Author Archives: Gian Luis Delgado

The Do’s and Don’ts of Twitter

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WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT TWITTER?

About_logoUsage

Twitter is a great platform to not only share your posts with your followers, but also to reach out to larger and harder-to-reach audiences. This is why today, you’ll see Twitter used in a variety of contexts including lecture halls, conference rooms, concerts, parks, etc. A Twitter feed is like one giant conversation with thousands of topics to discuss, welcoming ease dropping and interjection. You just need to know how to find the right audiences to speak with and speak to them in a way they’ll listen to you. Here are some do’s and don’ts that will help you maximize your use of your account when entering the twitter-sphere of digital making.

DO’S:

  • Polish your profile. Even if your account for this course is separate from your personal account, brand it accordingly. Treat it like your LinkedIn; put yourself out there in the same way you would on a platform where you’re engaging in professional and academic conversations. Have a profile picture, cover photo, and interesting bio. No one wants to engage with a boring egg.
  • Build your digital making community. Start out by following thought leaders and organizations talking about digital making. I’ve begun to do this, so you can get a head start by checking out who I’m following.
  • Tweet your work. We’re on the forefront of a HUGE maker movement; tweeting screenshots of your projects or photos of what you’ve made is a great way to showcase our class work.
  • Call people out. Yes, tweet directly at thought leaders and comment on their posts! This is a great way to get noticed by big players in digital making and also to express your interest/expertise in the area.
  • Tweet often! How do you expect people to engage with you if you’re never speaking to anyone? Tweet out your thoughts of digital making, articles you find, retweet interesting posts, and favorite others’ posts.

DON’TS:

  • #Go #crazy #with #hashtags. When tweeting, 2 hashtags should be used – MAX. Studies on hashtag use have found that using more than 2-3 hashtags in a post actually decreases engagement with a post.
  • Use #random hashtags. Use relevant hashtags that people in the digital making and 3D printing space are using. A great resource is TagBoard. On this website, you can see how often people are using this hashtag per hour/day/week and see what the most recent posts are that used this hashtag (across all SM platforms, not just Twitter; you can filter though).
  • TWEET LIKE THIS!!! Exclamatory messages are great for instant messaging, but not so great for Twitter. Nothing wrong with using an occasional exclamation point, but all-caps should always be avoided. Fun Fact: It actually takes people longer to read words in all-caps due to the fact that all-caps gives words a box-like shape, which makes them more indistinguishable from other words to the brain.
  • Be annoying. You definitely want to interact with other users on Twitter, but don’t assault them with tweets. Tweet at people once in a while and if they’re not responding, perhaps begin retweeting or favoring their posts – a more subtle form of interaction.

Some Amusing Resources/Reminders:

 

Week 3: Design for America Workshop

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Learning About Human-Centered Design

The Design for America workshop kicked off by discussing the nature of design and the significant role design plays in developing new and innovative products. The workshop took our class through a series of stages in the design process that enabled us to come up with a creative solution to the problem of distracted driving. The unique structure of the process enabled us to really think through the multiple steps of solving a problem with a tangible solution. The experience was also coupled with various exercises that challenged us to think in abstract ways. However, the activities uniquely required us to produce something or create something, which is a specific method of thought that was necessary in order to effectively go through the entire workshop and devise a solution to the distracted driving problem.

Design Workshop

Explaining our web of ideas and concepts

 

Using Design Thinking in Making

This workshop taught us a wealth of skills that will translate directly in our work making and producing objects. The techniques we learned to lay out our ideas and processes that enable a cluster of thought to tangibly become an object will be incredibly useful for us in the coming weeks as we begin to make things in a variety of platforms. The workshop also stressed the need for rapid and iterative prototyping when coming up with a design. This will be crucial to understand in our making endeavors because we will likely be creating and printing many different kinds of prototypes before actually being able to have a finalized product or object.

Design Thinking and The Future

In the coming weeks, I will specifically be applying these principles to making practical, but creative objects that can leverage the customization aspect of digital making. I’m also very interested in learning more about the scope of Design for America and the different environments they conduct these workshops in. I think that learning these principles is immensely beneficial and I believe that they could easily be integrated within a variety of curriculums. Knowing how to take a cluster of ideas and transform them into a tangible solution is a skill that is only becoming increasingly more necessary in today’s dynamic and technology-filled economy. The need for innovative thinkers who can quickly and effectively come up with solutions that fix a problem we see around us is growing. Hopefully more workshops like these and courses like this will continue to arise to meet this widening demand.

To Make or Not to Make – Week 2

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I found the class’ emphasis on making by adapting currently existing designs incredibly beneficial and important. Often times, makers feel like they need to create a design out of thin air, which can often result in a product or item that has no utility or benefit to others. Our discussions epitomized the significance of asking the question:

Should I make this or not?

This does not necessarily mean that every object or item produced using 3D printing or other digital making softwares need a practical or lucrative purpose, but it most have some kind of purpose. If something is made simply for the sake of utilizing the resources that are available, it does not maximize the capabilities that these resources can provide. This reminds us to engage in design thinking, which enables us to think deeply about the nature of what we want to make and how it can impact others.

The presentation from Prof. Peppler shed light upon the enormity of the maker movement and how it is revolutionizing education. Schools across the country are implementing unique kinds of materials in order to teach students by empowering them to create and innovate. This is a breakthrough that is resulting in a generation of design thinkers who approach problems tactically with a hands-on approach. This significance of this development will be seen as the students experiencing these unique curriculums go into the workforce and are able to apply these unique aptitudes. The maker movement is continuing to produce more and more of these kinds of thinkers every day and the opportunities for growth in this industry appear to be endless.

4 Products I Would ‘Make’ Slightly Differently

1. Bag Holder

The bag holder is essentially a handle with hooks that can hold grocery bags. I love this design, but I think it could be modified to address the problem people encounter with the comfort of carrying various bags. If the handle had a grip made up of flexible material, I think the product would be improved by having added comfort on the handle.

2. ZipPad

The ZipPad is a wonderful idea – often times, zippers become difficult to use due to the nature of the material it is made out of. This would enable users to functionally use the zipper regardless of what is covering their hands. I think that adding an additional rung in the middle of the zipper hole would decrease the likelihood that the zipper wouldn’t be able to be grabbed, in addition to the unique material used to make it.

3. Snow Scooter Shoe

The snow scooter shoe seems like a very practical device for areas saturated in snow. It also seems like an amusing item to have to traverse snowy areas. I personally would make the platform that touches the ground wider in order to obtain a greater sense of balance if this device was used to potentially ride down a mountain or inclined surface.

4. Ice Scraper

This Ice Scraper is great to use for smaller areas on a windshield that don’t require a longer pole to get to. I think that the actual device itself also has an interesting printed design with its grooves. However, I think adding just a little bit more distance between the handle and the ice scraper would prevent ice from getting on an individual’s hand. Additionally, making the scraper thicker could add to the force scraping the ice and seeing as this is such a small design intended to get those difficult areas, the force will be an important factor in the item’s success.