Welcome to the MHCI x NASA 2020 Capstone Blog!
Sprint 0: The Sun Sprint☀️ (Onboarding, Kickoff, and Lots of Background Research)
Houston, the eagle has landed. (I’ve always wanted to say that).
It’s been two weeks since the day we all sat eagerly refreshing our email inboxes awaiting our Capstone project assignment, screaming internally (or externally) when we saw the subject line: NASA!
For me personally, that internal screaming continued for at least another week as it dawned on me how little I knew about space travel, and how much I needed to know about space travel. Fortunately that fear has since been all but alleviated by 1. hasty background research, 2. a trip to Johnson Space Center on the books, 3. a very successful kickoff meeting! So let’s talk about all of that.
The Team
First things first, who are we and why should you read our blog?
We are a team of five Master of Human-Computer Interaction candidates at Carnegie Mellon University, kicking off the eight month journey of our capstone project. This publication will serve as a sprint-by-sprint account of our progress, breakthroughs, victories, failures, meltdowns, blood, sweat, and tears.
Katie McTigue, Project Manager, and your humble narrator for this first blog post
👋 Hello! I’m an interdisciplinary Product Designer who loves writing pixel-perfect css as much as affinity mapping.
I’ve previously worked in criminal justice information systems and healthcare, and I’m excited to add space travel to that list of niche domains. I’m considering myself the “swiss army knife” of the team, and I’m hoping to get better at visual design and secondary research. I have two ridiculously cute cats that I refer to as my sons only semi-ironically. I like playing games of all kinds, long walks around Target, and making music on the internet.
JT Aceron, Design Technologist
Hi, my name is JT. I received my undergraduate degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering here at Carnegie Mellon University and I’m super excited to complete the MHCI program this summer. I look forward to learning more about UX/UI through the role of Design Technologist for my team. I’ve been playing soccer for most of my life and I’m super lucky to have been able to play for CMU. My interests include video games, guitar, mechanical keyboards, and everything dog related.
Nathan Barnhart, Product Designer
Hi, Nathan here! I studied Urban & Regional Studies at Cornell University, and then Architecture at the ETH in Zurich Switzerland. After 9 years of working in the field of architecture, I discovered UX design, which brought me to CMU and now to an amazing NASA capstone team! My experience in architecture has taught me to approach complex systems through both a technical and experiential lens, on a spectrum from the big picture to the smallest details. I love hiking, video games, and all things J.R.R. Tolkien.
Adi Magal, Product Designer
Hi, this is Adi. I am a Product designer with experience in conceptualizing, designing and implementing websites and business applications in human resources and financial industries. My education in Human-Computer Interaction and Industrial design allows me to empathize with my users to think creatively and solve complex design challenges. I like traveling, reading sci-fi books and painting. Through this project I want to leverage technology to create a rewarding experience for the end user (astronauts!).
Megan Parisi, Research Lead
Hey, I’m Megan! I studied Psychology at the University of Notre Dame where I was involved in psychological research. After graduating, I worked in business intelligence research for two years in Chicago before heading back to school for CMU’s MHCI program. I’m excited to continue to develop my research skills as our team’s UX Researcher. When I have free time, I enjoy reading nonfiction, playing the piano passably, and trying to take care of plants.
Our full team includes some very important people without whom this project would not be possible:
Project Sponsors from NASA Ames Research Center
- Joe Medwid
- Dave Luetger
Faculty Advisors
- Julie Saunders
- Derek Wahila
The Problem Statement
Our project focuses on autonomous space travel. By that we actually don’t mean sci-fi-esque AI robot pilots.
Every human-crewed mission so far has been largely controlled from Earth — specifically from Mission Control Center, Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX. As we venture further from Earth (for example, Mars), crews must get smaller, and communication delays with mission control get longer. A crew of four astronauts will inevitably be forced to confront engineering problems that historically would have been addressed by a team of 30+ experts on the ground.
How might we support the crew in identifying, troubleshooting, and solving problems? How do experts approach diagnosing problems in complex systems? How might advanced intelligence support and augment human problem-solving? These are some questions we ask ourselves as we look forward.
Sprint 0: Sun
We decided to name our sprints after planets, with the very first one being the exception ☀️.
The first sprint was jam packed with background research and project planning. But by far the highlight of these first few weeks was our kickoff meeting with Joe and Dave. We were also joined remotely by Alonso Vera, Deputy Director of NASA Ames Research Center, and several other members of the Ames Human Factors team.
We kicked off our kick off with a presentation from Joe, Dave, and Alonso about the domain, problem context, and some project planning logistics. Next we all participated in a goal-mapping activity we borrowed from the Gamestorming Toolkit. Breaking down our research objectives into measurable performance indicators helped us start thinking about how to approach our research plan.
Lastly, we all got our hands dirty with some stakeholder-mapping on the whiteboard. The helped us all get on the same page about the current state of space travel 101, and got us started thinking about the future state.
Next Up: Houston!
Ok, I’m out of Houston catchphrases.
We’re heading to Johnson Space Center two weeks from now to get started on exploratory research. We’re be interviewing subject matter experts, observing flight control training (!), and hopefully conducting some contextual inquiry in the mission control center.
So basically, we’re going to space camp!
🎧 This Week’s Media Recommendation
In addition to all the dense research papers we’re reading, we try to make time for light, engaging media to get us thinking about space travel from different perspectives.
The Habitat from Gimlet is a podcast that follows the “Hi Seas” project, a NASA initiative to test the limits of its most complicated equipment: people. A team of six volunteers were confined to a small “habitat” in Hawaii for one calendar year, where they pretended they were on Mars. One reporter recorded their lives along the way.
Let’s hope our capstone team gets along this well after being stuck together for eight months!
