My first week in Paris has been very dynamic, although in a different way than Amsterdam. While Amsterdam was mostly about moving around and visiting as many places as possible, in Paris we’ve been mostly visiting specific places, and we’ve been spending a lot of time in shopping malls. Paris so far has been a lot more relaxing than what I thought it would be, which has been really nice. It’s also been a lot hotter, although that should be changing soon.
When going to the big monuments here, there have been a few times where I’ve been in awe of what I was watching, even though I had seen it before, just because of how spectacular it is. Going to the Eiffel Tower in the middle of the night to see it sparkle and shine was incredible, and seeing it lit up against the backdrop of the calm, serene night as opposed to the hustle and bustle of the day really made a difference. While big monuments are certainly an important aspect of the Paris experience, something that we often take for granted is the food we can eat on a daily basis. I feel that we’ve gone to a different crepe place every day, and it only gets better and better every day. I’ve been trying to limit myself more recently so that I don’t get tired of the crepes, but they’re so good I’ve been having a hard time stopping myself. That being said, I had never had a full meal in a crepe before, so I’m taking advantage of it before I have to go back to Houston. On the topic of food, going to the market for class and trying out different kinds of food has been a blast. Every time I go to a market, I feel a wave of nostalgia hit as I remember going to the corner market every Sunday, and the ability to do so during class time just makes it all the better.
Going to the market is not the only kind of shopping we’ve been doing. Surprisingly, going shopping with my groups has been a lot more enjoyable than I thought. I had thought originally that it would just be us running to different convenience stores and doing whatever it takes to get the materials as quickly and efficiently as possible, but we’ve taken this shopping spree in stride. If there’s a store that looks interesting to us, we go in, and that’s already resulted in two net positives as we’ve found materials that we thought we couldn’t find anywhere else. As an example, we were looking for a specific kind of EVA foam for us to use a replacement for the texture of meat. We couldn’t find it anywhere, so eventually we just gave up and decided to find replacements. Afterwards, we went to a sports store just to browse around, and wouldn’t you know it, we found the exact block of EVA foam we were looking for before, and now we can make a lot more progress in our design thanks to our spontaneous decision making and careful observation.
While building the rest of our prototype and testing it with our meat replacement materials, we noticed a crucial issue that needed addressing. Our meat guillotine, which was going to serve as the basis for our prototype with us adding some modifications to make it more accessibility-friendly, did not function properly. Instead of following the wooden guide meant to make it more safe for the user, the blade of the guillotine chips against the wooden protective surface that’s meant to help with the cutting. We are going to have to figure out how to solve this problem in earnest, as we can not improve the specifics of our design at all when its fundamentals don’t even work as they’re supposed to.
Making this design really makes me understand that tools that are meant to make life easier can also sometimes make them more unnecessarily complicated through over-engineering. A complex problem may need a complex solution, but that doesn’t mean that the complex solution shouldn’t be easy to use. Instead, in our case, the solution is so complex that half of it doesn’t even work. So, we would make sure that before trying to solve any extra issues that are only barely non-trivial, we look at all the very basic issues and make sure that our solution is uniquely designed to solve those basic issues at its fullest potential.
I feel that I was the most successful at contributing to this process when we had finished brainstorming, and needed to combine certain ideas to create a final product. I think that for what I lack in productive creativity, I make up for in zany ideas, most of which don’t work, but the few that do can often make a sizable difference. For that reason, brainstorming original ideas is the process that I enjoy the most, even though that means that by the time we have to discuss our ideas, about half of them are either nonsensical, infeasible or downright ridiculous. However, of the 20 or so ludicrous ideas I have, all it takes is one of them to work to make a new, intriguing solution.
I struggled the most when one of my pitches for an idea was replaced with another one. Even though I know I’m not supposed to, I grow easily attached to my ideas, and even though my brain may recognize that my design is not objectively the best, my heart wants my design to go all the way through. For the final part of the decision making process for the design, my concept was pitted against a simpler, more traditional one to decide which one would move on. A fierce believer in my own creations, I continued to defend my concept, even as it became more and more clear that we would not be able to construct it in the time frame that was permitted. Eventually, I had to resign myself to the fact that my idea does not fit this process, and I’m glad that I was able to stop myself because even the more simple idea that we chose has proven to be quite difficult in the end.
The highlight of the week so far has been when we first began prototyping our design. When unpacking our design, we became fearful due to the numerous complications it had, and we weren’t sure it would work at all. However, when we wrapped up our proxy material in a baking sheet and cut through it, there was a small sense of joy and accomplishment in the fact that our theory was correct, even if there was a lot of road to go. Being able to actually be a part of making something and seeing your design grow and flourish is really exhilarating, and even if it’s a small accomplishment, it’s an accomplishment nonetheless.
For the future iSEED participants coming to Amsterdam, I have this to say to you; you’ll have time to enjoy Amsterdam, so enjoy it to the fullest. This doesn’t necessarily mean visiting a whole new city and going partying every day, but make the most of your time there, as exploring a new culture and country is not something you get to do very often, especially on your own time. Just try and have fun, and fun will come to you.