Throughout this semester, there have been two main projects that I have spent a majority of my time working on. For the first half of the semester, it was the upcycling project, where we used recycled material to create something with an interesting aesthetic. For my project, I created a fire pit out of cardboard. I applied a space aesthetic to it, and tried to imagine what a fire pit that Neil Degrease Tyson owned would look like. The final report for this project can be found here. My inspiration for this project can be found here. There were many steps in the process of creating this final product. The progress I made and how I made that progress can be found here.

The next project we worked on was our final project, where we took everything we learned over the semester and applied it to one product. For my project, I wanted to create a smart mirror that I could interact with using Amazon’s Alexa. I wanted to apply a 1990’s TV show aesthetic to it, similar to Zoom or Rugrats. My inspiration can be found here. In order to make sure this design was as good as possible, I went through the critical design review process with my peers so they could critique my design. This report can be found here. My idea was to laser cut the frame out of wood, after designing it in SolidWorks. I laser cut the back piece out of wood as well, which would hold the mirror in place. I painted the final piece with blue and orange paint in a zebra striped pattern, which really drove the main aesthetic home. I integrated Alexa into the Raspberry Pi using instructions from the internet, and connected it to a speaker. My overview of how this project came to fruition and how the manufacturing process worked can be found here. A report describing my inspiration, next steps and overall happiness with my final piece can be found here