Design Research Studio Reflections
Thoughts on readings and proceedings in the Fall 2020 Senior Environments Studio taught by Daphne Peters.
09.04.20
09.11.20
Mind Map
An initial overhead look at a general patient’s ophthalmology or physical rehabilitation appointment experience.
09.13.20
Today I interviewed my grandmom, Diane, a woman who has been intimately on both sides of ophthalmology and physical rehabilitation. She worked as a nurse for her entire professional life and is now a patient with macular degeneration and limited mobility. She was more than happy to relay her thoughts on her experiences.
She told me that the biggest areas for improvement were safety, privacy, and the simplification of technology.
So, here I’ll lay out three areas of interest that I may explore.
- When occupational therapists visit a patient’s home to assess their daily routine, they look for potential problem areas. Back in the facility, these daily experiences are recreated and practiced as a means toward rehabilitation. How might I design an environment that is adaptable, to accurately model the conditions of each patient’s different daily routine?
- Some of the anxiety and alienation that arises from the healthcare experience can be attributed to its formal “clinical” interior environments. How might I design a physical intervention to ‘break the ice’ and make these spaces feel more like home?
- The majority of a patient’s experience in healthcare is typically spent waiting. How might I design an experiential intervention for the waiting experience that engages patients and staff meaningfully and inclusively?
Here’s a crazy idea, which I will put a pin in immediately, but jot down for future reference:
What if there were a coffee shop adjacent/integrated within the waiting area of this outpatient facility, creating a social space, a comforting atmosphere, a distraction, but also a playful way to engage with your disability? What if the coffee shop experience offered a personalized, intentional inaccessibility in its process, giving the patient an opportunity to explore their abilities, challenge themselves to practice ADL (Activities of Daily Life), or experiment with new alternatives to what they’re used to? Once the patient specifies the hurdle they’d like to overcome (low vision, lifting heavy objects, walking) from the menu, their coffee experience becomes a playful challenge. Perhaps they are given a menu with typography that’s too small to see, and it’s an opportunity to try out the new magnifying glass they’re supposed to use. Perhaps their coffee is served to them from a comically low countertop, and they have to squat to retrieve it, remembering to lift with their legs! It could be a way for patients to emotionally embrace their abilities with humor, a space to identify and address areas of concern, and a diverting space that provokes conversations between patients, loved ones, and staff.
09.20.20
Reflection on Catherine Gretchell’s Talk
Catherine started out by describing her disappointing experience with a dentist’s office; their system was inherently exclusive, and they would not accommodate her, given many ways to do so. From her story, I learned how beneficial and efficient it is to integrate accommodation/inclusivity from the beginning of a design. She shared some tips for doing so.
It is helpful (and legally safe) to make it known that accommodations are available, rather than directly asking an individual if they need any. Because some disabilities are invisible, like dyslexia, it is best to make this availability known to everyone. This can be done in signage, literature, or person-to-person communication.
Another big subject Catherine touched on is the contemporary wild west of internet accessibility. Because the ADA was passed right before society moved into digital environments, there are still many unresolved issues faced by those with disabilities, including the unreadable dentist appointment PDF Catherine encountered.
We finished with discussion around integrating the consideration of accessibility into the design process — “accessibility from the ground up.” Catherine pointed out that some “accessible” design is based on false assumptions. To avoid falling into that trap, she said, we should talk to as many end users as possible. The more authentic perspectives we have, the more chance our design is tackling genuine problems. I asked her about the option of personally simulating a disability in the design process to gain insight into the experience. I expected a “no” on the basis that doing so would be offensive, but she explained that it’s best not to do so because the simulation will be inherently flawed. Even blindfolded, I make use of visual memories to navigate a space. Catherine placed a big emphasis on actually meeting and talking to people, saying there are no short-cuts. It’s only through dense, qualitative interactions that we can gain valuable insight. She advised us some more on wording (how to address people with disabilities, how to request their assistance, etc.) and I took notes.
