The Last

Through the course I learned a lot of different things, I learned to approach people and make conversation with them and also work with different kinds of people and material. I went to Channapatna alone it was something i thought i would never be able to do. I learned a varied number of skills like shooting a movie and editing it, making tools for communication to over come the language barriers. We also learned to represent data visually, make a scenario and persona and help in enhancing someone else's business with their consent. Working with different kinds of material and prototyping. Technology was another thing that I picked up a lot about. The endless visits to SP Road and not being able to get what i want. I also learned to let things go, experiment and let the product get spoiled if it does in the process. I also started becoming aware of the value of things and the value of effort gone into each little thing. On the whole I learned the design process and it was an interesting experience and i have taken a lot from this course. The only thing that i wish was different with the course was that the work load be distributed equally through the course. i felt like we barely had any work in the beginning and towards the end of it we were bogged down with too much work but then again we are used to doing our work only in the last minute.

final products

stake holder

Time Line

Week 1:

Channapatna visits.

Getting to know the stakeholder and their view on the prototypes and if they are interested in making the product. If they are interested in making it do they think it will do well and is it feasible for them to make it? How I will step out of the project and I will only be the instigator. Get them to make samples and see how the final product will look like.

Week 2:

Get other peoples view on the product. See the response and feedback got on the product and make changes accordingly if required.

Final Brief

Background: Place of work: wooden toys in Chennapatna, when i went there for testing my tools I thought there was a lot of scope in that area as the people made only beads in that area and this also only when they had orders from the company.

Outline: Identify untapped collaboration between technology and wooden toys in Chennapatna. Hence create something which uses both.

Specifications:
-the kind of technology you have decided to work with
-consider the economy and the constraints of the place of work
-who will do the technology part

SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat):

Strength: suggests directions for research and ideation

Weakness: the kind of properties and product is not defined.

Opportunity: leaves the nature of the product open to creativity.

Threat: the transportation and the place of consumption.

Table Lamp With Fan-2

In this prototype i have corrected things that went wrong last time. I have put the wire through the pipe so it doesn't show and used smaller switches. The use of only one rod has made it more stable and the adapter makes the fan also run on electricity. In the previous one only the bulb would run on power the fan was running on battery. And for the packaging is done with corrugated cardboard.

Table Lamp With Fan-1

I decided to work with light in this project with wood. I made a prototype of what i expected the Channapatna artisans to make. I made it out of wood but they wood make it out of wood. It is a different concept of having a fan on table lamp. But I dint get many things right in this prototype like the wiring, switches and stability.

Pencil Box With Light

A pencil box which also serves as a table light. All you have to do is open the pencil box and press the button to switch the light on. This not only makes a new product for the Channapatna people artisans but also serves as an attraction for kids. The packaging is done with corrugated cardboard.

Product Ideas And Feasibility

I went to Sutradhar, Mother Earth and Maya organic to get somethings that I could probably work with and that would be made in Channapatna. I got an assortment of things. Some of the things i got and the ideas for it are:

Photo-frame: I thought it would me nice to have a button on the photo frame and if u press that it gives you a message or tells you the name of the person in the photo. Another suggestion that I was given for this was to maybe make the photo appear when a person stands in front of the photo frame for more than 30 seconds. But these circuits could take very long to make and cannot be done in 3 to 4 weeks.

Parrot: This toy works with the movement of the ball which is hanging, when this happens the birds beak bangs the wooden piece on which it is sitting and creates a knocking sound. I thought if we use something to amplify this sound and use it as a knocker outside doors instead of a normal bell that everyone has. This doesn't really work because it will just be removing an amplifier from something else and putting it in this.

Wooden Blocks: These are the shape blocks with which little children play to recognise two shapes which are the same. I had thought of using sound with this toy. everytime you put a correct shape in the correct place it would say the name of the shape. so the child doesn't get familiar only with the shape but the name of the shape as well. This again cannot not be done in 3 to 4 weeks. It needs a lot more time for this thing to work.

Top: Use one of the Channapatna toys and cut of the bottom n put a pen there instead for it to rotate on. When the top rotates it will make very interesting designs.

Jewelry Box: Have an alarm with motion sensor and light. If you don't open the jewelry box in a certain way the alarm goes on. When you open the box the light also comes on so that your jewelry is clearly visible. This product is not feasible as it works out to be very expensive. The alarm costs Rs400 and the motion sensor another 250 and the light and battery another 50, then you have the cost of the box and velvet as well.

Pencil Caps: A bunch of wooden pencil caps would be used on a platform and it would have some sort of mechanism under it which would make them topple over every-time the noise level goes up and they would stand back up when the noise level is low again.

Wooden Jar: This would capture the essence of the place. If you opened the lid and tilted the jar it would be able to record a sound and if u help it straight again it would play back that sound. This was interesting to capture the essence of a place. But the things needed for this circuit is not available right now.

Scale: A wooden scale which would beep if it shook while drawing a line.

Pencil Box: A pencil box which would open up and work as a table lamp as well. This idea seems feasible and i have made a prototype for it.

