Final Project

Presentation Due: May 9, 2024

Documentation Due: May 14, 2024 (link to submission form)

Deliverable

The goal of your final project is to show me that you have a grasp of the materials, concepts, skills, and knowledge that we learned over the semester. Other than that, there is no prompt or rule set for the project – it is open. You can do an in depth study of a process or material, create an object, etc. You can also iterate on a project that you want to revisit from earlier in the semester. You may combine it with other classes, but you MUST clear it with me first.

In addition to the project, you must create a tutorial for all or a subset of your project. This can take any form you like – video, zine, Instructable, book, essay, photo essay, etc. See below for more details.

Key Dates

Final Proposals due 4/25

I will meet with each of you over Zoom for 10 minutes to review your final project proposal. I will send a spreadsheet with timings the week of 4/18. We will not meet as a full class in person, but you should plan to work on your project during that time. For the meeting, you should come ready with:

  • a brief description explaining the concept and implementation
  • a material list
  • circuit diagram
  • at least one prototype (it can be paper, technical, material, etc)
  • a brief description of how you plan to create your tutorial 

You can write it with images and diagrams, create a video recording, draft a slideshow, etc. This can be informal, but it should still communicate to me what you are attempting to accomplish.

Final Shareout due Thursday 5/9

Everyone is required to 

  • Share a 2-3 minute rapid demo. Slides not necessary. If you require a specific environment, please let me know ahead of time.
  • Participate in a small group share out and debugging.

Documentation + Tutorial due Monday 5/14 by 9 pm EST

Document your project on a personal blog, in a Google doc, or another easily readable format that you can submit via the Google form. It must include the elements below:

  • The link to documentation of your tutorial. (see below)
  • A short description of the project and its goals/main concept.
  • Any other documentation links.
  • A short reflection on your process. What were your wins, challenges? What did you learn? Where would you take it next?

Submit your documentation to this Google Form.

I will not accept late submissions without prior permission.

Tutorial

The tutorial can take any form – get creative. The goal is to create useful documentation that someone else could use for inspiration or to recreate your project (either as a whole or in part). If your project is complex, you may only do a tutorial for one part of it (e.g. how you built a heating circuit with a particular design) or you may work on explaining one difficult or tricky concept (e.g. voltage dividers). Here are the components you must include:

  • Title
  • Description. What does it do? Who is it made for? Why did you make it? What motivated it? etc.
  • Circuit diagrams. This doesn’t have to be a schematic – it can be a drawing – but it does need to be clear.
  • Process diagrams/images of how to make it
  • Materials and tools list
  • Images/video (include link if tutorial is a physical object) of final outcome

Examples