I want my final piece to be weird, unusual yet attractive and beautiful. I also would love for my project to expresses me to some extent as a women and engineer who has appreciation for aesthetics. In order for that to happen I want to create a simple walking mechanism and be able to amplify this movement with fabric and design. Adding factors such as color and exaggerated feminine characteristics to the aesthetic would further enhance the project by making it more appealing.

As mentioned previously my inspiration came from the Strandbeest by artist and physicist Theo Jansen. My project will have much simpler motion mechanism but what he has inspired me the most with was the massage that it is okay to make something purely for its aesthetic. This also brings me to the critical part of the project having both engineers and non-engineers as my audience how to balance between the aesthetic and dynamics of the project and appeal to both sides and satisfy me too given my background as an engineering major student. To solve this, I believe adding a sensor to my project (i.e. it can track a line or a color) will enhance its functionality. Then comes the aesthetic ,which is a challenge in terms of finding the right design and fabric that is to actually both amplify the movement and look beautiful. To tackle this problem I am currently looking at dancers cloth and thinking of my own design.

Here is a more defined list of challenges and how I am going to respond:

• 3D printing – workshop + asking friend for help.
• Sewing – idea forge workshop and/or buying sewing kit.
• Design and fabric – trial, ask mom for help!

I plan on making this project with mostly up cycled materials and this is a table for budget:

Scheduling table:

Finally, unfinalized preliminary design