Reflect on at least three takeaways that you learned from creating your project.

1. In the process of fabricating the poncho, I acquired fundamental sewing skills by hands. I particularly absorbed much knowledge about sewing when I designed the hood of the poncho.

2. As I interviewed Joan who overcame many hardships during WWII, I got a better understanding of the lifestyle of people at that time, as well as Joan's personal feelings and experience.

3. After the mid-review, I received feedback from many coaches who had different thoughts about my project. The various suggestions shifted the direction of our product and enhanced our work. Whenever I was working on my project, I could realize the importance of feedback. I learned that getting feedback allows us to ensure if we are taking effective actions to achieve our goal.

Explain what was difficult for you during this process and why.

Since I worked mostly on posting and showing constant progress on Nuvu, it was difficult for me to ensure that all of the required elements are covered through my writing and sketch. 

Talk about feedback that you received and how you were able to incorporate that into your process.  

After our presentation in mid-review, we were told to add a hood to the poncho that blocks users' views. This visual effect will enable the users to experience Joan's hopeless emotion when she confronted with WWII. Because I was in charge of incorporating the idea of hood into our process, I started with measuring the head size of Sebastian to make the base of the hood. Then, Will Faucett helped me to add another layer to the hood using the leftover materials. At last, we completed the hood that will narrow and darken the sight of users.

I learned how to sew, what a service flag was, and more about the effects of WWII on people in Massachusetts specifically. Sewing is a skill that I will definitely use in my life. Nobody in our group knew what the service flag was until Joan explained it to us. I also had only learned about WWII in Hawaii, Japan, and Europe so it was interesting to learn more about it in a specific place. It was difficult to sew everything together because of the lack of thread and tough materials. We received feedback about removing snip its of letters and adding a hood representing "light at the end of the tunnel". We chose to incorporate the hood and took away the letters and added the flag.

1. I was able to sew.

2. I had an impact on Joan.

3. I learned how to interview someone and have compassion.

I think it was difficult to stay on top of the project as some of the assignments were weird to look at because they were not on my fessy.

My group received the feedback of taking the letters that Joan would have written off the poncho. Although we wanted to keep the letters on we took them off and I think the project was better without them.

Will Faucett:

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a preemptive attack on the United States Naval base in Honolulu, Hawaii, by the Empire of Japan’s Naval Air Service on Sunday morning of December 7, 1941. Hirohito, the 124th Emperor of Japan, was the individual that ordered the attack. The attack was carried out by Japanese Kamikaze pilots who made deliberate suicidal crashes into the enemy targets. “After two hours of bombing, 18 U.S. ships were sunk or damaged, 188 U.S. aircraft were destroyed, and 2,403 people were killed.” The attack was Japan’s declaration of war on the United States and the British Empire, and was what forced the U.S. to join the war.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the President during the war. FDR was known for his “Fireside Chats” which were radio broadcasts of him updating the public on the war. Since there were no televisions at the time, every household had a radio that they would listen to every night. On December 8th, 1941, one day after Japan's attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, President FDR gave his “Infamy Speech”.  President Roosevelt talked about the attacks the prior day as “a date that will live in infamy”.

Sebastian Goldberg:

Pearl Harbor and World War II affected lots of people on the U.S. homefront in many ways. After the attack the country introduced rationing, women had to go to work, manufacturing changed, and African Americans played a new role.

Rationing was a big deal for Americans. Tires, gas, and bikes were all rationed. The reason for this was so that the military would have the rubber, metal, and gas they needed for all their ships and planes. Foods that were rationed included sugar, coffee, meats, canned milk, canned fish, fats, and cheese. People on the U.S. homefront started planting “victory gardens” (gardens planted in someone's backyard) after Pearl Harbor. Americans would get 60% of their produce from their gardens.

Haruki Ono:

The interviewee was in first grade when she listened to FDR's fireside chat where she heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor as well as the start of World War II. The Fireside Chats were delivered through the radio from 1933 to 1944 by Franklin D. Roosevelt. Essentially, the only source of live information citizens had access to was through radio. Therefore, during FDR speech, every family huddled around the radio to be aware of any updated information about the war.

The war dramatically changed people's lives because the government put constraints on the availability of food, gas, etc. Another prominent consequence of the war was the blackout curtains that were provided to citizens. The shades were made to prevent the light from going outside so that any attackers could not identify the city so easily at night. "Civil Defense" were people who volunteered in ensuring that there was no conspicuous light that was coming out of buildings.

Sources:

https://www.worldbookonline.com/student-new/#/search/world%20war%20II/type/ar?searchType=basicsearch

https://www.nps.gov/articles/the-wwii-home-front.htm

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/rationing

http://www.ushistory.org/documents/infamy.htm

https://www.britannica.com/event/Pearl-Harbor-attack

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequences_of_the_attack_on_Pearl_Harbor

https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/fireside-chats

As artists and creators, our group focused on Joan's sensory experience at the beginning of World War II. In the interview, Joan talked about the burdensome life she had to overcome during World War II with a lot of restrictions and regulations. Since Joan was in first grade at that time, life without her relatives was strenuous. When she missed her uncles, she often wrote letters to her uncles in the war. From her interview, we first designed a few products that will have sensational effects that allow users to connect with Joan's experience. The direction that we took was to fabricate a poncho that expresses the heavy, tough situation in her life.  The design on the outer layer of the poncho will also have visual effects on the users. To make this feasible, we have sewn clothes with a sewing machine, then attached some sandbags to the bottom layer to increase the weight of the poncho. By using black cloth, the product can also symbolize the blackout shades that were used at the time to prevent lights from escaping the buildings, so that attackers cannot identify the towns so easily.  She shared how her family hated the ugly shades but were forced to have them down at night.

