Focus Question: How did the iterative design thinking process come into play in this activity?
Thinking of the design was definitely extremely difficult. We didn’t know what to do in terms of what the pictures will be. We were given a lot of magazines that features creepy, eerie bodies and people, so we figured, why not make a giant spooky creature! ‘Tis the season, right?
Other than that, obviously making the object in which all of the photos will be attached to was definitely difficult because 2/3 of us didn’t even know how to make a motor. We didn’t know what would work and what wouldn’t in relation to how to motor will make the entirety of this project moved. We eventually figured it out, but it definitely took a lot of design thinking.

Tell a story about your experience using a combination of words and images.

As mentioned above, we were given a lot of pictures featuring weird bodies and people, so we decided to make a creepy, spooky theme.

We decided to have a little fun with it, gluing body parts to different body parts, hanging creepy dolls on some strings, etc.
Then, we decided to place a burlap sack over it, kind of emitting a “boogeyman” kind of vibe to it. Then we started making the motor, and at first we wanted it to actually move, but unfortunately it couldn’t so we placed the creepy dolls and an ominous picture to it so that it would spin.

The overall outcome was admittedly not desirable due to unfortunately most of us not knowing what was going on and what to do, but for our situation I believe we did a good job.
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What did you learn? Describe your learning process. What was most challenging? What was most fun?
I learned how to connect a random array of photos to create one giant piece! It really took a lot of design thinking and at first I thought it was kind of a cheesy idea but I’m glad we went with it. The most challenging was probably everything. From connecting the photos, to making the motor, to the piece actually moving, the whole process was rather difficult. The most fun was gluing the body parts together for sure. It was definitely amusing.

How did this activity connect (or not) to your prior knowledge of art and art education? How might you use and/or adapt this activity in an art classroom?
This is definitely not anything I have done before. Using technology and making circuits was definitely not something we did in school, and moving pictures with a motor was pretty much unheard of. I definitely feel this could be done in a middle school or high school setting, but rather than just being thrown a limited amount of pictures, I would have a bigger pile so people could spend less time stressing on what they could possibly make because the whole thing in its entirely is honestly pretty stressful itself. I would also probably open up the time frame a bit and given students a week to work on it at least.