All in all, the talk and Q&A was extremely helpful, and I feel more prepared to begin a meaningful design research process.
Following the creation of an ecosystem map and journey map, I am interested in researching either the waiting experience or the post-appointment adjustment experience. Both seem to come with their share of interesting human problems, and seem valuable opportunities to bring people together. Based on the journey map, the waiting experience looks to be the least resolved, so I will focus my attention there.
How might we design a (potentially) social waiting room distraction that offers a meaningful way for patients to engage with their healthcare concerns?
09.21.2020
Reflection on Ashli Molinero’s Talk
Ashli’s talk was another great insight into the considerations required to design for inclusion. She works as the director for the UPMC disabilities resource center, where her job entails “doing everything [she] can to make the lives of people with disabilities better.” Before she worked there, she met the people working in the center for assistive technology, who had that mission statement. She said “I felt that as a person with a disability, I had an obligation to do that [too].” This of course speaks to the fact that there aren’t nearly enough people without disabilities designing for accessibility.
Ashli mentioned something at the beginning of her talk that caught my attention — in her work, she puts patients at the center of the team, working on helping themselves live their life best with a disability. That is what we’re hoping to do in the research phase of this design process: integrate the patients and stakeholders into the team, giving them ownership over the resulting experience, benefitting from their perspective. Ashli mentioned that UPMC has the stated values of treating everyone with dignity and respect. That’s especially relevant, and I will attempt to embed those values into the DNA of my process. One topic that came up was the huge area for improvement in old spaces. Ashli gave these tips about the design process:
Evaluate the space, think about how different types of people use it in different ways,
Talk to people. Ask them what works, what hinders them. Follow people with disabilities through the spaces to learn how they navigate.
Ashli said “What does it mean to not go in through the same front door as other people? It can mean three extra minutes in snow or rain.” That stuck with me, because it is the kind of subtle, yet significant consideration that only comes from personal experience or close attention to that of someone with a disability. I will be looking closely for these differences in experience, and paying attention to their meaning for the individual.
09.22.2020
Persona Spectrums
After doing the reading assigned, I’ve been thinking about what approach to persona spectrums would add meaningful depth to my design process, heading in the direction of designing for community. My refined How Might We Statement is as follows:
How might we design a social experience that offers a meaningful way for patients to engage with their healthcare concerns?
A huge benefit of persona spectrums is the consideration of disabilities, from temporary to permanent; designs for a blind person may also benefit someone busy looking at their phone. So, the application of this method in designing any experience makes sense, but in this context, we’re designing for people with disabilities. All of those considerations should be inherent. Is there a way a new persona map could uniquely draw considerations out of this design direction, however?
Perhaps the intersections between disabilities and social activity would be helpful to explore.
With regard to visual limitations, body language is obscured, communications about social events (see: interview with my grandmom) are hard to read, and there can be a barrier to participation if the activity is visual (reading a menu, watching a movie, driving). This applies to folks who are blind, losing vision, temporarily distracted, or without their glasses.
Hearing limitations include verbal communication (networking, mingling, chatting at events is often verbal-only) and differentiation between many noises at once (music, multiple conversations at once, and loud environmental noises all reduce comprehension). This applies to folks who are deaf, hearing impaired, missing their hearing aid, listening to music, wearing ear muffs, or focusing on a particular source of sound.
Mobility in social situations can be challenging due to physical activities (exercises, traveling, sports, dancing) that require certain abilities, due to environmental factors (uneven surfaces, stairs, crowded/narrow spaces, obstructions). This applies to folks who have limited mobility (wheelchair users, cane/crutch/walker users, people with reduced limb function or fewer limbs), to people who are tired, to people with strollers, or those with their hands full.
