INTERNSHIP
Summer Engineering Experience
(SEE 2018)
Donor's event at Birch Aquarium, several members are missing.
Stage 1 (Week 1-3)
Design Thinking
We started the internship program by conducting several design challenges as a warm-up. After that, we went to Birch Aquarium to meet our core client, Nan Renner. She announced the project theme: WAVE. We then participated in design jams and toured the aquarium, ending with an intensive discussion on the possibilities of representing waves, specifically:
1. What kind of waves are we representing?
(Sound waves, water waves, mathematical waves...)
2. What are the wave behaviors?
(Energy transmission, reflection, refraction, dispersion, absorption...)
3. What are the wave properties that we could represent?
(Frequency, amplitude, interference...)
4. Who will be our main users for this exhibit?
(Researchers, family with kids, travelers, students...)
Nan Renner, senior director of learning design and innovation at Birch Aquarium, helps us get creative juices flowing at a design jam at Birch Aquarium.
Needs & Requirements
Sticky notes during the needs & requirements discussion
After a trip to the Exploratorium in San Francisco, Jesse DeWald, our supervisor asked the team to develop our exhibit's goals and present those to our client. We first defined specific needs and requirements, and then each wrote our ideas on sticky notes. Following Birch Aquarium's expectations outlined by their CASP guidelines — Conceptual Beauty, Aesthetic Delight, Social Interaction, and Physical Exploration, we added more essential points to better accommodate our specific project. After grouping sticky notes, we decided that our four main requirements are Science, Logistics, Interactivity, and Inclusivity.
Before the presentation, Sam Knight, the board of UCSD Alumni Association, visited us and gave us advice on how to make the speech more compelling. Afterward, we presented in front of the Birch Aquarium staff, who approved our specified needs and requirements.
Approved requirements for our wave exhibit
Stage 2 (Week 4-6)
Concept Generation
After the project kick-off, our work became more intensive. We spent a week developing various ideas for the actual exhibit. With hammers, foam, hot glue, PVC pipes, and the like, we turned our thoughts into physical low-fidelity prototypes. It was a hectic and productive time!
By the end of the week, we generated twenty-five concepts, from which we built twenty prototypes, and finally selected seven of those prototypes to keep developing.
Low-fidelity prototypes on the table, some were not shown.
Selected seven projects, which are Wave Matching Game, Water Harp, Spine, Make a Wave, Pan Flute, Bubble Project, and the Maze. Please click each project for details.
Project Refinement
The following week, Nan came to the Envision Maker Studio to check our progress. She gave comments on each of the seven selected projects. After that, we reviewed and pared our ideas down to three projects, which were Spine, Waving Matching Game, and the Maze.
Team Formation
Our next task was to refine and create three mid-fidelity prototypes. To increase efficiency, the supervisor divided us into three groups.
Hardware: building all the physical components
Software: developing an electrical and digital system
User Experience: creating game design and user interaction flow
From this point, I selected to be a UX designer.
Team formation diagram with the overlapping field.
Final Selection
Teamwork was initially challenging, but we soon learned how to communicate and work together. Eventually, we brought our three prototypes to Birch Aquarium and conducted a presentation there. After careful consideration, Birch Aquarium finally chose to move forward with the wave matching game.
Me presenting in front of clients from Birch Aquarium
Refined "Spine"
Refined "Maze"
Refined "Wave Matching Game", Winner
Stage 3 (Week 7-10)
Project Embodiment
Starting now, we focused on making one final exhibit: to create an interactive wave matching game that teaches people the properties of waves. However, our client gave us a new challenge: incorporating the Scripps Institution of Oceanography research and natural sound recordings in the design.
So we were back to the drawing board — how might we integrate natural sounds?
Our initial idea was simply matching the frequencies of sine waves, but since natural sounds and pure tones are not directly comparable, we felt that it would be harder for visitors to understand the science we wanted to communicate if we were to use sine waves. We also wanted to avoid abstraction and loss of science due to representing natural sounds with pure tones. So, we had to develop a different way for users to control a range of frequencies rather than the frequency of a single sine wave.
With this challenge in mind, we refined our wave matching game. After some research, we realized that while the ocean would seem relatively soundless, it is quite loud: animal, ship, and machine sound all combine to create a cacophonous soundscape. We wanted our wave matching exhibit to show how animals communicate despite all the ocean noises.
Final Project
Our end product was an interactive exhibit that helps visitors understand how various species of animals use different frequency ranges to communicate with members of their own species. In the ocean, where sounds easily travel, animals must tune into specific frequency ranges to distinguish meaningful signals from noise. We built this exhibit to help visitors understand this interesting filtering process.
First, visitors choose one animal from a selection of five aquatic animals. Mixed sounds from various sources, such as other animals and ship noises, start to play, imitating the sonal environment of a noisy ocean. Visitors then use sliders to set maximum and minimum frequencies to find the frequency range at which their chosen animal communicates. As visitors change the frequency ranges by repositioning the sliders, the mixed sounds change following the frequency range. An LED strip light at the top of the interface panel turns green to indicate that the visitor has found the species' correct communicating frequency range. At this time, the filters clean out other animal conversations and extraneous ship noises, leaving only the specific species' sound to be heard.
1. This is a pictorial representation of how the face of the exhibit looks. Generally, it plays a marine life soundscape based on the frequency range the two sliders are at.
2. First, visitors choose from a selection of five ocean animals. For example, the California Mantis Shrimp.
3. The playing sound reflects where the sliders are positioned. Guests can slide the two sliders left and right.
4. As visitors focus on specific ranges, sounds from animals that communicate in that range can be heard. Visitors can move the sliders to change what they can hear.
5. Eventually, once visitors find the frequency range of the California mantis shrimp, because the sliders filter out the other animal conversations and extraneous ship noises, they can only hear the shrimps call,
6. Once visitors find the right range, the green light will be turned on.
Envision Maker Studio Faculty Director, Nate Delson, interacts with the wave matching exhibit.
Final Result
10 weeks
53 user interviews
100% success!
Major Roles
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Construct logical flowcharts for three selected projects, conduct 53 user interviews to facilitate decision making.
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Program main code and electrical parts to incorporate Arduinos, potentiometer sensors, and buttons.
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Incorporate clients’ feedback into decisions, give two presentations to Birch Aquarium.
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Collaborate across disciplines: engineers, designers, project managers, and customers.
Takeaways
1. Always remember to brainstorm enough during the initial design process because that saves time later on.
2. Design thinking and user testing happen at every period, not just at the beginning.
3. Collaboration skills are tremendously helpful when working with people from different backgrounds.
4. Experience using various hand-tools and prototyping tools, such as 3D printing, laser cutting, and vinyl cutting.
5. Real-world experience of user testing.
6. Being able to account for real-life constraints like budget, time, available resources, etc.
7. Circuit design and other microcontrollers.
8. Experience is another word for making mistakes; don’t be afraid to make mistakes. :)