INTERNSHIP AT THE INCREDIBLE MACHINE
I did an design internship at The Incredible Machine, a small design agency focused on Internet of Things and equitable technology. During my internship I worked on different projects together with experienced designers.
FEBRUARY 2019
Design research, rapid prototyping, interaction design, graphic design, website design
How I worked
During a design internship, I wanted to learn as much as I could from experienced designers and how design methods are employed in a business environment. I tried to seize the opportunity as another school, asking for book tips about design and the senior’s opinion about different design schools. Next to that I wanted to learn more ‘hard’ design skills such as journeymapping and webdevelopment.
I believe I succeeded in most of it, also thanks to the open nature and smaller size of the company
What I learned
- How to apply design in a business environment
- Design team collaboration
- Service design
- UI/UX
- Graphic design
- Web design
Process
During my time at The Incredible Machine I worked on:
- A service for at-risk students (Je Eigen Ding Doen)
- A Transparant Charging Station
- Unlocking housing to the many (House.Coop)
- And some other small projects
Seeing as The Incredible Machine is small, I took part as a full (junior) member of the design team. I got to work on different disciplines and products throughout.
Je Eigen Ding Doen
The Je Eigen Ding Doen (JEDD) project was the first project I worked on. My past experience as an exam coach and teacher made me suitable and excited for this project.
The JEDD project had already been running for some months when I started on it. The project revolved around “doing something creative with students” as assigned by the Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie.
After research and co-creation with the students from the ROC Mondriaan, it was found that the students were not given the chance to express themselves in any way. These are students following the programme of the Entreeschool, MBO 1 level. This is a school where at-risk teens, students with personal or home troubles, and sometimes refugees are sent to get a starting degree, before they continue to an ‘actual’ education programme. The school’s teachings are more of a pedagogical nature; to prepare the students’ attitude towards school before they start an actual education programme. Therefore, the courses in school are not challenging or engaging, leaving the students unmotivated and lacking in knowledge about themselves.
JEDD seeks to change this by letting them express themselves through vlogging.
This was the point where I started on the project. I helped in designing the ‘vlog-kit’ that we made for the students. A package of gear for them to get started on vlogging. This vlog kit was accompanied by one of a series of instructions for them on ‘How to Vlog’.
After the initial design of this kit, we introduced it to the students at the school in Delft. Students picked by the students got a Vlog Kit. We gave a short instruction. We also provided them with a ‘help line’ in the form of a phone number. They could contact us at any time on this phone to ask questions.
This package and the help line was a pilot for the project. We were trying to figure out what worked and what didn’t. In the end we learned a lot. At the end of the pilot I wrote a short paper reflecting on the process.
House.Coop
House.coop is the first chapter of the ‘next big thing’ for The Incredible Machine. This ‘thing’ is called The Equitable Project. It is basically a whole new company, grown from the idea of wanting to redesign the economy to be more equitable. This idea was initially easy to ‘get’ but hard to understand; how to redesign the economy? Where to start? What’s the business model?
The first step of this Equitable Project was in the housing market. This first step is called House.coop. House.Coop makes it easy for people to set up a housing cooperative. In a cooperative all of the owners pool their resources so that they can all own a ‘little bit of house’. All of the owners are mainly people that would not be able to buy a house on their own, leaving them with no built-up equity and vulnerable to financial ruin. House.Coop changes that.
The project was selected for the Ledger subsidy programme of the EU and can now be found here.
Transparent Charging Station
The transparent charging station is what indirectly started my internship with the Incredible Machine, so it is fitting that the follow-up to that project should end it.
The Transparent Charging Station was a project that The Incredible Machine did in collaboration with Elaad and Alliander.
That project is described as follows: “With the growing influence that hidden algorithms have over our daily lives, Alliander and Elaad predict the need for transparency in electric charging. Through a process of ideation sessions and multiple iterations of prototyping, The Incredible Machine designed a new visual language that makes the charging algorithm transparent to the end-user. Based on this language we’ve designed and constructed a demonstration model of such a charging station, allowing users to experience first hand how electric charging might be done in the future.”
This project was successful, and the involved parties and the municipality of Amsterdam want to do a real-life pilot at the Raamplein in Amsterdam. In order to do this the charging station needed to be redesigned to fit a real life scenario.
Starting out on the project I did research with another intern. We sought out and scheduled interviews with EV-drivers to gain insight in their world. We translated these interviews into a customer journey and some design criteria. After that I designed concepts and prototypes as a full member of the team. The project spanned several weeks, and was still going on when my internship ended.
