My name is Zaria Smalls and A.B. Design Engineering and Social Change candidate at Harvard, graduating in May 2019. My course of study looks at the intersection of technology and social change to see how historically tech has inhibited or promoted social change and at current design processes through hands-on course work to look at how intentional design can create positive social change. I am taking this class to improve on my digital fabrication skills to help throughout the design process; however, I do not think I will tackle a project for social change in my final project. I am interested in creating a piece of furniture -- possibly a smart mirror with capacitive input controls as a way to excercise my skills learned in this course.

Update 10/3/2018

I have actually decided to change my final project idea to create a pinball machine. I think I have realized that the best way for me to learn these fabrication skills is to remove myself from my normal ideal of designing for social change. I am doing this because I think I won't be able to effectively balance both tasks with such a steep learning curve. However, designing for personal project gives me more room to fail, iterate and test. As such, I have chosen the pinball machine which I am able to build aspects of, over the next couple of weeks.

Check out Week 6 to see the pinball cabinet being built. Week 8 will feature me casting the game part from solenoid like pieces to corners for the ball to bounce off of.

Update 10/20/2018

This week I order parts for my pinball machine's playfield: 5 Kicker Switch 2 Pop Bumper 1 Ball Shooter 3 Buttons I am also currently working on creating a simulation for my pinball machine with Visual Pinball