Speaking/language can be a big factor in social situations, where a language barrier can stop communication altogether. Factors include language and volume. This can be aided with translators, text to speech technology, captioning, sign language, writing, pictorial communication, body language, and there are many other diverse ways to bridge the gap, often in combination. This applies to folks who are non-verbal, non-native speakers, are sick/have lost their voice, those with a heavy accent, and even people who don’t feel like talking at the moment.
These are all factors to consider, including in various intersectional forms, in the design of any inclusive social experience.
09.23.2020
Reflection on Rachel Delphia’s Talk
Today we had a guest lecture by Rachel Delphia, a CMU Industrial Design alum and the current Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at the Carnegie Museum. Rachel has an interesting perspective as a result of the intersection of her disciplines, caring deeply about the reasoning behind an object’s form and its significance to society in history. Rachel began with a story about product design history and accessibility: that of ergonomic handles. It’s a story that’s close to the heart of any industrial designer. She also talked about her experiences in making the museum spaces accessible, often through a process of reforming outdated areas. Her quote, “What immediate actions would have the most impact for the most people?” stuck out to me. It’s the kind of practical question that’s fundamentally embedded in every large-scale step towards greater inclusivity.
I’m so glad Rachel mentioned the Hamburg Symphony Sound Shirt and the Emma Parkinson’s watch. I watched the videos she mentioned, and they were truly amazing. The evident emotional impact of being included into experience through the effort of others is incredible. I would love to come close to affording someone that feeling — love via design. Rachel’s reflections on the videos were so helpful to hear. She said some people might wonder, “why would you go to a concert if you’re deaf, or to a museum if you’re blind?” Cultural activities are social, and added inclusivity creates opportunities for more people to come together and share experiences. That will always be a wonderful, beneficial thing. It’s such a refreshingly simple reminder. After all, sharing experiences with people is pretty fundamental in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
10.03.2020
Some Initial Concepts and Peer Feedback
Depicted and briefly described here are three high-level concepts that address my How Might We question “How might we design a social experience that offers a meaningful way for patients to engage with their healthcare concerns?”
The first idea, Spaces for Conversation, is barebones environments design; an attempt to provide the simplest answer to the HMW question. If you can implicitly integrate opportunities for meaningful social experiences into the form, communications, and afforded interactions of a space, it becomes a lively facilitator that works around the clock.
My peers in our design studio liked this idea, saying the simple use of “social geometry” like a circle goes a long way. They seemed interested in the idea of using the space to indicate openness to conversation. I’m still intrigued by this, but there are many potential pitfalls: someone shouldn’t unknowingly signal that they want to talk because they didn’t notice signage, and the spaces should of course be inclusive. The question “how do you design a social space for the intersection of people with varying conversational limitations?” will apply to any of my ideas.
The Time-Travel Confessional is an attempt to address emotional vulnerability in a nebulous space such as a waiting room, and in the general experience of someone confronting changes in their abilities. I know the power of a story in comforting and connecting people. Could a prerecorded monologue feel genuine, or would the screen between the speaker and listener create a feeling of isolation? Perhaps the parasocial nature of it would make the listener feel safe to react however they do naturally.
My peers seemed to like this idea, and my professor Daphne gave some very helpful feedback. She asked, “why wouldn’t this be a website?” Touché. She brought up StoryCorps as a comparison. What could physicality afford in this situation? I believe it would lend a sense of immediacy, and encourage presentness. However, those reasons aren’t enough to fully utilize the affordances of physical experience. If I continue developing this concept, it is a big question to address.
Finally, the Inaccessible Coffee Shop idea (certainly needing development on its name) is about placing a magic circle inside the healthcare facility.
If this space can welcome a patient with questions, fears, and uncertainties stemming from their healthcare journey and give them ownership over decision-making or problem-solving, they might exit with a new confidence in their daily life (and make some friends along the way). Great subtlety is needed here to walk the line between humor and offense. I believe the key to this is in giving agency to the patient, allowing them full ownership over the experience they have.
