First team bonding activity
After all the settling down in China, our team finally met each other together with the professor and teacher assistants who would be guiding us in our Sleep Assist Light. Classes officially started and we also took this opportunity to get to know each other better whilst continuing to explore Hang Zhou

fun.

 
Since we would be spending quite a lot of time with each other for the next 14 weeks on our project, we decided that this 14 week journey should not only be completing our project but also having fun with each other ourselves. What better way to break the ice than dinner followed by karaoke-ing? And that’s just what we did – spent two hours singing (shouting) songs rather shamelessly.
Another team outing we had was a hike. Despite the blistering hot sun Hang Zhou had, nothing much stopped us from wandering along 虎跑路 rather aimlessly while bantering until we , by sheer luck and wandering , found a peak to hike towards which was a pagoda, 六和塔 in 虎跑公园. When we reach the peak, we saw the entire landscape of Hang Zhou, the high rise buildings, 西湖 and green spaces. The best part was that there were no other tourists allowing us to enjoy the true peace and serenity that 西湖 or 北高峰 could not really offer as they are heavily marketed as tourist attractions.
still did not know exactly where we were going

 

serious.

 
As mentioned, our first lesson started this week. In this week’s lessons, we learn about a method which can be implemented when we want to create a storyboard/ storyline of a product in use or a process we are trying to illustrate. To exercise this method, we were given a task to create a storyline on “ How to use a toaster”. To implement this method, we first had to illustrate the associations we had with toasts ( which was what our group of three did) on twenty pieces of paper and then rearrange it based on categories. From there we come up with a story line and had to present it in front our class.

more serious.

 
On board with us on our ALP projects are also our professor and TAs whom we had our (official) team dinner and meeting with. During the meeting, we were instructed to start conducting background research online regarding out theme – Sleep Assist Light. To kick start the process of design which was to research, we had to do our market research on current lighting systems within China and out of China, types of sleeping disorders, different stages of a sleep cycle,how does light in terms of quantity and types affect our body and hence sleeping patterns, and so on. This design process rings a bell among all of us as it is pretty similar to how brainstorming for ideas worked in SUTD’s 3.007 Introduction to Design.
Dinner with prof and TAs ft. too much good food
Fun fact: Our professor walks very fast.
With another week in ALP coming to an end, we look forward to the next theme meeting where we would be sharing our research findings as well as having our second lesson of design fiction.
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