Client
Machico secondary school students
Location
Machico, Madeira, Portugal
Team
Catherine Chiodo
Jéssica Franco
Neeraj Verma
Yunting Liu
Duration
4 weeks
Methods used
Participatory design, design communication and storytelling through video
Tools used
Adobe Premier, Audacity
Roles
Strategy, video planning and production
Video overview
Research statement
The team will conduct a participatory design workshop with high school students in Machico to learn how the Beanstalk Network can serve their needs and interests for their community. The team will also conduct secondary research to determine how to translate these desires into a buildable concept.
Part 1: individual worksheets
Because Beanstalk hotspots are primarily installed on buses, we wanted to prepare students by getting them to start thinking about them. We asked the students to free list everything that:
- They like and don’t like about riding the bus
- They bring with them on a bus.
Part 2: super powers aka sensors
After a discussion about the previous exercise, we asked them to list superpowers that they wished they had to help their community, and then asked them what superpower they would wish for that was to know something that nobody else does. These were meant to create an analogy to sensors that could be used. We had them trade cards and do a pile sorting activity in groups.
What we found
To our surprise, all groups expressed interest in the history of Machico and in providing ways for the community to spend time together, through museums, movies and film, or community events.
Design hunt statement
The team aims to design a walking museum of Machico history with content and stories that are created and curated by locals that uses the Beanstalk bus wifi system as an entry point and enabling technology. The team intends this to be a scalable system that can be expanded to other locations on the island.
Scenarios
Two types of content
Scenario 1: curated content
The journalism club meets to discuss a new story on the Carnation Revolution. They break into pairs to conduct interviews and create content.
Mariana and her partner interview Mariana’s grandmother. Afterward, they find photos that are relevant to the story.
They upload the content and selected photos to the app and pin the relevant locations as triggers for travelers to listen to this story.
They are proud of their work, and hear great feedback from people about this newest story on the Carnation Revolution.
Scenario 2: community created content
Manuel takes the same bus every day and sometimes spends a lot of the time waiting for the bus.
He sees a booth next to the stop, which has a prompt for stories about an event he experienced. Curious, he goes inside and sees instructions to record his own story.
He sits in the seat in front of a front-facing camera on the tablet. He presses a physical button to record and tells a story he remembers his father telling him and shares it.
Days later, a high school student sees him waiting for the bus. She approaches him and says she heard his story and they have a long conversation about his experience.
System overview
Digital prototype
