It feels like I’ve been living in front of my computer screen for the past two weeks. Everyday it has been non-stop GRIND. I must say though, since this is a project that I’m personally passionate about and determined to do a good job at, it’s not so terrible. A huge milestone at the start of this week was creating the box design. After scrolling through billions of inspiration designs on Pinterest I finally, finally, FINALLY had a vision for what I wanted to create...

The stress is starting to hit me. There are four weeks left but it feels like it isn’t enough time to do everything I want. I started the week off by testing the laser cutter on a paper print out of my kōrero cards. Through my test run, I discovered that I needed to add more bleed to my cards to account for any errors the laser cutter might make while cutting...

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As I mentioned last week, we are now moving into the Implementation phase!!! Although the Implementation phase as defined by IDEO is more about actual real world implementation (IDEO, 2015) and planning for a long-term business strategy, I have tweaked it a bit to fit my project a little more...

This week got off to a good start – I checked in with Ayla and she was very happy with my project and how I’m progressing! I was particularly happy to hear that she thought my project was well aligned with the Te Whare Tapa Wha model. It’s a stream brief requirement but I wasn’t just happy to be aligned for the sake of getting the marks, but also because I tried to push myself to adopt a Te Ao Māori led approach in my capstone and having it validated by Ayla is awesome...

As expected, the break flew by and it’s back to classes. I admit that it feels very intimidating knowing that we’ve passed the halfway mark of the semester. Even though I am technically progressing as planned, there is a slight feeling of paranoia that I won’t achieve what I’m hoping to by the end of the project. Honestly I’m not sure how to deal with this feeling but I suppose I will be able to reflect on it with the benefit of hindsight once I’ve finished...

Although it was the break and I should therefore have taken a break, I have work to do and deadlines to meet! But, since I’m in the Ideation phase, doing my work means creating and making things. It’s very enjoyable and feels a lot less like “work”...

Oh my goodness it’s the break! How exciting! Even though it’s not exactly a break because I still have work to do, it is still nice to not have classes and pretend like I’m relaxing a little more... 

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It is pretty unbelievable that it’s week six already. I feel a bit anxious about how quickly time is passing but I know that I am on track with my project timeline. I’m actually glad to have these blogs to reflect back on my weekly work because they are evidence of the effort I have put in. Without these blogs, I feel like it would be very easy for me to underestimate and overlook how much work I’ve done...

Remember when I said last week that I was expecting curveballs in the next few weeks? Well, little did I know that it would arrive literally the following week. To recap, I had successfully picked an idea to pursue: a co-design toolkit. In my naivety, I thought: “Oh! Easy! The next thing I need to do is just research different kinds of tools and toolkits.” Spoiler alert, it was not easy...

Completing an assignment always comes with a great deal of relief. I was very glad to be starting the week off on a positive note after delivering my 301 presentation to a high standard and submitting my revised proposal. As relieving as it is to finish something, the following thought is always: “what’s next?”...

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My first blog update! Every time there’s a deadline in the (somewhat) far future, I tell myself that it’ll come much sooner than expected and yet somehow it still arrives even sooner than that. The last three weeks feel like they went by so quickly but if I think about the progress I’ve made, three weeks sounds about right. If I could use one word to describe what I’ve been up to...

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