My peers seemed to find this idea most favorable, on average. They said it is “very Nick.” Some brought up the potential of integrating spaces for conversation into the coffee shop, which makes a lot of sense. One fellow student told me the experience could be very helpful for family members or caretakers to better understand their loved-one’s experience and bond.
Moving forward, I’ll be developing the Coffee Shop idea (which need not necessarily take the form of a coffee shop) and integrating spatial considerations à la “Spaces for Conversation.”
10.03.2020
Persona Spectrum
10.09.2020
Reflections on The Participatory Museum (Chapter 4: Social Objects)
When talking about actually instructing guests to have a social interaction to experience an exhibit, author Nina Simon explains that it is helpful to be specific. If the instructions say, “find someone of similar height, or find someone wearing the same color”, it gives the person a reason to approach a stranger— an institutionally sanctioned reason. If the stranger isn’t interested, they are rejecting the institution, not the person asking. This is helpful advice for me as I consider prompting social interactions between individual patients of varying moods and dispositions toward interaction.
Earlier in the text, Simon discussed an exhibit that asked for visitors to contribute their reflections in a private video booth. The questions were presented in succession, each more personal than the last. Apparently people are more interested in answering with more depth following the successful and acknowledged exchange of a relatively insignificant question. People want to know that you are actually listening, so it’s good to incorporate some mechanism that acknowledges answers, even if this is done by selectively highlighting answers from past guests.
Gaining trust is a common theme. In the example of Improv Everywhere distributing MP3 files for people to listen to in sync, instructing them to do silly things with each other in public, the voice starts with simple tasks. It asks people to point to things, and provides humorous encouragement. Then it asks if they’re ready a few times, and tells them to stand up.
10.18.2020
Here I’ve included some slides detailing my research on disability and loneliness, designing for social interactions, and considerations for doing so inclusively.
Here I’ve included a storyboard I’ve done to build on the persona spectrum, lending insight into potentially missed opportunities for social interaction.
Here sits a more resolved “How might I” statement, addressing my specific focus on the experience of ophthalmology patients (and their loved ones, hired help, and caregivers).
10.19.2020
Midterm Review Feedback
Gretchen offered the reminder that ophthalmology patients will represent a broad range of visual abilities. There will be many patients who don’t necessarily suffer greatly from the social ramifications of being perceived as “disabled.” She also mentioned that there is a culture that forms in healthcare settings (something seen very often in oncology), where patients might end up scheduling their appointments to sync up with each other so they can get radiation done at the same time and talk.
Gretchen and Matt both made me consider the question of whether this design intervention could help connect people with similar conditions, or whether it could help people form connections that last. Matt brought up the idea that there could be a cyclical nature to the introduction of this interaction, in which seasoned patients can introduce it to newcomers. He talked about that very interesting point of introduction, asking “what is it that makes me want to strike up a conversation with this person? What gives me permission to do that?”
Finally, Gretchen mentioned that I should consider how this interaction changes and evolves over time, because four hours is a lot of time to play with.
10.25.2020
A deeper, zoomed-in analysis of a typical patient journey in the portion of the healthcare experience I am focusing on. I’ve given special attention to how those rare social interactions might progress, and what opportunities exist to encourage, provoke, and sustain them.
2-Week Work Plan
For the week of 10/26, I’m planning to make a new storyboard that addresses opportunities identifies in my new journey map. This weekend, I will get feedback on the storyboard from my grandmom using think-aloud testing.
For the week of 11/02, I’m planning to update the storyboard using the feedback I receive, then get further feedback from my peers.
10.30.2020
Interview with Ilana Ben-Ari
I reached out to Ilana Ben-Ari, designer of The Empathy Toy. Her design began with the prompt “design a navigational aid for people with blindness or low vision.” Through BLV organizations, she spoke with many people and their families about the problems they deal with. She ended up pivoting the focus of her project to the social and mental gap between people with BLV and sighted people. The empathy toy has two people wear a blindfold. One is presented with an arrangement of the Empathy Toy pieces, and is told to instruct the other person on how to recreate the assembly with their own set of pieces. It is a playful interaction between two strangers that forces people to consider each other’s experience, tailor and adapt their communication, and collaborate.
