LGBTQ* Connect

My group and I have made great progress in our project within the past few weeks. Last week, we sent out a survey. Here are our survey and questions:

1. Do you identify within the LGBQT* community?

2. Do you find it difficult to find information on the LGBQT* community? If so, what would you be interested in learning about?

3. Are you a part of any clubs on campus that are within the LGBQT* community? If so, which?

4. Do you attend any events that are thrown by any of those clubs? If so, about how many do you attend a semester?

5. Would you be interested in using an app that would allow you to see all events thrown by LGBQT* clubs?

6. Do you think you would attend more of these events if that app existed?

Survey summary:

30/56  people identified as LGBTQ* 56%

Most people said they did not find it hard to find information on the LGBTQ* community, yet they still responded that they wanted an app!

Some suggestions we received from the survey:

support groups, events on and off campus, appropriate terms, the acronyms, HIV testing, AIDS, STI/STD, ace spectrum, transgender, pride events, bringing awareness, micro-aggressions by straight people, activist movements, events lectures

TRANSaction - most common event held once a year

85% of people we interviewed were interested in using the app

All students who said they identified with the LGBTQ* community said they would utilize this app and attend more events

We received great results and that will really aid us in the creation of this app and achieving this goal.

Overall, the group has worked together extremely well also. Our group dynamic is on point, we all communicate and get done what we need too!

As project manager, I also had to create a powerpoint. Here are some stills below:

Pinterest

For my second Show N'Tell I am focussing on the website and mobile app Pinterest. You can access Pinterest on any computer as well as mobile device.

Pinterest is a free, visual discovery tool that shares photos. You can create "boards" that have certain themes, and you can search for images and photographs that can go under each board. Pinterest was launched in March 2010 by a group of entrepreneurs. For example, Art crit, aephi, LITDVC, 3D printing, landscapes, puppies, etc. You do need to register to use this site.

1. Who uses Pinterest?

2. Have any of you used Pinterest in your classes? If so, what classes?

3. Did you think using Pinterest in those classes helped your knowledge and understanding of what was being asked?

Why, yes you can use Pinterest in the classroom. My art criticism professor Jessica Poser asked us to engage with Pinterest on the first day of class. She has us search for an image that left an impression on us, and to pin that and several other images. She wanted us to keep up with it for the rest of the semester, but I personally did not because it was something extra to do, and my particular image and choice was not interesting to me.

You can search for ANYTHING, even 3D PRINTING, LESSON PLANS, STEM AND STEAM! WOW!

Search:

3D Printing

Art

STEAM

Lesson Plans

Pinterest can be used for:

lesson plans

craft ideas

images to draw/paint from

visual inspiration and ideas

looking up articles

4. Could you use this in an art classroom? Would you?

https://www.pinterest.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evf58qH_O1Y - This is a cute, little video from a teacher who uses pinterest to look for visual ideas to incorporate in her classroom!

Show and tell #1

Here is my first Show and Tell, which did not fully relate to the prompt so I have to re-do it, but here was my original one!

For me, I chose to do this topic because it is all about learning a brand new language through the inclusion of technology,whether that be through a smartphone, ipad, Mac, computer, etc.

Rosetta Stone Language Learning  is  a computer-assisted language learning (CALL) software published by the Rosetta Stone. The software uses images, text, sound, and video to teach words and grammar by using repetition.

This program offers over 30 languages, including Spanish (Latin America/ Spain), English (British/English), Arabic, Latin, Korean, Japanese, German, Greek, Polish, Russian and Swahili.

1. Who has heard of the Rosetta stone?

2. Has anyone ever used the Rosetta stone?

The students pair sound or text to one of the images. The sound or text is from a native speaker of that specific language.

There are matching exercises and writing exercises.

Also, if the student has a microphone, the program can judge their pronunciation.

The aim is to help whoever wants to learn the language

On the website, it says Rosetta stone for you, classrooms and enterprise so it has already been brought to the attention of the public school system. They have an option for k-12 and higher education.

Each lesson concludes with a review of the content in that lesson, and each unit concludes with a milestone, which is a simulated conversation that includes the content of the unit.

CD-Rom, Download, Subscription

Rosetta Stone’s Discover Languages is an app currently only available on Xbox One. It is very different from the traditional design, involving a virtual world and more of a focus on games in order to appeal more strongly to game playing audiences. The only language currently supported are English and Spanish.

3. What do you think is the most popular language studied through the rosetta stone?

Top 6 languages: spanish, french, english, italian, german, japanese 

4. Do you think using this software program could be beneficial to use in school systems to teach languages?

5. Why do you think this language program will be beneficial/detrimental to use?

Quotes:

Abby and Mark (Spanish)

“Repetitive”

”Fell asleep” in middle school

“Learned the basics from the website”

“I learned more Spanish from talking to people”

"It was really helpful, by giving pictures and situations that pertained to the culture you were learning the language of" - Alex

Sources: 

http://www.rosettastone.com/

http://www.rosettastone.com/reviews

https://www.youtube.com/user/rosettastone

Collaborative Group Project

For our final project, we are doing a collaborative group project with a Graphic Design class. Our group has decided to focus on the LGBTQ* community on the SUNY New Paltz campus, and the events and resources present to build a stronger sense of community, a sense of awareness and to educate people about this specific community.

We started by dividing the roles in the group:

Project Manager- Nicole

Content Producer- Dan

User Experience - Rachel

Researcher- Lilli

Then, we answered 3 basic questions that professors wanted us to focus on:

1. Inquiry:

• There is not enough awareness for the LGBQT* community.

2. Audience:

• Members of the  LGBQT* community, and those who are interested to learn about this community.

