Brief overview:
This process is designed to give the students in DREAM an opportunity to learn about how making relates to empowerment in communities that they care about. (Olin can be the focus upon instructor approval, but is not the preferred project site.) In Early weeks of class, students see different empowerment interventions, then begin a personal, independent study (with scaffolding appropriate to the class composition), that culminates in them sharing an artifact with a target group.
Students will have up to 8 weeks to go through the three phase process of:
- (Phase 1) Design your Due Diligence
- initial responses due 2/28/18
- responses frozen (left alone) due 4/4/18
- (Phase 2) Dive-in by Dedicating or Deviating
- initial responses due 3/7/18
- responses frozen (left alone) due 4/11/18
- (Phase 3) Deploy to the Default or Different Destination.
- initial responses due 4/4/8
- responses frozen (left alone) due 5/2/18
- *reflection link or text due 5/10/18
Each of the three phases has deliverables associated with three or more words starting with "D," so I call this the 3xD project process. You can probably tell that I'm a fan of alliteration.
Students receive an email that has a personalized URL for them to submit and revise a google form that includes sections to submit work that what is expected for each phase.
(Phase 1) Design your Due Diligence
Due diligence is a name for processes that people use to evaluate the potential risks and rewards of new undertakings. You will be exploring different existing efforts to better understand that there are many types of empowerment efforts, and many examples one can learn from that represent 4 different categories of projects.
Students will explain an idea that they have to carry out Olin EASE Lab's Mantra:
Make things. Make a difference. Make your way.
[Make Things]
Understand how others make things in different settings through media examples. On our campus, experience how we can make with the tools available to us.
[Make a difference]
Understand how groups can organize to make different opportunities available for people to empower themselves - improving their ability to realize their potential in STEM. If possible and appropriate, experience being a part of a group that is helping different sets of people in different settings empower themselves.
[Make your way]
Understand how to find examples of people finding ways around obstacles to make new paths to empowerment in STEM. Find out what is involved with gaining access to experiences that let you navigating unfamiliar turf.
What to do and submit:
Step 1 - prepare
Familiarize yourself with 4 categories of tools for revealing and remedying inequalities:
- Data
- presenting data in meaningful ways, aggregating and displaying relevant information.
- Mock-ups
- showing what could be, via new interfaces (potentially using satire or shaming) to broach tough subjects.
- Networking
- activating networks of people and devices to raise awareness of or spark actions for causes.
- Skill-building
- developing programs and activities to help participants break barriers.
Step 2 - peruse
Select a source from one of the links below to read/watch/explore:
- Data examples
- Mock-up examples
- Networking examples
- Learn 2 teach, teach 2 learn (L2TT2L) creating a corps of teen-aged STEM teachers - read "Technologies of the Heart" chapter (pg 61) >>link<<, and background on the South End Technology Center background - >>link<<.
- Makerspace in a children's Hospital - >>video link<< and >>article link<<.
- Little devices' MakerNurses program >>link<<.
- Possible Project entrepreneurship >>link<<.
- Skill-building examples
Step 3 - dig up, dive in
Find an additional piece of media that allows you to gain further understanding about one of the categories above. Refer to this media in the 3xD Project Google form.
- Discuss possibilities with the teaching team to create off-campus opportunities for you to witness how others do hands-on activities in empowering ways.
- The full-class field trip usually establishes this, and smaller outings are usually presented as well, during class and in individual project check-ins with instructors.
- Identify online sites that might provide inspiration or data sources that will aid in your work.
- On Olin's campus, work with our tools to practice making your thing(s)
- We prefer that students explore either a machine, materials, or processes (e.g., scraping Web data) you have do not have extensive experience using.
Step 4 - submit
- Explain who the people and/or programs you are targeting are.
- Detail what the primary types of disempowerment that they are addressing are.
- Illustrate how are they incorporating making into the process.
- Show obstacles that have they identified that can be overcome by what is being promoted.
What it's worth:
- 5 - 7 points (max) = you have identified relevant sources that establish a direction for a coherent project.
