Reflections

A collection of my personal reflections throughout the MDEF program. Here, I document my journey, thoughts, and experiences along the way via audio recordings.

Reflection 1 (weeks 1-2)

In the first few weeks of the second term, I’ve felt both excited and overwhelmed. As I revisit my Design Space, I’ve started narrowing my focus while still leaving room for experimentation. The idea of using my own body as a tool for exploration has opened up a whole new perspective, pushing me to reflect deeply on what I want to achieve. From sweat patterns to sensory experiences, I’m exploring how my interventions can connect the physical and emotional. It’s still messy, and I don’t have all the answers, but I’m beginning to see a clearer direction for my project.

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Reflection 2 (weeks 3-4)

In this reflection, I dive into the shift in my Design Space, where sweat has moved from being a background curiosity to the core focus of my experimentation. Through Understanding my sweat, I explored how sweat reacts to heat, effort, stress, and social settings, uncovering its deep ties to emotion, awareness, and control. This process has reshaped my perception, showing me that sweat isn’t just a bodily function, it’s a tool for self-reflection and understanding human behavior.

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Reflection 3 (weeks 5-6)

This term kicked off with a deep dive into my ongoing sweat exploration, starting with my new intervention focused on collecting sweat through various DIY methods, and the microchallenge, where my team and I created a bio-electronic wearable that visualized autonomic body responses using sweat-reactive materials and ferrofluids. Combining these experiences, I’m beginning to see sweat not just as a bodily function, but as a versatile material for creative expression and experimentation, shaping my next steps toward innovative interventions with the human body at the core.

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Reflection 4 (weeks 7-8)

In Experimenting with my sweat, I explored pH-reactive biomaterials, fabric staining, and sweat crystallization. Agar was highly reactive but unstable, while alginate was more durable. Staining fabric with BTB worked but required high concentration, and crystallization remained challenging due to low salt content. This process has not only expanded my material research but also shifted my perception of sweat and how others see it.

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Reflection 5 (weeks 9-10)

Over the past two weeks, I’ve been juggling two very different but surprisingly connected explorations. First, in our second Microchallenge, we worked with AI and ants, using their movement patterns to generate 3D-printed clay structures. While this seemed unrelated to my sweat research at first, I realized that clay also sweats as it dries, opening up new ways to think about sweat beyond the human body. This inspired me to explore molding clay with my own sweat. At the same time, I’ve been refining my final intervention of the trimester improving my sweat collection, analysis, and experimentation techniques to push my research further.