Table Light: A table light with a fan also attached to it. It has the light on one side and the fan on the other. A table lamp is something which I haven't seen people in Channapatna making. it will be a completely new product for them. This product is also feasible and i have made a prototype of it with bamboo.

analyzing the project scope

RESOURCES:

Channapatna toy makers (wood) and electricians (electronics).

BUSINESS MODEL:

Make Channapatna toys with added value of technology.

SCOPE:

Enhancing and increasing the value of things made in Channapatna.

How is the livelihood aspect being placed in your project?

The project proposes to enhance the products made by the Channapatna craftsman and also use the skill of electricians at the same time, this increases the income for both the electrician and the craftsmen.

How do you justify this?

The project proposes to enhance the product and hence increase the price of the product which results to a corresponding increase in the income of both the communities working on it.

Do an analysis of the economy behind the proposed livelihood.

The cost of raw materials, machinery, packaging and transportation is all included in the price of the product over which a profit is earned.

What is your role as an innovator or an art and design practitioner in this project?

As an art and design practitioner, my role in the project would be to put together technology and wooden products in such a way that they compliment each other and increase the income of the people working on it.

What is the scope of your project? Is it too much or too little for the time and resource available?

The project could have a small outcome in the space of the time and resources available – like the creation of small things things like pencil boxes which record homework or a traditional jar where you can capture a particular space by capturing the sound of that place. The time is not enough to work on bigger more complicated circuits.

Identify stakeholders - direct and indirect. (people who benefit from this or is involved in this) user, provider, etc.

USER:

Students

Tourist

Individual who owns jewelry

PROVIDER:

Channapatna craftsmen

Electrician

INTERMEDIARIES:

Shops like Mother Earth, Maya Organic and Sutradhar

Brief (third draft)

Background: Place of work: wooden toys in Chennapatna, when i went there for testing my tools I thought there was a lot of scope in that area as the people made only beads in that area and this also only when they had orders from the company.

Outline: Identify untapped collaboration between technology and wooden toys in Chennapatna. Hence create something which uses both.

Specifications:
-define the kind of properties of wood you are going to work on
-consider the economy and the constraints of the place of work
-define the full potential of the materials you ll be working with through experience and research.

SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat):

Strength: suggests directions for research and ideation

Weakness: the kind of properties and product is not defined.

Opportunity: leaves the nature of the product open to creativity.

Threat: the transportation and the place of consumption.

Brief (second draft)

Background:

Place of work: wooden toys in Chennapatna and pottery in Narayanpura.

Outline:

Identify untapped collaboration between pottery in Narayanpura and wooden toys in Chennapatna. Hence create a network that would connect these two industries such that it is beneficial to both industries.

Specifications:
-define the kind of network
-consider the economy and the constraints of the place of work
-define the full potential of the materials you ll be working with through experience and research.

SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat):

Strength: suggests directions for research and ideation

Weakness: very vague as to what exactly the "collaboration" should be.

Opportunity: leaves the nature of the network open to creativity.

Threat: the people who have access to transport and communication between these two industries may be benefitted instead of poor artisans.

Feedback:

-History or art and design?

-What angle should i bring into it?

-Look up things which have already been done based on this idea.

-don't connect them for the sake of connecting them, look for viable links.

-tie in cultural function along with economic function.

Brief (first draft)

Background: Area of work wooden toys in Chennapatna and pottery in Narayanpura.

Outline: Identify untapped collaboration between pottery in Narayanpura and wooden toys in Chennapatna. Hence create a network that would connect these two industries such that it is beneficial to both industries.

Specifications:

-define the kind of network

-consider the economy and the constraints of the place of work

-define the full potential of the materials you ll be working with through experience and research.

Guessing the Brief (edited)

The product that I kept in front of me while thinking of the brief is the new plugin ear phones.

Background:

The earphone we have right now hurt the ears when you wear them for too long and they are not able to cut off the sounds around you.

Project Definition:

Come up with a new design of ear phones which will block out the noise around you. The design should be such that it doesn't hurt your ears. While doing this keep in mind that the cost should not greatly differ from the cost of the present ear phones. It should be portable and light like the ear phones we have right now.

SWOT (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats) Analysis:(on brief)

The strength is the specific need of the customer.

The weakness is that the material to be used can't be pin pointed.

The opportunity would be the free use of any material and design.

The threat is that the brief would make existing designs completely obsolete.

Guessing the Brief

The product that I kept in front of me while thinking of the brief is the new plugin ear phones.

Background:

The earphone we have right now hurt the ears when you wear them for too long and they are not able to cut off the sounds around you.

Project Definition:

Come up with a new design of ear phones which will block out the noise around you. The material you use should be soft and the design should be such that it doesn't hurt your ears. While doing this keep in mind that the cost should not greatly differ from the cost of the present ear phones. It should be portable and light like the ear phones we have right now.

SWOT (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats) Analysis:

The strengths are comfort and cutting out of noise.

The weakness is that the kind of material to be used needs to be researched upon.

The opportunities would be the free use of any material and design. The comfort of the ear phones will definitely draw the public towards it.

