Shanshan's thesis

[shan gao]

Catch up lately

Deeds

- observed twice actives at NYSCI

- talked to faculties, get insights how they organize programs, what they think good for kids

- analysis what I get during the two observation. I explored whole process in mind and find an interesting interaction between faculty, parents and kids (faculty plays multiple role in the program, eg, illustrator, encourager, partipant )

 Need to think

- go through the NYSCI blog, look at the previous activity and document, find more insights

- based on what I observes for the little maker program, write down what I think is good, what is not good

- Kids are encouraged by faculty and parents all the time during playing, if encouraging could seen as a "reward", how appropriately it should be use? what's the effect? do some online paper research for this (pointed out by Fei)

- What kids really get during the fun experience, even through children did not understand what they're doing? go through my video and pictures.

 

Need to do

- email director of Children's Museum of Arts, get a permission to visit

- email programer creator Maura of NYSCI

[shan gao]

Monday

- spark from Amit and Barbara, virtual reality game.

Tuesday

- scenery imagination (1. interested in spacial design, children playground, want to leverage existing facility, e.g. add visual and sonic feedback when kids playing swing; 2. create a process for kids DIY their paper board animal).

Thursday

- playing "talking cart", little spark from digital game. And recalling how Amit introduced his ipad game "Numby". I felt like if there is specific problem I could frame, there be clear to how to build it.

- digital game is not evil to kids at all, it just mislead sometimes , I should't have too much assumption in the way to solving the problem.  

Friday

-talked to Nikki, eager to build sth at VFL!! (Skills I wanted to learn:  I want to know who to run CNC, laser cut, create wood work, & Makerbot, maybe too much)

Saturday

- online paper reading around children research, blog reading 

- visit Hackt0won, will keep in touch with the engineer guy

Sunday

  Deeds

- talked two students from D-Crit, pointed me book, and related thesis to read

- read a cute kids blog http://playtend.com/blog/page/4/, inspired a lot!

  Thoughts

 -"bring digital toys to grils" is an interesting topic

 - narrow down my topic

 - see three potential ways to fram a problem

Want to do

- build my first prototype tomorrow morning, paper board animal plus a funny base

- meet the initiator of Little Maker pogram from New York Hall of Science  

- bring my prototype to kids!

[Shanshan Gao]

Saturday,

- inspired by re-reading Paul Pangaro's pdf " Why modeling is crucial to designing & design research". "Design research is great when it comes to improving existing product categories, but essentially useless when it comes to breakthroughs" "Great products have integrity- a kind of coherence that stems from a clear product concept ruthlessly refined"

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Shanshan Gao        

www.shanshangao.info 

thesis blog

MFA Candidate of  Interaction Design 

School of Visual Arts

New York, NY 10011