"The deep sense of depression tightened her heart and took away her enthusiasm. The cracking sound from the radio reached her ears giving her an ominous premonition. The noise abruptly turned her face into a pale and bewildered look. The family huddled closer in astonishment. The melancholy mood filled the air."

"The sharp pen slid across the white surface, leaving black ink like footprints. The letter expressed emotions and opinions toward her daily life. Her resilience impressed her uncles in the war."

Reflect on at least three takeaways that you learned from creating your project.

1. I became more familiar with the laser cutter and 3d printer

2. I learned how to incorporate senses into a physical project

3. I learned more about presenting skills and how to explain my ideas

Explain what was difficult for you during this process and why.

It was hard to make a project based on one moment/theme rather than focusing on her entire life. There were many interesting things that Dorothy experienced and we had to pick one. 

Talk about feedback that you received and how you were able to incorporate that into your process.  

Most of the feedback we received was about how we needed to focus on one specific aspect of Dorothy's life, not her entire life. This was hard because this feedback came more than halfway through the project. We had to change our idea and focus on one specific moment/theme in her life, which turned out to be independence and ambition. Some other feedback we got was to steer away from the suitcase idea. We took this feedback and made our project into more of an installation, which made it much more appealing to the eye, and easy to observe and interact with. 

In 1942 Dorothy was born. She grew up with her brother in suburban long island. She enjoyed playing tennis and playing made up games in Long Island. She eventually moved to New York City at a publishing company for years, and she moved to Long Island again. She didn't like her position at a job, and most of the men were taking the opportunity. She quit her job and wanted o leave New York. Her brother moved to Boston 3 years earlier than her. She decided to move to Boston and try something new. When she first moved to Boston, she couldn't find a job and had to work at places that she didn't like. She worked as a recruiter in Bay State College. 

Dorothy was born in 1942. She grew up in Merrick Long Island with her younger brother. In the 50's she moved to a suburban neighborhood with her family. In the 50's when lots of men were coming back from the war they wanted to move to the suburbs buy a big house and move on with their lives. Dorothy worked in Long Island as an assistant Vice President. In he 60's it was very rare for a woman to have such an important role in a company. She also worked for a publishing company in New York City. In the age that she was working lots of women were unhappy and out of work but Dorothy was being ambitious and jumping from job to job.

https://www.britannica.com/event/womens-movement

We created the Independence Suitcase for Dorothy because we wanted to represent the independence and accomplishments she had throughout her life. Our goal was to allow Dorothy to be able to touch and see different moments from her childhood. She moved to Boston after living in New York for 47 years and left a stable job behind. She was denied a promotion three times despite her hard work and perseverance, and after the third time it finally put her over the edge.  She left her job and moved to New York in 1989. This took a lot of courage and it demonstrated her independence. Since Dorothy traveled a lot, we figured a suitcase would represent those moments well. So we decided to pick a few very important moments in her and build small models of them inside the suitcase, so that Dorothy would be able to interact with it. The process has many steps, like building the suitcase, out of laser cut wood. Next we have to 3-D print small model versions of the places she traveled, and things she experienced. It was hard to design the individual pieces but with a great outline set up, we were able to get it done. 

I sat in the office lobby infuriated. My face was red and I was about to explode. It was the second time this year they had denied me the job and I was done. I stormed out of the building with tears stinging my eyes. I decided to leave it all behind.

During this project, there were a lot of bumps in the road but it smoothly paved out towards the end. I learned a lot of things during this project and one of the main things was being able to spray paint. During our process, we used spray paint a lot because Beth liked the rainbow because it really spoke out to her and gave her a good feeling and hope. I had spraypainted with many different colors and mixing and dotting with this spray paint it turned out to be a beautiful design. It was very difficult at first because I had no idea what to do and what the safety precautions were but with a little help from some of my friends I got the hang of it.

 The second most important thing was time management which was the most difficult because of school visits and classes I and Jimmy had together. But Mrs. Vulgaris was a huge help and I don't know what I would have done without her. But overall I understand time management a lot better and this will also help me in the next school I go to.

My biggest takeaway is definitely on how to work in groups and how to manage your time with your partner's. This was the hardest thing for me because Jimmy and I didn't have too many classes together. So that meant we had to make schedules on what to do for the days. Also, we had school visits which did not help either. 

Even though this process was really hard the feedback that we got was amazing. The mid review changed our whole project which I wasn't fully on but when I saw the beauty in this project I knew it was the way to go. Mrs. Vulgaris helped me during the second half of the project a lot with the presentation and some of the prototypes. Also, Mr. Minehart helped a lot with the artistic statement and historical context. Without this feedback from teachers, I don't know what I would have done.