I felt today’s presentation when went very well for me. I was very happy with my final outcome and the level of work I achieved in such a small time, with our limited knowledge in this area of design. As far as a campaign project goes I feel there is some real potential for this prototype to be used in the near future. From the presentation I was glad to here some positive feedback and potential thoughts where this project may be headed in the near future. I was very satisfied as the presentation allowed me to see others genuinely excited about the project and to show Chris how we had developed since our last talk. I feel he was generally pleased and some of his feedback was extremely help in potential furthering the project.

From the presentation I did however feel that I may not have explained my project and intentions 100% clearly as I focused more on a semester summary as apposed to a project pitch. Because I took this approach I felt Soumitri was very excited about our prototype but others may have been left a little confused or disillusioned. As I was more concerned about getting a running model up and running ASAP I felt questions about designing for the future, the graphical layout and why may have been overlooked in relation to my intentions. However I did still find these comments very interesting and feel they were very constructive. It will be useful drawing on this feedback in the near future.

I’m absolutely stoked with our prototype and am pleased to see a base up there for anyone to get on board and begin being involved in the Locavore diet. I have never been involved with a live project and seeing a result that may potential change someone’s life style of benefit the community in some way is great. There is some real room for this design in society and hopefully Soumitri can find it in the future. I think that there may be a bit of room for a business plan or some form of management intervention.

From here I think I would like to sign off some portion of the project to Soumitri. I feel although I had a great time building the project to this level and am still greatly interested in the design and future potentials, I feel don’t have the time to commit 100% to this project. If I were to still be involved on some smaller level that would be ideally suited for me. (This will need to be discussed). This may be through consultation or just a slight cut of the profits it may generate if the project were to take this path. I have no idea if this is possible but I hope to soon find out. I really do think this project has a real future and would hate to see take off without me. But I would be more then pleased to see it develop through Soumitri as he really has the focus to make this happen.

(All of these options need to be discussed before a final decision is reached.)

Overall I had a great semester. It gave me the opportunity to learn and explore areas that I had very little experience with. Learning about a Locavore diet and everything involved with local food, farmers, producers and suppliers really opened my eyes, and will probably influence my personal eating choices for the rest of my life. It sounds corny but after conducting the research I personally began to learn that eating local doesn’t need to be too hard. The semester gave me the opportunity to explore design methods I had very little idea about and pitch to potential business partners. Exploring the area of interaction design was very useful as my project pitch for next year will be mainly interaction design based. I feel this was a strong introduction of what to expect next year. Although my partner pitch was unsuccessful it is an experience that I will draw upon for the rest of my career and hopefully an introduction for many to follow. Generally I found the semester challenging and as a result found my self wanting to participate for more then just schooling requirements. Overall I’m very pleased with our outcome at the end of the semester and would love to see my design one day take off and change the food world.

I would like to thank Soumitri for being very flexible and open to a flexible brief. This has allowed me to find my own way and gain a greater learning experience as a result.

Over the last week our prototype has been in the process of being scripted up to run the Google maps interface. This has gone extremely well with our fully complied database of the classes research up and running. Entries can now be searched, viewed and directions found. The user function is up and running along with the food forum blog. Our Project is really on track and will be usable for those interested in a Locavore diet by the end of the day.

The below link describes and interaction design competition regarding sustainability design, local production and interaction design. I feel this is a perfect competition to get our designs out there. The following paragraph was taken directly from the site.

“Design an object, interface, system, or service intended to support the idea of utilizing or consuming local resources rather than global resources, in a sustainable and environmentally efficient manner. Use methods of ethnography and contextual research to understand the problem space, and develop user-centered design solutions to support, assist, enhance or otherwise benefit your target audience. Your solution could address the methods of production or transportation of local resources, or could focus on the consumptive and disposal processes; whatever the focus, however, the solution must clearly illustrate positive value to both local stakeholders and to the local environment in your respective region.” (Chi 2009, http://chi2009.org)

http://chi2009.org/Authors/CallForPapers/StudentDesignCompetition.html