Microsoft
Case studies
About the project | Life in space
Using excel and Arduino to create middle school STEM activities about astronauts life in space.
The two projects displayed below are part of a larger effort by Microsoft partnered with Nasa, to create STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) for middle school aged children. The goal behind the project was to help children understand space, the effects of it on the human body, and how astronauts cope with being so far away from earth.
Using arduino and excel to relay live data into visual data, these projects take information about the electromagnetic spectrum and the effects of space on the human body and turn it into a visual and understable measurement for children to interact with. The final outcome of this project was in the form of a Excel workbook, a physical model building kit, and classroom instructions.
The client | As part of Microsoft STEM hacking team in collaboration with Nasa.
My role | UX/UI for the Excel workbook
Project 01
The electromagnetic spectrum
The goal of this project was to help children understand the electromagnetic spectrum and its effects on the human body. The lesson consisted of examining light through a prism to understand wavelengths and colors. Then using UV sensitive beads, children would learn about the effect of UV from different light sources. Next children would build a spectrometer to measure infrared and uv light levels in their environment.
My role on this project was to design the interface that when hooked up to the spectrometer would measure light wavelengths in their environment. I was responsible for visualizing the data that came through the spectrometer into excel.
Users | This project has been designed for children age 10-14
Project part shown | Excel interface for arduino
Tools used | Excel + Illustrator
01
Research
Back in science class | understanding the electromagnetic spectrum
Never did I think I would have to study science again... and then I started working on the Hacking STEM team at microsoft. When this project came up I couldn’t really remember very much about what I had learned in school regarding the electromagnetic spectrum. Through research it started to come back and I was better able to design for the task at hand.
02
Interface sketches
The Challenge | Designing an interface in excel
As I had been working on the Hacking Stem team for a while at this point, I understood the parameters of what designing in excel meant. Although not a program that can support animation, it does have the ability to show movement through data input. There are also limiting factors with layering objects, color, size, and a few more nuances that only a person designing in excel would ever come across.
Below are a few of my initial sketches for the project.
03
Interface
Design | playing with light and dark mode
After establishing the number of trails, layout, and color, I went on to creating a few more high fidelity prototypes. After doing so my team settled on a final design*.
One of the biggest challenges I faced was coming up with a way to show the live data average as the data was coming in. This was important for the children to get a better visual idea of what was going on. The data input bars would move up and down so rapidly while on that it was very difficult to see what was happening. This was solved by put a simple black bar across each data bar that leveled out the average as the data came in.
* some changes to design were made after project completion to better accommodate for excel
Active state- data coming in
Non-active state- no data coming in
Final color scheme
04
Project video walk-through
Video | more information and larger context
Although I did not take part in creating this video or the content, it is a good summary of the project explained above. It covers other aspects of the project that I did not work on and gives the project a larger context.
This video was created by the Hacking STEM video team.
Project 02
Space Socks
The goal of this project was to help children understand the effects that living in the international space station has on the astronauts feet. Living in microgravity, astronauts use their feet to anchor themselves while doing tasks. This causes a discomfort on the tops of the feet. In this lesson children gather information about performance footwear, study human anatomy, and then design and prototype a sock that mitigates pressure on their feet. They test their designs my hooking their protype to pressure sensors and collecting data through arduino into excel.
My role on this project was to design the interface that when hooked up to the space sock, would relay pressure data from different part of the foot into excel.
Users | This project has been designed for children age 10-14
Project part shown | Excel interface for arduino
Tools used | Excel + Illustrator
01
Research
Anatomy of a foot | understanding feet and how astronauts use them
My research for this project focused on understanding the anatomy of the foot as well as how astronauts use their feet in space. During this project we had access to one of NASA’s astronauts and he answered all of our questions regarding space life. It was immensely helpful having someone who knew the in’s and outs of what was going on.
02
Interface iterations
Design | Number of trials vs. number of sensors
The biggest challenge I faced with this project was balancing the number of trials each student needed to collect vs. the number of sensors on the foot. As I began to design I realized very quickly that the interface would either be incredibly busy and overwhelming, or would limit the amount of data that could be collected. Below are a few iterations of the interface design.
03
Final interface
Final design | Adjusting parameters
After many iterations myself and the rest of the design team came up with the final interface layout. The problem of trails vs senros was dealt with by dividing the foot up into four different parts; the phalanges, metatarsals, tarsals, and the ankle. This allowed students to see what part of the foot was being out under high pressure without overwhelming them with data.
04
Project video walk-through
Video | more information and larger context
Although I did not take part in creating this video or the content, it is a good summary of the project explained above. It covers other aspects of the project that I did not work on and gives the project a larger context.
This video was created by the Hacking STEM video team.
