Seminole Innovators
The Seminole Innovators is an organization based in the Innovation Hub that offers opportunities for students to collaborate on real-world projects and gain skills in areas like UI/UX design, digital fabrication, and computer programming. I took part in two projects: the Art Vending Machine project and the Sustainability web project.
Art Vending Machine Project
This project began with big dreams. Thomasville Center for the Arts donated a vintage vending machine in the hopes of refurbishing to vend art from local artists instead. It was meant to be permanently installed and was featured in an article on FSU news.​ I was interested as a novice visual designer and an avid supporter of the arts.
As the project went on, I learned a lot about grounding said dreams. It was insane to think our team could get everything, from the reengineering of the vending process to the instruction/maintenance manual, done in a semester. And it was indeed insane. So insane that it was impossible. Never mind painting the thing...eventually, we just wanted to get the Darn Thing working again. And we did!
However, the partnership with the Center for the Arts fell through. The vending machine is sitting in the FAR lab as we speak.
This is a story of project management. And why it's important. Also, I made vending machine tokens using Adobe Illustrator and a laser cutter.
First Meeting
The Darn Thing.
Concept designs, Procreate
I was adopted into this project after we moved on from the Darn Thing (see above). They've done a lot of progress in the back end portion of web development. Front end - the design portion - is what they wanted to focus on now, inviting ideas from all attending students. I made some concept art.
The project leader really liked the designs (yay) and some of it made its way into the final product, from the color scheme to the "wave-y" motion of the content dividers.
After this brief ideation period, things started happening. We pulled out big whiteboards to plan the architecture. ​We scanned some craft materials to become icon and texture assets. People were moving and doing and the project felt real .
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Of course, there is still a lot to do, especially with a website of this scale (with a map and events page that sync together alongside real-time updates) and a team made up of mostly amateur volunteers. However, this product had a firm end goal with achievable steps to get there. Every meeting felt like progress.
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This is a story of project management. And why it's game-changing.
Sustainability Web Project
(OurPatch)
Concept designs, Procreate
Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
Wireframe sketches, whiteboard