Hindsight

In a 20/20 look back on the project, I am really satisfied with what we accomplished. And I do mean WE. At this time I would like to make amends with reality:

During the critique, I let my exhaustion and frustrations get the best of me. I made some exaggerated statements about doing the majority of the work. The reality is that every one worked, and this is everyone's project (everyone on the team). This was most certainly evident on the last night, as everyone stayed up for the final construction in the gallery. My frustration blinded me and ultimately I said some things that weren't true, and that I am kind of embarrassed about.
Sure, I did do a lot of the work in terms of producing the material aspect of the project, but if I felt that the work load was a problem I should have made more of an effort that discuss it with my team, And I didn't. So where I was implicitly discounting my teammates work when said those things during the critique, I should have been talking about my failure to communicate those things to my team more effectively. I just recently apologized to my team for saying that, because after that long night, I'm sure the last thing they needed to here were my complaints.

With that said, I am happy with what the team pulled off. Of course, there is room for improvement if we were to do this all over again, but it looked great in the gallery. The modularity really worked for us. Aside from being practical in terms of allowing our system to be installed in a variety of interior spaces, the modularity also made assembling the modules a much easier task. After all the work with preparing the components was done, we essentially just had to struggle to build only one module. After this initial module was built, the rest of the modules were extremely easy to assemble. Beyond this, stacking the modules into one wall was a breeze. The geometry chosen ended up working really well.

Wiring the modules was a little tedious. In a future iteration, I think that this could be addressed. In general however, it worked. The paths that were incorporated into the modules for wiring did work well. It was simply running the wires through and attaching them to their intended servos that proved time-consuming. To that end, I supposed all teams ran into the same wiring issues.

The panels also ended up looking nice. Originally, one face was going to be painted white. But in a last week revelation, the polypropylene that was laminated on, ended up providing us with a superior flat white surface. All together the acrylic, aluminum, polypropylene, and veneer created an interesting materials palette. Considering the primary variable of light, the materials combined to have an intriguing luster and transparency that I believe worked quite nicely. As you can see in the pictures, the light traveled through the acrylic very beautifully, and really emphasized the honeycomb form.

The programming worked pretty well also. Unfortunately, the power issues we were having made it hard for people to see the full function of the wall, but we were able to demonstrate the program with more than half of the modules. I am confident that if our wall was actually installed in a south facing window space, that it would impress, and preform its intended task in a way that intrigues people.

The product of this project was a quality modular system, many learned lessons about new processes (such as using the water jet), and many learned lessons about teamwork. I may have said this before, but the most valuable educational opportunity that this class presents, is the chance to work on your skills as a team player. Even if you manage to screw some things up, you may learn some things by reflecting on your mistakes. It and certainly does hurt that you end up with a portfolio quality project at the end of it as well.