At this point in my process, I have been most concerned with the question of how to get strangers to interact? What do they need? How can a design disarm someone and open them up to an unplanned interaction?
Ilana described the process of how people begin playing with The Empathy Toy, and how she tests her designs. She told me that she aims for as little explanation as possible. People are given blindfolds, told to instruct or to recreate the assembly, given a time limit, and left to themselves. I’ve abstracted this into some “disarming” steps:
•Establish authority. Speak/write as an institution, representative, or facilitator.
•Establish barriers. Provide the constraints that limit vulnerability enough to empower interaction. Ex: blindfold, time limit, etc.
•Establish a collaborative goal. Ex: Instruct a stranger to recreate this assembly.
As Ilana has been testing her follow-up design, The Failure Toy, she told me she notices what isn’t working, runs upstairs to change some wording, then runs back down to test the new iteration. The magic moment in game testing is when the testers stop offering advice and become absorbed in how the game makes them feel— that’s when you know “it’s happening!.”
11.02.2020
A breadth of ideation — to shake things up, I played around with some other ideas, trying not to constrain myself with feasibility.
Through tossing more ideas around, I was able to determine exactly which qualities my design would need, and that logic continued to lead towards the scale idea. So, finally committed, I settled in on refinement.
Assessment of Progress
Progress so far has been good, but slow-going. I suspect that due to the nature of my design, it will be tough to usefully prototype and test, short of creating physical devices and mailing them to test subjects. I may have to compromise with storyboards and conversations, or perhaps some kind of creative digital mock-up. The latter is something that seems possible in theory, but I’m not sure what kind of software or online platform will be able to support an interaction appropriately representative of my design.
So, that is something I will ask for advice on.
The conversation with Ilana was very encouraging. Her Empathy Toy turned out to be so comparable to my developing idea that her success affirms the direction I’m heading in.
I need to come up with faster prototyping methods for this project, because digitally painted storyboards have proved to be too time intensive. There is much to communicate to test subjects, though, so I have to walk the line between attention to detail and efficiency. Certainly not a new problem in the field of design!
11.10.2020
Following this step, I created a storyboard to plan the experience with the scale.
The storyboard has been tweaked many times, in response to feedback and think-aloud testing.
A big step made here was in thinking about the sound design. One major conflict I faced was in determining whether vocal instructions would be necessary. I wanted to make these decisions as necessity-driven as possible, and in most contexts I have designed for, instructions are a sign that the form does not explain itself properly. This context proved to be different, however, as I am designing with blindness/low vision in mind, and puzzles are relatively unexpected in the context of a waiting room. A minimal, friendly voice seemed to be the proper way to introduce the game and instruct interaction.
So, I consulted with my sister, who is studying musical therapy. She helped me to determine which musical tones would be appropriate to convey what is happening at different stages of the puzzle. Those sounds are indicated to the left of the storyboard panels.
Then, as I focused in on the form of the scale, I reviewed many different historical examples, paying attention to what their forms communicated semantically. One of the most important aspects of this puzzle is that it is accessible via touch. For that reason, I ruled out hanging dishes. The scale must not actually respond to gravity- it has to detect that a certain weight has been placed upon it, then mechanically react. That way, if a person is holding the scale to get a sense of the movement, they don’t upset the balance.
This is one of my first sketches regarding the form of the scale.
As I worked on refining the design in CAD, I decided to segment the curves, to provide more information to reference in determining orientation via touch.
