Bonjour 🙂 Paris has been so fun! The weather has been pretty good (much warmer than Amsterdam) and walking around at night is nice since it doesn’t get dark until after 10 pm. So far, I have visited the Eiffel Tower, Musee D’Orsay, went to many boulangeries, and walked along the Seine multiple times. I thought Paris was going to be more touristy, but being outside of the city center has been really nice. My team and I have started producing our medium-fidelity prototype. I am refreshing my memory of CAD and learning about 3D printing. Our low-fidelity prototype was successful today! I was impressed with it since I did not think it had the strength to hold a full thermos, but it did. We still need to answer the question of how to attach the prototype to the wheelchair, and how to ensure that it will be able to hold weight when it is attached. We are still unsure of how to move the cup holder after Yousra is done using it as well.
I felt most successful in my personal contribution to the process when I was able to adapt the prototype to solve issues we hadn’t thought about before. When we printed out the designs and pasted them on cardboard, we realized that there was too much detail. Therefore, we had to make some adjustments and use wooden popsicle sticks for the arms of our project instead. Since putting holes in it would be very difficult we had to brainstorm a different way of creating a hinge for the arms. I was able to use cardboard and glue it so that the arms’ “original position” was up rather than down, which solved our issue. So far in this project, I have enjoyed seeing and understanding the mechanics of our design solution the most. This is because I don’t often see the engineering side of solutions in most of my classes, so it is nice to break things down and understand how the mechanism works. I struggled to understand the new design solution we have planned. However, while Mark was remaking the design in SolidWorks, I was able to understand it better with a visualization and the parts moving.
The highlight of the week was talking to Yousra and Vlad, and learning more about design solutions for better accessibility. I also enjoyed talking to Vlad because he doesn’t come from an engineering background, but works in design and engineering now. He told me about how he is self-taught and mostly watched YouTube videos to learn skills and really get into 3D printing and prototyping. I was excited to hear from someone who was interested in design, without an engineering background because I am in the same shoes.
For those who are visiting Paris next year, I would say to go outside and people watch. It’s nice to sit by yourself or with someone outside on a nice day in the park or at the cafe and watch how people interact with the city. I’ve noticed many differences between America, Paris, and Amsterdam, which has changed my perspective on human behavior and design. 
