Thesis Pt1

Who is Junior?

Junior is a formerly homeless man we interviewed at Common Art in Boston. He now lives in Jamaica Plain, a Bostonian neighborhood. His real first name is Jimmy, but Junior is the nickname he goes by.

The cause of his homelessness at a young age was from his father being deported after they immigrated to the United States. His parents were from Panama and Honduras. His father and him came to the United States without Junior's mother. Junior's relationship with his mother was one of hatred (hence their coming to the United States without her).

He mentioned the constant disrespect his mother treated him with. Finally, he cracked and cut her off a while ago. This was a very important decision for his life.

Thesis Pt2

What is our project and what is it based off of?

Our project will be a heavy shoe/sock which represents the hardship that Junior went through during his life. We chose footwear to show that he was still able to move forward even during the difficult times. The heavy weight represents the hardships he experienced through homelessness and problems with his family.

Conceptual Precedent

Technical Precedents

Technical Precedent

Prototype #1 Completed

We worked on the weight of the prototype, adding rocks to it to simulate heaviness.

One problem we had was how light the rocks were in the prototype. We needed something heavier that would fit the size of the shoe.

Prototype #2

Completed

We worked on a laser print of the shoe (Thanks to Matthew McAdam for the help!) and added some adjustments to the comfort of the shoe. No weight yet, but we thought of using a brick as the weight in itself

First Sketch

We only had a rough idea of what our final product would look like. We didn't even sketch the shoe's cover. We also didn't include a weight in its design.

Final Sketch

This sketch was much more detailed. We had an idea of the materials we were to use. We also had an idea for our weight, as well as specifics about the use of fabric (in terms of gluing and specific structure).

Final Progress #1

We laser-cutted the flexible wooden base of the shoe which we sketched out.

Final Progress #2

We switched the base material and wrapped some fabric around it.

Final Progress #3

We fully wrapped the fabric around the shoe, creating the sock/boot-like structure. All that was left was to add the ankle weight.

Final Product (Cinematic Shot)

We finally added the ankle weight to the shoe. This is the finishing look of our product.

Final Product (Detail Images)

Final Product (In Use) (Alex)

If we had more time, we could have made the fabric look much cleaner. This could've been possible with specific measurements and more time to undo/redo our gluing of the material. We lost our project a few times which held our progress back a lot. We had to rebuild the whole object to make this final product. There were also many times we had to reprint the lazer-cutted wooden base when it was still our idea.

Possible Improvements