The threat is it could turn out to be more expensive than the one existing right now.

Sandur, Bellary

Making The Documentary

Coming to a Concept
Out of whatever we saw there in Sandur that day something which really interested us was how there music and dance is intertwined with their work. How their recreation is self generated and sets a tone for their work all along the day. So we decided that we would document this entire system of how they come up with songs and how all the women join in to create a beautiful and healthy atmosphere to work in.

Planning
I think our first day experience really helped us to actually chalk out the entire plan for the documentary. We thought of bringing in different elements of their music together so as to give the full picture. So we went back to what we saw during our first visit.

• they were singing songs related to different things- weather, what they were making, then some festival, then a song of a lover etc.
• all of them seemed to know all the songs
  
• most of the songs had similar tunes and rhythms
  
• they instantly came up with this song of this girl trying on a belt, when one of us was actually trying on a belt
• all of them readily agreed to dance for us

so all these observations became a source of our questions as well as elements that our documentary needed to cover.

Location
We chose to work in the centre itself because our entire documentarycentred around how their music and work was intertwined and centre was the most appropriate place so many women working on their traditional craft.

Documenting


One of the biggest advantages we had was that most of the women in the centre could understand as well as speak Hindi. So explaining to them , what we were doing wasn't that difficult. Though we did plan how and what we wanted to shoot , still a lot of our documentary was being built on the spot. Our questions to them were of course what we thought of but things like them making up a song on our bangles and them dancing to a song which was about we being there were just spontaneous and probably that marks the beauty of their culture.
It was our first experience in shooting so we did commit certain mistakes but I guess by the end of it we pretty much figured out what we had to keep in mind while shooting.

Editing
We used the Adobe software "Premier Pro" to edit our documentary.Until we started editing none of us had ever opened this software. So it was like a trial and error method which went on for an entire night before we could actually figure out how to edit a movie the way you want. It was quite a complicated process as we didn't realise that we were shooting from different cameras which had different settings. So it was only while we were editing we came to know that half our footagewere to be converted into the same format and the same frame rate. After fiddling with these softwares for such a long time we finally finished our documentary just to start another day of shooting and editing with this time having no idea as to what needs to be done.

Feedback
There were specifically two things that were told to us for our documentary:

• There should have been subtitles especially when they were explaining the meaning of the songs. Since our entire documentary centres around music it was important for us that their meaning reach the viewers.
• another thing that we were told was that we were tyring to show too much in a very short time. like either we should have been in the frame for a longer time or shouldn't have been in it at all. we should have been more focused in terms of what we are capturing .
  

The Fiction

We were all pretty confused as to what needed to be done for this film. I mean in the fiction where would the element of that place come in and how fictitious it could be. Then finally we were told that the place can just be an inspiration and we could spin a story around that.

Coming to a Concept
All five days of our stay, we kind of focused on these women working in the center and it was quite obvious that these women are very happy with their work and many of them had gone out to exhibitions and classes because of the work they do. so we came up with this entire discussion of how we think that education today is the basis of any survival or livelihood, but how these women without being educated and just sticking to their craft have also found a tool to move foward and grow.

Location
The railway track- the tracks made a sought of physical as well as mental boundaries for the women in the village. The train that often passes through is the only way of seeing the outside world. So it was the most appropriate place to show how women who have always longed to go out of their boundary finally does that using her craft. At the same time the entire track was covered in red sand which went quite well with this entire village , Sandur.

Storyline
there is a girl who spends a lot of time on the railway track playing around thinking, watching trains pass by. She never crosses the railway track and always stays on her side of the world. She often comes across these alphabets written on the red sand but she doesn't know what do they mean. So every time she erases those alphabets and makes her own embroidery designs there , and sits and thinks for hours together. Until one day when she finally decides not to erase the alphabets and connect them to make designs and while doing this unknowingly she crosses the tracks.

Shooting
shooting this was a little difficult because it was a very busy railway crossing. We used our normal digital cameras and a lot of times we had to restart the entire short because something or the other kept coming in between. So we took each scene from two angles so that we could see which one would work better as this was a place where shooting for a long time wasn't possible.

Editing
this time we were more familiar with the software but It was much more difficult because we had to decide what to cut out without disturbing the flow of the narrative. It was a different experience editting this time because this time the trasitions were different. We had to be careful of what to play for what time. so there was a ot learnt while editing. A lot more than cutting and putting transitions. I actually realize how important editting is.

Feedback
In the movie we need to work on a lot of things. They couldn't really make any sense out of it whereas movie should always be self explanatory.

• we need to be more focused, as in we had a lot of element telling their own story at the same time.
• also the concept was really far fetched and it neede to be more direct and clear.
• it did not communicate anything.
  
• it cannot be used as a source of information about that place.(infact this is something we didn't even think of while making the film that even this fiction would finally be used as a resource )
• the perspective was very wrong. if left and right of the track played such an important role in the movie then they should have been defined very clearly.
  

Suggestions
we could work a little more on the drawings that the girl made on the ground.