3. Outcome:

• Bring people together and offer a comfortable environment

We are creating an App that is based around a SUNY New Paltz campus map. This map will show different buildings on campus and the different events and resources that are located within them. For example, different resources include Gender Neutral housing and bathrooms in the Residence Halls, Oasis Haven, The Heath and Counseling Center, different majors and minors, such as Women's Gender and Sexuality and more. One of the major events that educate and support this community is TRANSaction which occurs once a year and is put on by Residence life.

I am very excited about this project, and we have received a lot of positive feedback as well!

Being the "mayor of New Paltz", I am a very sociable and friendly person and I was easily able to send out the survey to many friends here at SUNY New Paltz. We received great feedback that we will be able to use in our studies for this project.
 Some feedback we received included some topics that people wanted to see on this campus:

support groups

events on and off campus

appropriate terms

the acronyms

HIV testing

pride events

bringing awareness

micro-aggressions by straight people

activist movements

I will post next week to show some images and the progress we made! I am to post pictures of the graphics and designs, storyboards, etc.

Have a great weekend!

Final 3D Printing Prototype

Today we had our final critique for our 3D printed prototype and I could not be happier with the end result!

There were some things about my project that I actually changed from my original plan. Instead of the problem being the person had no fingers, I changed the problem to the person only having 1 finger and needing to open paint, ink, a bottle, etc. I re-printed my prototype for the third time and here are some images of it in the end:



My 3D printed prosthetic was successful in opening ink and paint, as well as my water bottle. Here is an image of that below:

This photograph demonstrates my progression of ideas and how the prototypes have changed over the duration of the last few weeks:

Overall, I was very happy and satisfied with my final prototype. It took a lot of determination and strength, especially in the beginning of the project. I kept getting discouraged because I still was not understanding the project and my designs were just unrealistic. However, I kept re-visiting my design and making improvements and I believe that it showed in the end product! 3D printing was a challenge but something that I do hope to continue in the future.

Enjoy a lovely video from Nickelodeons Dora the Explorer singing "We did it!", which describes how I felt once my prosthetic worked and I was finally successful in my design :)

My second prototype

I went back to the drawing board and re-designed my prototype from the original model that I created.

1. I made the prototype significantly smaller because the original was way too big.
2. I also made the ledge from the opener extend out further to be more effective in opening bottles such as ink and paint.
3. I had to make the supports stronger in order to support different weights and pressures being applied to the prototype.

The orange is the original prototype and the pink one is the one I made smaller:

In the image on the right, you can see how I altered the size of the prototype to be much smaller to better accommodate a hand. Here is the new prototype below:

WELL THEN. First, as I was walking up the stairs to go to class the prototype actually broke in my hands. I knew I needed to make the walls more supportive. However, the bottom part of my prototype broke off, and it could still be helpful and effective without it. As I was opening my water bottle using the prosthetic, the top opener actually flew off. Therefore, my original prosthetic was actually now in 3 separate pieces. I knew that I had to make the supports stronger and more supportive to support any art item being opened. Here is an image of all 3 pieces below:

On the left is the lower part of the finger piece, with the main part of the finger in the center and the broken off opener on the left side of the image. I went back into tinkercad and:

1. Added more supports under the opener

2. Made the finger much smaller overall

3. Got rid of some of the ledge that I originally added because it was a tad too big than what I would of liked.

I truly enjoyed going through this process and learned what worked and what did not work. I liked creating an original design and printing it several times because these obstacles allowed for growth in the end. I was determined to create a prosthetic to open bottles of paint and ink, and I am still determined to create one, it just needed practice and refining. Lets hope prototype 3 will work and will be just what I originally planned!

3D Printing for Dummies part 2

So it has taken me a little while to really grasp the idea of this project. I am trying not to get discouraged because I am determined to successfully print a prosthetic. I changed my design and problem quite a lot from what I originally wanted to do.

I started new and fresh and returned to my notes.

1. I decided that I wanted to make a prosthetic to help open bottles of ink, paint, etc. because that was a common problem students were having.

2. I created a prosthetic pointer finger with a tool attached to it to flick open a container. I found that the pointer finger was key in opening containers.

3. I also am attaching, using string or velcro, a piece to go around the wrist so that the prosthetic is comfortable for whomever is wearing it. That part is on the right, while the actual prosthetic is on the left side. I downloaded the wrist part from thingiverse.

Here it is:

I am a very driven person and I am determined to make this prosthetic work! I am excited to see this printed, and then to potentially make more revisions. Below, on the right side, is my original prosthetic that was not practical enough to 3D print:

This could not 3D print because I did not connect the pieces properly. It was frustrating because I kept trying to successfully come up with a design and just nothing was working. Again, I am trying not to get discouraged and I believe I found a solution. I think that wrist piece will be very successful, especially when making the prosthetic comfortable.

Everyone wish me luck! I hope that this is successful!

3D Printing for Dummies

For the past few days, we have been working to create a prosthetic using Tinkercad, Thingiverse and then eventually the 3D printers. Well, the first round did not go so well for yours truly. My original idea was to create a prosthetic that would open a jar or even a jar of paint. However, after talking with Aaron I came to the realization that my idea was not really practicle and did not make sense. I tend to make things very difficult for myself and I realized I had to take a step back and change my plan. DUH. Here was my original idea:

https://www.tinkercad.com/things/7NcwEkTes0l-smooth-blorr-amberis/edit


WHAT EVEN IS THAT.

I am going to stick with my original idea of opening something, whether it be paint, a drink, ink, etc. This time, I am going to focus more on the fingers and maybe have a circular shape attached to the finger to be placed around circular objects. However, there still are challenges to that because the circle has to adjust to go around different objects, etc. Back to the drawing board!