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Monument Valley Inspired Final Project

Made by Adella Guo

From the range of soft fabrication techniques I learned in this 3 day micro course, I was really intrigued by creating circuits in fabric because of the needed interaction to close and break the circuit as well as needle felting because the main technique seemed so fun: stabbing the felt until it looked about right. Thus I wanted to create a project that combined these two techniques. I looked to some of my current inspirations and ended up making the character Ida from the game Monument Valley.

Created: April 9th, 2016

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Intention

Write about the big ideas behind your project? 
- Create a simple circuit interaction associated with a game character 

What are the goals? 
- Integrating the techniques of soft circuits and needle felting learned from this micro course

Why did you make it? 
- I am very inspired by the game monument valley

What are your motivations?
- Explore interactive soft circuits

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Process

Outline your approach to the project? What ideas did you generate and how did you refine or reject them? What did you research and explore? what were the design choices? What challenges were encountered and how did you resolve them?

At first I thought of creating the crow in monument valley because I wanted to have a crown hover above its head. After consulting with Jen, I found that to make it stand above the crow may risk short circuiting if I wasn't careful to separate the positive and negative legs of the led. I ended up going with Ida, the main character of the game because she was a little simpler to make. Either way, in the game, whenever Ida or a crow reaches a destination point, something glows from within the character's hat and it releases into the sky. I wanted to portray that wonder and mystery using an led and a removable felt hat. 

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First Sketch Concept
Soft fab final.thumb
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Second and Final Sketch Concept
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Process for making Ida
Process.thumb
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Wrapping felt around wire for stability
Process 2.thumb
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Cutting blue felt squares for the cube. I also ended up glueing the blue felt to foam core for more stability.
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Product


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Sample Book

A composite photo of the work I did in this 3 day soft fab micro course

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Reflection

Reflect on the process of making this project. What did you learn? What would you do differently?

For my next iteration, I will try to hide how the circuit actually works (hiding the conductive thread, open cube etc.) and make it easier to place the cube onto the switches so the led lights up. Overall, I learned a lot about the basics of combining needle felt and soft circuits. I hope to build upon these skills for more complex projects and successfully create cohesive projects that use lots of different soft fab techniques / materials. 

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Special thanks to Jen, Kate, and Susan for these super educational and fun workshops :) 3 weeks ago I didn't even know how to thread a needle!

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From the range of soft fabrication techniques I learned in this 3 day micro course, I was really intrigued by creating circuits in fabric because of the needed interaction to close and break the circuit as well as needle felting because the main technique seemed so fun: stabbing the felt until it looked about right. Thus I wanted to create a project that combined these two techniques. I looked to some of my current inspirations and ended up making the character Ida from the game Monument Valley.