- 2 - 4.5 points = provided few links or highlighted resources that do not make sense in the same project space.
- 0 - 1.5 points = nothing submitted or more than 1 week late.
(Phase 2) Dive-in by Dedicating or Deviating
Go through the process of writing up what the specific activities are that you're planning to carry out for the project, and get started. Try to envision a minimum viable project and do a rough sketch of what it could look like. If you find that you enjoy engaging in that type of work, dedicate to it and make plans for deploying your project. If you are not passionate about what you're doing, use this time to propose a pivot, with help from instructors.
[Make things]
Describe the thing(s) that you'll be making. Articulate your plans for the type of processes you'll use to make things. Highlight key materials that you'll incorporate. Mention any activities that you'd like a target group of people to engage with.
[Make a difference]
Describe the way that you expect that people would become more empowered, should they engage with your personal project to its full effect.
[Make your way]
You have opportunities to refine your project, allocate resources that you see fit, with the aid of personal check-ins from instructors.
What to do and submit:
- Lock in your project's description and plan in the Project Google form before this section's deadline. Address the prompts in the Dive-in section as many times as you need.
- Reflect upon your life experiences that prepared you for or did not for the project you chose. Include a paragraph about how this work relates to your life or previous experiences.
- Write up a ~3 paragraph reflection of your experiences learning the new tool, material, and processes.
- Indicate when you commit to completing the project with a particular project direction or whether you're likely to pivot before the deployment phase.
What it's worth:
- 3.5 - 6 points (max) = reflection that covers your learning process over time as you began, struggled with, and completed your project using the new tool.
- 1.5 - 3 points = reflected on only a few parts of the process, such as the outcome but not how you prepared for your project.
- 0 - 1 points = nothing submitted or more than 1 week late.
(Phase 3) Deploy to Default or Different Destination
By this point in the process, you will have an idea of whether your project lends itself to going in front of people at the default deployment option for this project or an alternative that you have identified and proposed (e.g., an on online deployment).
[Make Things] Design and deploy ways to share the experiences.
[Make a difference] Design and deploy STEM activities.
[Make your way] Design and deploy resources that help others navigate around barriers.
The default deployment option is presenting your project at MITxMake Saturday 4/21/18
Should you stick with the course's default deployment option of MITxMake, you will pick a morning, mid-day, or afternoon slot and bring your project to the DREAM table to engage with visitors during your session. You are free to explore the other tables, events, and talks there when it is not your slot. The class will help with transportation logistics.
If you chose to deploy at a detour destination of your choosing, you will work with instructors to have an alternate plan approved. You will note your options in the 3xD personal project form. A website or social media platform can be deployment destinations in some cases.
*Note that these projects are meant to get you exposed to making with different tools in different contexts, not to have a polished project by the end of the semester that has already impacted dozens of people.
What to do and submit:
- Read about options for several places to deploy that have been provided by the instructors >>link<<
- Come up with your own place to deploy and submit options via the Personal Project Google form.
- In the form, provide a link to a google drive containing A detailed plan of your activity, including CAD drawings, programs, or other examples that have been used in getting your project in front of others.
- Present in class during the specified day on the course calendar.
- Wrap up by reflecting on your overall experience for ~2 - 5 paragraphs.
- What did you learn about yourself, about making, about people you interacted with?
What it's worth:
- Design files etc
- 10 - 14 points (max) = a well-planned and smoothly-executed engagement where participants at the given event used what you brought.
- 5 - 9.5 points = a well-executed engagement, with content that drew too closely from existing examples of work (too derivative of others' work, not enough of your own signature on the deliverables).
- 2 - 4.5 points = evidence of planning, but less-than-smooth execution at the event.
- 0 - 1.5 points = nothing submitted or more than 1 week late.
- Project presentation
- 4 - 6 points (max) = clear presentation, addressing all prompts with appropriate language and visuals.
- 2 - 3.5 points = decent presentation, addressing some, but not all prompts or limited photo evidence of work.
- 0 - 1.5 points = nothing submitted or more than 1 week late.