12.07.2020
Since then, I have been fabricating the prototype. Much of the “magic” in its demonstration will come from video editing (namely sound design). I have embedded magnets in each dish, and pieces of metal in the interfacing pieces. The magnets sit in a slight cavity, and so create a sort of haptic feedback, clicking against the underside of the dish plates when one of the blocks is placed on top of it. This has the added benefit of securing the blocks to the dish as it tilts, and confirming for the user that the block has gone where it is supposed to.
They create a very satisfying “click” when placed in each dish.
Some thoughts before I get started on my final presentation video:
I have had a lot of fun with this project, but I believe the fun came along later in the process than it could have, as I it took me a while to settle on my idea and really dive into developing it.
I received some early feedback that the scale idea was not context-specific enough. In hindsight, I should have vetted this feedback a bit more before pursuing a more “context specific” direction. As it turns out, the features that would make my design specific to its context were awaiting implementation in its development.
I believe some of this insecurity about the direction of my project stemmed from a want for more substantive research. It proved to be challenging to implement creative research methods for a demographic you don’t have physical access to. Due to coronavirus, we were almost completely limited to digital research. For me, this took the form of phone calls with my relatives who have relevant medical experiences, literature research, and an interview with the designer of the Empathy Toy. All of these steps informed my direction greatly, but I do believe this project would blossom into a much more realized form if I could test it on individuals who are blind, or a have low vision.
Now, for the positives — I landed on an underlying motive (addressing loneliness) that I really care about. My research substantiated the pressing need for some kind of cultural intervention in these spaces where so many people are saddened for lack of contact, but afraid and uncomfortable with the idea of bridging the gap. The Participatory Museum, a reading Yiwei sent me, was extremely helpful in determining how to help people bridge the gap. I ended up integrating many of those principles into my design.
I am also pleased with the idea of utilizing long-distance interaction technology to bridge short-distance social gaps. It is not something I have seen done before, and I believe it has a lot of potential. Even interacting with devices like these in such a context implicates you in a powerful metaphor of “closing the distance.”
The Final Presentation
Through trial and error, I developed the underlying math, connected it to music theory with the help of my sister, then flushed out the puzzle mechanics. This was a very delicate balancing act between intrigue and frustration. In the end, the block types counted up from 1 weight unit to 8. Each player is given a different combination of 4 blocks. Between the two of them, there are a certain number of possible combinations that can balance the scale. To avoid allowing that number to get to high, I limited the input of weight per round to ≤8 weight units.
Each round, one player goes first. We’ll call them Player 1. They pick a few blocks to put on the scale. If they exceed 8 weight units, their scale goes “wah wah” and they must try again.
I decided not to include this portion in the final demonstration, because it distracts from understanding the overall intended experience.
To lock in their move, Player 1 then presses the speaker at the center of the device. The device makes a sound corresponding with the overall weight of their move, and tilts to a degree relative to that weight. A BLV user would be able to hold onto the scale as it tilts, and feel the angle of the horizontal beam change in relation to the central cylinder. This is made possible by the controlled, motorized movement of the beam, as opposed to a typical gravity-controlled scale. To aid in small-scale orientation and touch-based understanding of form, I segmented the curves to offer more planar references.
Player 2 then hears the sound that corresponds with Player 1’s move, and they can feel their scale tilt in the direction of the domed dish. Did a set of invisible blocks just appear in that dish? What did that noise mean? They are then prompted to use their blocks to balance the scale. At this point, they can only make a very uneducated guess, place some blocks on their dish, and press the button. A different sound plays, and the scale tilts in accordance with the new weight ratio between dishes. This is when both players begin to form associations between the weight and shape of the blocks, sounds, and the amount the scale tilts.
Together, as I specifically decided for the demonstration video, they both have seven minutes to find all seven combinations between their blocks that balance the scales.
This final video contains a communication of my research, connects it to the design idea, and demonstrates it in use.
