5 in 5 project
Day 1: Break a Rule
Intro: There are so many subconscious “rules” that we follow everyday. Saying hi and keeping a smiling face is probably the best and simplest way to greet people and show your respect. Actually, this used to be one of my cultural shocks after I came to the U.S. because people behave a little different in China and U.S. Now, I’m completely adapted and adept to keeping a smiling face when I see a person and suddenly change my facial expression to what it was a few seconds ago.
Goal: Habits are hard to break. My topic for the first day is not saying hi to your doormen whenever you see them. As a kind and respectful person, this experiment must be a little difficult because you know you are not that kind of person and have to endure a bunch of dirty words inside others’ head. My goal in this project is to explore their expression secretly without saying hi and looking at them. Afterward, I would like to interview them about their feelings when people don’t say hi to them and compare their “quotes” to their “faces”.
Outcome:



Day 2: Cultures & Apple Cores
Intro: One apple a day, keep doctors away. For my day 2 project, I want to relate it to apple. People eat fruits differently in different countries and cultures. From the culture that I grew up, I just bite the apple to eat or cut them into pieces. However, in Japan, I have found that people don’t bite the apple and eat directly, but they have to cut it into many pieces first, shave the skin, and put them in the salty water for a few seconds before start eating.
Goal: My goal in this project is very simple. I used five different ways, which are spoon, knife, chopsticks, marble, and regularly biting, to eat apples in one day and see what the cores’ shapes look like.

Outcome: From an abstract point of view, by different ways eating apples, I could see the different core that represents culture. I also want different people who are from Ireland, U.S, Japan, and China could reflect the characteristics of their own culture in this illustration. The lamb’s feet represents a natural way to eat an apple.
Day 3: Let Procrastination be a Tool
Into: Everybody has procrastination nowadays even though people realize the negative influence by having it. It’s an intentional delay of doing and finishing your task and it purely represents a failure of self management. According to my research, a few reasons that people tried to delay their task is because they want to avoid task, deny the importance of the task, compare ourselves with others who are even less efficient, and got distracted easily.
Goal: My goal in this project is to create a procrastination and I want to use myself as an example in this experiment. I love cooking, but I’m also lazy to wash the plates. Unsurprisingly, sometimes I could have dirty plates left in the sink for more than 24 hours. In this project, I added a procrastination to myself intentionally. The rule is easy but I realize it was kind of anguished. Following the rule, I’m not allowed to wash the plates after I finished my breakfast and whenever I start thinking about washing the plates or anything related to it, I need to add a sticky note with current time. Most importantly, I’m not allowed to wash the plates until 12 o’clock in the morning or the sticky notes reach to my desk.

Outcome: In conclusion, I spent an entire day to do this project because I wanted to explore how my mind would change as the time goes. Honestly, I greatly attempted to clean the sink within one hour after I started this project and I have never willed to wash the plates more than anytime. What I have learned from this project is that having procrastination is not a bad thing, and you have to face the truth that it’s a part of your life. But you need to think how to apply your procrastination to solve some issues in your life, when you use the procrastination as a tool, you will find out the positive side of it.
Day 4: The Confusion of Vibration
Intro: “Everything in life is vibration,” said Albert Einstein. For Today’s project, I want to make a confusion about vibration. From my observation, vibration can always attract people’s attention because it indicates emergency somewhat. For example, earthquake, phone’s vibration, muscles twitching, and etc. I’m very attracted to this physical movement because it offers a direct, quick, and responsive interaction with an object.
Why do I want to make a confusion about vibration? I got my inspiration from a personal story. I used to have multiple roommates when I was living in Seattle. With a terrible acoustic insulation, it is a house built in 60s. One day, my roommates asked me if I could turn my phone completely to mute mode. I answered, “What do you mean by completely mute?” She said, “You got a lot messages in the late night. Although I couldn’t hear the phone ringing, the vibration woke me up several times.” I usually leave my phone on my desk before I go to bed. My desk and her bed were touching against the same wall, so when my phone vibrates, her bed is also affected. Thus, I realized that cell phone vibrating could be more powerful than sounds in a poorly soundproofed house.
Goal: I want to use the vibration to create different sounds effect by putting my cellphone on different mediums such as steel, wood, glass, iron, mirror, and apple! My goal is to make people confused about that is a real cell phone vibrating or sound- from my users’ test, people thought it was a real vibration.
Outcome:

Day 5: Give Me a Foot Bump
Intro: Since I came to the U.S, I have realized that people have many different ways to encourage and celebrate with people. Three of the most common gestures to communicate with others is a hand shake, high five, and a fist bump. This is not only a celebrating expression, but it also shows how much you care about the others’ feeling when you give them a fist bump and say, “hi, you can do it!”
Goal: I’m a person who loves socializing and I always share my high(s) and low(s) with my roommates. Since I moved to New York City, this is my first time living alone. When I got too excited or depressed in the room and no one is around, I just need something from the air, any ways to celebrate, so I drew an interaction concept of a foot bump machine to either celebrate with me when I get delighted, or boost me up when I feel frustrated.
Outcome:


There are two reasons why I didn’t turn it to a fist bump machine. One is that I don’t want to put any accessories on my desk. In order to save more space, I want to put it on the floor. Even if I’m using my hands to do task, I still can interact with my foot bump machine without any interruption. Second is that I want to do something wired with a machine rather than reproducing the same interaction with human.