INDN 341: Conceptualisation

Today we came back from the first weekend away and discovered that we didn't really have much to say for the time that we spent apart from each other. But that's okay, because it's the weekend after all and it's not the end of the world.

Unfortunately Mishayla couldn't make it, so it was just Matt and myself. We still got some prime work done though, mostly in the ideation and conceptualisation areas. The reason for this was mostly due to the fact that the design I brought to the group initially as the founding concept just wasn't overly well thought through or finished. By brainstorming with the group, we have the opportunity to re-shape the project into something that we can all take lots of pride in as well as having the joy of having designed it together.

First we sought to break down what the project was, as well as what it could become. The purpose of this was to allow us to analyse each part so that we could decided between the most important segments and the parts that were not overly important right now. We're calling the project "Project Shh" for now, on the noise associated with hissing pressurised water, as well as the shushing action for encouraging silence, a connection to secrets and confessions.

By laying out like this, we actually got quite a good overview of the different aspects of the design that we might have overlooked before. By reminding ourselves of what the different aspects were, we were able to nut them out, as well as figure out which ones were silly or infeasible.

The part that we identified as being really important presently was the Chemistry of the project. The reason for this was mostly due to the fact that the entire system would depend on what sort of chemical set-up we were planning on working with. If we used a water-oriented system with water sensitive paper, then that would require a different system than a thermally sensitive paper set-up. The different concepts all brought with them their own unique set of pros and cons as well, as some ideas were distinctly better that others in that department.

After exploring some main ideas, we drifted into the notion of what the project could be if it wasn't the initial idea refined. How could we explore the concept of what the project could be without straying too far from the path? More to come soon!