12/19/2020
Final Reflections
This semester, we designed for people with very different experiences of the world. That is impossible to do well without enough insight, which is why this is the Design Research Studio. Research done well creates understanding between dissimilar people. It can be a great source of empathy. Sometimes research is just a good conversation. Sometimes it is a designed tool that creatively prompts someone to share their perspective in a more dynamic way than they normally would. The Research Methods class we took prepared us to ask helpful questions and design helpful tools. As I discussed above, this year it was challenging for us to utilize many of those methods, as we were necessarily restricted to virtual contexts for communication.
My first thought would normally have been to go out and do some people watching in a hospital, then brainstorm some design “probes” to leave (with the hospital’s permission of course). I imagined leaving a creative questionnaire workbook in the waiting room, setting up a little stand outside the entrance, all sorts of things. Instead, my first research method was calling my Grandmother. She had so many opinions and suggestions for improving the experience of hospital staff, but most of them related to managerial decision making or reworking the entire layout of the facility. There were definitely compelling nuggets in her suggestions (sometimes you have to pay attention to the underlying problem, not exactly the problem someone tells you about) but we both ended up suspecting that the waiting room was the most universally unresolved experience in healthcare.
Once I found out that ophthalmology patients spend the most time in waiting rooms, I did some academic research on ophthalmology patients and people with disabilities in general. I ended up gravitating to the social problem of isolation and loneliness experienced by these demographics in troublingly high numbers. In hindsight, this may have been a benefit of digital research. Where I normally might have tried to identify all of my insights from my own research, I was forced to climb onto the shoulders of giants and gain influence from existing research. In the past, I have skimmed the top to find notable designs and existing interventions, but never before have I utilized research papers and studies.
So, the information I found out about loneliness in older populations with disabilities, even specifically BLV people, was compelling. From there, I had inertia, and when Yiwei sent me The Participatory Museum by Nina Simon, I had found a theoretical approach for my identified problem: “social objects.” I then worked on bringing that theoretical approach into the context of ophthalmology waiting rooms. I discussed some of the roadblocks I met in that process above, but in spirit I could tell I was headed in the right direction.
Now, having made a video demonstration of my prototype, I find myself wishing I had another semester to keep working on this. I ended up in a place that clarifies intentions and asks new questions, but it is not nearly resolved. After my presentation, I was asked what kind of materials I envisioned the device made of. While that is an extremely important consideration, some other questions came up later that I believe would have to be addressed first. Could these devices be used in a smaller waiting room? What other ways could the two strangers interact or communicate following completion of the puzzle? I would love more time to work with these questions (and more) in mind, but I am happy to have reached the point I did.
Bonus Round
While planning out the underlying math for the puzzle, I ran through the moves with my parents many times with different blocks. We determined that seven to nine “rounds” would be ideal— not long enough to get boring, not short enough to be unsatisfying. For the demonstration, I wanted to give each player a set of four blocks that would have eight total balancing solutions. The only problem was that I didn’t know how to determine which blocks to choose that would result in eight combinations. So, I tossed them around for a bit until I had two sets with seven combinations. Close enough for the demonstration, but not satisfyingly worked out.
Today I sat down with my brother and we set up a Python program to output a list of options for Player 1 and Player 2’s blocks that have exactly eight (or whichever amount I input) balancing solutions.
Below is a big screenshot of the code and its output. It may help to zoom in, if you’d like. The window on the right with blue text is the list of options. Each row is an optional setup between two devices with eight possible combinations. The first row indicates that Player 1 could have blocks with weight values of 4, 2 , 2, and 8. Player 2 would have weight values of 7, 7, 4, and 4. What follows is a list of all of the possible combinations between them. For each to have the total weight value of 4, they could both place a 4 block. For each to have the total weight value of 8, Player 1 could place an 8 block and Player 2 could place two 4 blocks.
Now, if I were to arrive at an ophthalmology clinic and identify 20 side tables to place these devices on, I could ask this program to produce 10 rows of options for player block set pairs with 8 total solutions between them. This is backend stuff, obviously, but it is helpful to have worked out.
