my team members, I also summed up some ideas suitable for me. For my team members, trying something new is an effective way to relieve stress and get happiness, but the reward method doesn't work for him. For me, I'm sticking with my group member's thought that people have been busy doing one thing all day and attempt to push on, the quality of their work will not increase and they will only cause further build of stress and negativity. 

But some people may be too addicted to new things, thus forgetting what they were supposed to do, especially for those who are not firm in character. My own way is to make use of time to indulge myself properly. One or two days in a week, I tell myself that I don't need to do any work. I relax by sleeping and playing games (that day is usually the weekend, and many people don't stop studying and working on weekends). The premise of learning to release pressure is that you need to understand your inward and know how to get yourself out of the gloomy state. For example, the 18-year-old girl in the observation object choose  listening to music and eating desserts (I'm very similar to her!).

Finally, I increased some understanding of depression. In the past, I thought that depression meant that the sick people were unhappy and unhappy. But the lack of dopamine secretion in patients with depression can lead to lack of motivation and confidence to live. This is the pathological "unhappy". Even though many patients have worked hard to cooperate with the treatment and live a hard life, their performance outside is still "unhappy". I think the society should pay more attention to patients with mental illness and take more measures.

What Can We Do?   This is another [ Research] 

equip ⇒ empower ⇒ transform

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Some Key Stats:

The proportion of young people with symptoms of depression has increased，from 13% in 2012 to 23% in 2019 Overall, Around one fifth 19% of students reported that they had had difficulty getting help for feeling bad or having a hard time in the past year.

https://mentalhealth.org.nz/ https://www.lifeline.org.nz/ https://depression.org.nz/ https://www.samaritans.org.nz/ https://alcoholdrughelp.org.nz/ https://thelowdown.co.nz/

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This is a simple little game. The five LED lights on the original circuit board light up slowly one by one in order (from green to white). When I press the button, the order will be disrupted. The white light will light up. If you calculate the time to press the button, then the white LED light can light up at the same time as any colour light.    All I need:

one Breadboard

5 LEDs preferably multiple colours and sizes. They are red, green, blue, yellow and white colour.

5 resisters and the quantity is same with the LED lights.

Arduino Uno or Nano 

Around 20 wires

Arduino IDE

Matrix Libraries

one push button

Now I want to show how I designed these things. First prepare a breadboard.

Then prepare the push button.

Wire the ground pin (GND) into one of the bus stripb s. Place the positive end of each LED (long end) with three holes between them and insert the negative end into the ground bus strip.

From the positive end of each LED wire a resistor across the center divider. Then use jumper wires to connect digital ports 2 -- 7to the resistors in order.(the original example was 5-7, because I add two led lights, so the number of wires also changed )

This is the previous example, the LED light matrix I designed by myself. This is their comparison.

Before。。。。

after。。。。

Wire from the 5V power rail to the VCC pin.

Place a wire from the ground power rail to GND

FINAL STEP: Code

I'm very sorry, I don't know how to export the code in the Arduino IDE software and put it in the blog. So I had to take a screenshot to prove that.

I am very sorry 😭

// the setup function runs once when you press reset or power the board void setup() { // initialize digital pin 5,6 and 7 as an output. pinMode(5, OUTPUT); pinMode(6, OUTPUT); pinMode(7, OUTPUT); } // the loop function runs over and over again forever void loop() { digitalWrite(5, HIGH); // turn the green LED on (HIGH is the voltage level) delay(1000); // wait for a second digitalWrite(5, LOW); // turn the green LED off by making the voltage LOW delay(1000); // wait for a second digitalWrite(6, HIGH); // turn the yellow LED on (HIGH is the voltage level) delay(1000); // wait for a second digitalWrite(6, LOW); // turn the yellow LED off by making the voltage LOW delay(1000); // wait for a second digitalWrite(7, HIGH); // turn the red LED on (HIGH is the voltage level) delay(1000); // wait for a second digitalWrite(7, LOW); // turn the red LED off by making the voltage LOW delay(1000); // wait for a second （

: Button testing // 

constants won't change. 

They're used here to set pin numbers: const int BUTTON_PIN = 2; 

// the number of the pushbutton pin const int LED_PIN = 5;

 // the number of the LED pin // variables will change: int buttonState = 0; // variable for reading the pushbutton status void setup() { // initialize the LED pin as an output: pinMode(LED_PIN, OUTPUT); // initialize the pushbutton pin as an pull-up input: // the pull-up input pin will be HIGH when the switch is open and LOW when the switch is closed. pinMode(BUTTON_PIN, INPUT_PULLUP); } void loop() { // read the state of the pushbutton value: buttonState = digitalRead(BUTTON_PIN); // control LED according to the state of button if(buttonState == LOW) // If button is pressing digitalWrite(LED_PIN, HIGH); // turn on LED else // otherwise, button is not pressing digitalWrite(LED_PIN, LOW); // turn off LED

Conclusion：

Although only two light bulbs were added to the original LED matrix, I successfully changed the light-up pattern of the light bulbs through the code on the computer, and I can control them (turn on or off) through the buttons.If possible, I would like to add more LED lights, and add some new complex gameplay.

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Reprocess the remaining Christmas gift wrapping paper.

I don't want to waste the rest of the coloured paper, so I want to make them into coloured paper lanterns. Preparation materials: colour cardboard, ruler, pencil, scissors, tape, thread, needle.

Before I started my design, the paper had some wrinkles due to storage problems. I was inspired by these wrinkles. I removed the wrinkled part, leaving only a small part of the flat paper.

Step1: draw lines on the paper with a coloured pen.

Step 2: according to the line I drew before, I folded the paper. I searched an online tutorial, otherwise it would be difficult for me to fold the paper correctly.

Step 3: use scissors to cut round holes according to the position shown in the figure, and then connect all round holes with wires.

Step 4: glue both sides of the paper jam with adhesive tape.

Step 5: tighten the thread and fasten it. Finish the seal to shape.

Step 6: fix a thicker line on the head of the lampshade for easy use.

Reflection: I think I have successfully designed and transformed a new object, which is very strong and beautiful. But I don't think the success is that there is no chandelier in my home, only a desk lamp. I don't spend much time using the lampshade, which is more ornamental than practical. It's frustrating for me.

Before and after that: before I designed it, this paper was some leftover paper, just an ordinary object. After I designed it, it became a new object and had a new use (lampshade). Although the lampshade is not very useful except for its beautiful appearance, I think it is a successful transformation and a secondary design.