Description: As college students are so busy, it is important to look back at our minds and bodies to ensure they have the balance they need. This tree is a nurturing reminder to make your space quiet to leave your mind space to slow down and breath. When the surround is loud, the tree will be bright and the blinking frequency will be chaotic. Otherwise, when it is quiet, the tree will have a stable frequency and there will be a smooth and quiet melody of “We never gonna give you up” song played as a reward for treasuring our peace of mind.
My Process:
Laser cutting each branch
Laser Cutting the base to put the circuit under the tree
Putting them together with hot glue, wood glue
Putting fairy lights on & soldering wires in LED fairy lights to connect with the CPX
Coding
Final product
Reflection:
I began planning about a week before the final showcase, but a conference during the break left me with only 6-8 hours to start and finish the product. Returning to the project after this interruption, I relied heavily on self-efficacy and self-regulation just to get started. Throughout the process, I maintained a cognitive flexibility mindset, ready to scale down the project at any stage if time constraints demanded it. The supportive environment at Fimbel Maker Space was crucial, creating a sense of belonging that kept me going. Mo, in particular, was incredibly helpful with laser cutting and soldering.
As the deadline loomed, I faced a major setback when the code kept malfunctioning and I ran out of time to fix it. On the verge of breaking down, I made the decision to persevere, giving it one last try with the fallback plan of finishing after the iDesign course if necessary. This experience, challenging as it was, reinforced the invaluable mindsets I’d developed through iDesign – tools I know will support me whenever I face future setbacks. These aren’t just skills for a single project, but lifelong resources for resilience and problem-solving.
During my last semester at Mount Holyoke College, I realized I had been trained with these skills since day one. Take, for example, Introduction to Computer Science with Professor Audrey St. John in my first semester. It happened during the Covid era, so it was via Zoom and sometimes hard to know what resources were available, let alone find support for my learning. But resilience, cognitive flexibility, and one of the most important things that I think we can easily forget about – curiosity – drove me through the course, and it became one of my favorite courses ever.
Charles made me feel I belonged in the course and gave wonderful feedback that was heartwarming but also straightforward about what to improve. I also learned one of the hardest lessons: during one group project, I moved so fast that my teammates were totally lost and not on the same page. Audrey and Charles helped me understand how to get on the same speed and get along with my teammates by actively listening to their thought processes and noticing their feelings to move everything forward most efficiently as a team.
It was quite funny to look back and realize that I kept learning the same lesson at different times: in my research and this Intro course. Sometimes, I wonder why I keep repeating my mistakes and trying to relearn them all the time. But I guess that’s just how it is, and that’s why we need all these tools to keep our feet on the road (or edge of the road). And one day, if we keep on walking and acknowledging where we fall and where we achieve, those lessons will lead us to the end of our personal road.