Due Dates
COUHES forms: ASAP, no later than Friday, November 12
Project Proposal: Tuesday, November 16
Project Presentation: Tuesday, December 7
Paper Due: Thursday, December 9 at 5:00pm

Description
For the final project, you should explore a specific tool or community in depth. The project will consist of a project proposal presentation, a final project presentation, and a final paper. Both presentations should be between 5 and 8 minutes in length. Papers should be approximately 4 pages in the ACM format. Templates are available at http://www.chi2010.org/authors/format.html, under HCI Archive Format.

You are very welcome (in fact encouraged) to work in groups. Your project should take one of three following forms:

1. Tool or kit design
You should design a tool or toolkit that enables others to build things. The primary contribution of this project will be the design and construction of a prototype tool or kit which you will present on December 7.

• Your proposal presentation should: clearly define the tool or kit you are designing, identify the audience for the tool, and present your plan for development.
• Your final presentation should focus on a demonstration of the tool or kit and a discussion of your design and implementation process.
• The paper should include a short literature review that places your contribution in the context of similar tools, a reflection on the audience your tool is designed for, an articulation of the purpose of the tool, and a description of its design.

2. Community investigation
Investigate a creative community to illuminate some aspect of the relationship between tools and communities. You could use publicly available data (ie: contributions to forums or galleries on the scratch, ravelry or instructables websites) and/or you could conduct your own data collection (ie: surveying a group of students from a local high school). The primary contribution of this project will be written documentation of your investigation and discoveries. NOTE: you may need COUHES approval to undertake this project if you plan to use it in your research. More information on COUHES here: http://web.mit.edu/committees/couhes/index.shtml

• Your proposal presentation should: define what you hope to learn from your investigation and explain why this is important, identify the community you are investigating, and present your study methodology.
• Your final presentation should focus on a discussion of what you learned from your investigation and how you learned it.
• Your paper should include a short literature review that details similar efforts, a description of your study methodology, and a discussion of your findings.

3. Community engagement
Design and teach a workshop that helps an underserved community (ie: not MIT or Harvard students) learn a new technological skill. Document your experience with photos, written reflections, and/or video. The primary contribution of this project will be written documentation of your workshop. NOTE: you will need COUHES approval to undertake this project if you plan to use it in your research. More information on COUHES here: http://web.mit.edu/committees/couhes/index.shtml.

• Your proposal presentation should: clearly define what you will be teaching, identify the community you will be working with, and present your plan for the workshop.
• Your final presentation should focus on a discussion of the workshop and what you and your students learned from it.
• Your paper should include a short literature review that details similar efforts, a description of your workshop, and a discussion of what you and your students learned in the course of the experience.