Ideas and Sketches for Interdisciplinary Collaboration

As Team Pierogi, we, Kathleen, Sumi, Hassan, and Paul were tasked with developing ideas and sketches in response to our research completed thus far in our design challenge: developing more opportunity to spark interdisciplinary collaboration at Emerson College. In brainstorming ideas, we focused on our findings from field scans, observations, and interviews, that could utilize current Emerson spaces and resources that exist or break down access barriers for collaboration.




We brainstormed both individually and collaboratively, and decided on multiple rough ideas representing a variety of approaches and ultimately focused on finalizing three contenders which we developed into more complete sketches.




Our rough ideas included:

Emerson Dance-Off

Emerson Dance-Off Idea. 

This is an installation game like Dance Dance Revolution, housed in a popular common area on campus, such as the dining hall, the Lion's Den, or maybe 172 Tremont. The goal of the game is to have a dance-off with members of other programs/departments and compete every month to win prizes for your department (this can be a pizza party, ice cream social, etc.)! Each player is encouraged to input their program name in lieu of their own name for the scoreboard to encourage cross-disciplinary competition vs. personal competition. I opted for a DDR style format because it provides an element of nostalgia for older students while introducing newer students to a popular arcade game! Noah suggested using Just Dance instead during our presentation, which was an interesting idea to consider as it could make the installation less clunky and easier to access.

Convo Cards/Prompts

Convo Cards Idea. 

Our group was really struck by the fact that students often occupy close quarters with each other (sitting at the same table in the library, near each other in the lounges, etc.) but have nothing to encourage them to speak to each other. I'm a huge fan of conversational card games and find that they can elicit deeper conversations between two individuals or even a group. These convo cards will consist of broad but engaging topics and prompts to get the conversation started and keep it rolling! I'd like for it to be placed on the tables in the library or the Lion's Den with some additional signage that asks students to use them.

Build Your Dream House

Build Your Dream Home Idea visualization. 

Build Your Dream Home notes. 

Multicultural Festival illustration.
 
This idea revolved around Emerson students and faculty using LEGO or Lincoln Logs to build a house. Users would be required to place pins on giant map of USA where they want to live, and the process would include sharing and discussions of dream house layout and location. This activity would provide education on the housing market and allow students to envision their futures.

Multicultural Festival

This would allow Emerson Students and faculty to showcase their cultures. The festival would culminate with a street fair in an open area, and would include food, music, and history displays. 

Tents and tables would be arranged in circular setup, like a globe. Activities for attendees would include cooking dishes, art-making, karaoke. This would allow the multiple cultures present in Boston and the Emerson community to be celebrated and recognized.

Multicultural Festival notes. 

Bandersnatch, but make it Emerson

Bandersnatch idea. 

We would create a choose-your-own-adventure style film in which a viewer can choose to follow the paths of multiple different people in a day-in-the-life at Emerson. The inception of this project would require more research into what a day looks like for many different members of the Emerson community, such as undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and staff. The series could also be potentially converted into a VR experience to enhance the immersive qualities.

A Tour of the Homeland

A Tour of the Homeland idea. 

We would create a website that details the countries and cultures represented by students, faculty, and staff at Emerson. Media such as video and podcast would offer firsthand experience from those representing their countries, talking about important aspects of their culture and travel advice for the listeners. A comment section will allow the contributors to participate in discussion with the viewers. This would educate the Emerson community about their peers and create discussion of cultural difference.

Emerson Hacker/Makerspace

Emerson Hacker/Makerspace Idea. 

We would utilize a space on campus and create a hacker/makerspace that is not tied to a singular department, major, or program. This space would encourage experimentation within the community and provide students with resources to develop personal or professional skills. It would encourage skill-sharing and have an online community component. 

Poll on a Pole 

Poll on a Pole Idea. 

Utilizing an existing call to participation in the library, we would digitize the existing chalkboard library poll. In creating opportunities for students to participate in a media or art-based poll, we would also create a space where the results of the poll were displayed in an enticing, regularly updated data visualization. This would allow users to engage with the space in a new way and encourage discussion in a well-used existing space. 

Board Game Night

Board Game Night Idea. 

This event would occur regularly and invite all members of the community to our very own space, the Engagement Lab! We would utilize social media to decide on which games to play and attract an audience, and also use this as a way for all community members to become more familiar with the Engagement Lab’s work and space. 

Community Mural

We would provide Emerson students with a call to participate in a community mural with a changing theme each month. The space would include a blank wall and art supplies, and encourage users to respond to a prompt. This would allow students to participate in art-making and expression while also creating a visual representation of Emerson as a community. 

After much deliberation, we focused on fleshing out a few ideas for our more finalized sketches. These ideas represented the areas we saw the most opportunity for development and where our brainstorming had the most overlap. They include (drumroll please):

Clay Communities

Sumi Presenting Clay Communities to the class.

This idea was spurred by a desire to encourage interaction in spaces where students who do not know each other are often sitting in close proximity to one another, a commonality in our observational research. In our foundations course we have studied the role of play as a means to achieving a goal, and we were interested in play as a strong bonding element that can tap into an individual's inner child. Play encourages people to settle into a more imaginative space and allows them to open up. Clay provides for a wonderful tactile experience that can elicit all of those things! The aim of Clay Communities is to ask individuals to create any type of structure, a building, an animal, a food item, some sort of cultural relic, or just pure abstraction, and add it to the space to build a community art installation. Clay Communities would be housed in a few different places, such as the library, Lion's Den/dining hall, and 172 Tremont. There would be a social media account that documents the journey of each Clay Community and allows for submissions from students and faculty who've interacted with the installation to also add a digital collaboration/communication space.

Role-Reversal Film Festival 

Role-Reversal Film Festival Graphic.

Kathleen presenting Role-Reversal Film-Festival to the class.

This idea was developed because many of us were interested in collaborative media creations. Inspired by game jams, hackathons, or 24-hour play festivals, we wanted to create an experience for students that allowed them to contribute to an end-product. Students, over a short period of time, must work on teams to create a film collaboratively with one catch: a student's role in the creation of the film cannot correspond with their major or field of study. Therefore, students focusing in acting must not act, students focusing on writing cannot write, etc. Students would have opportunities to network both in-person and online and develop relationships with potential teammates. This opportunity is designed to be a low-stakes way for students to skill-share and experiment in an encouraging environment. 

Emerson International

Hassan presenting Emerson International to the class.

This is an app that would be designed for use specifically by Emerson’s international student community. It allows users to create a profile and connect with other international students from the time of their acceptance, so that when they arrive in Boston they already have a network of support at Emerson. Ideally, this app would be used both by international students who have been at Emerson for some time so that they can offer support or advice to incoming students. This targets the specific difficulties international students have adjusting to a completely new environment and builds community where there might be a current deficit. 

Emerson International notes and paper prototype. 

Our sketches provide three very different approaches to our design problem in choice of media, purpose and implementation, and user-base. These decisions reflect the multiple facets of the design problem; moving forward, in choosing a sketch to prototype and test, we want to redefine our design problem to emphasize the specifics of our approach. 

So what’s next from Team Pierogi? How will we spark collaboration across disciplines at Emerson? You’ll just have to keep tuning in to find out!