Cybernetics Final

Introduction to Cybernetics and the Foundations of Systems Design with Paul Pangaro

Students were required to critique a pre-existing interactive system of their own choosing by applying the models learned in class. Their models must express the current state of the system, with its perceived deficiency, as well as show how a design intervention can improve the resulting experience.

• Michael Yap : A Conversational Model of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Notion of Creativity

  

  Portrayed above is one of a series of diagrams created to explain the process in which a new idea is generated, vetted, and preserved. The theoretical underpinning for this work was adapted from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s writing on creativity. The psychologist argues that creativity—the kind that has the ability to change culture—isn’t solely in the mind of an individual; that to have any impact, a creative idea must be expressed in terms that can be understood by others; that “it must pass muster with the experts in the field”; and “it must be included in the […] domain where it belongs.” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996) Thus, for creativity to shift culture, three key conversations must ensue: a conversation to learn, a conversation to exchange, and a conversation to evaluate.

• Derek Chan : A Shared Language in an Agency Design Process

  

  This first diagram of the series presents the inherent problem with an agency that does not include necessary participants throughout its design process. The absence of key participants means requisite variety is never achieved, leading to a breakdown in communication over time. The second part of the diagram shows how this system can be improved, with recommendations for more complete conversations with the necessary participants, and the inclusion of iterative feedback, thus creating a shared language for the team to use.

• Erin Moore : Controlling Boat Speed Through Stroke Rate

  

  A rowing team is made up of a rowers, coxswains and coaches that work together to achieve a common goal. Each part of the system acts and reacts in very different ways and a team’s success depends on their ability to sense changes to the stroke in ways that are accurate and efficient.

  A good way to think of a rowing team is in biological terms:

  The rowers are the heart. They feel, sense, and perfect a particular movement to keep the boat running in a positive direction. They are the engine that keeps the whole system up and running.

  However, much like a heart would be of little use without a brain to direct it’s output, rowers would be of little good without a coxswain who thinks on their behalf. Coxswains direct movements, identify inconsistencies, and communicate problems to the rowers.

  Finally there is a coach, the consciousness, who observes, identifies overall patterns and inconsistencies throughout the entire team. From their outside perspective, the coach is able to determine right from wrong and communicate changes to a team’s overall strategy.

• Christopher Cannon : Conversation: Sustaining a Band

  

  Often times in conversation, ideas are expressed implicitly, instead of explicitly. When this occurs, the lines of communication are broken and messages become lost. This is a model of the band Black Flag and their conversation with fans over a period of years. Shown here are the problems they faced not only with implicitly stated goals and methods, but with a damaging lawsuit that prevented them from releasing records as well. The band’s change in musical style could not be disseminated gradually to their fans due partly to these problems.

• Clint Beharry : Drivers, Highway Officers, and Speeding

  

  The high-level goal of a driver in a car is to travel to their destination safely and promptly. The high-level goal of a highway officer is to facilitate an environment that allows drivers to travel safely and promptly. At this level, both drivers and officers have collaborative goals. But as goals break down into lower-level goals and methods, a competitive environment arises for both drivers and officers.

• Carmen Dukes : E-Waste Disposal: Changing the Conversation

  

  The improper disposal of electronic waste is a global problem. Cell phones, televisions, and computers are filling up landfills, and developing countries have become a dumping ground for unwanted devices. In order to design a solution to address this problem, it’s important to look at the current conversation between a consumer and an electronics manufacturer to uncover opportunities to modify the existing feedback loops. This project introduces a service that would engage consumers wherever they are in the product lifecycle and whenever they interact with electronics manufacturers. With the design of a new service that interacts with a consumer at every possible touch point -product research, purchase, un-boxing, use, and disposal - there is now a persistent conversation about proper e-waste disposal.

• Chia-Wei Liu : Health and Psychology

  

  This is an improved system model of hospitalization system. The new model broadens the “goal” and “method” of current system to help patients balance their emotional and mental state.

• Kristin Breivik : Improved Parent Notification System

  

  Even though Kristin is not a parent, she has involuntarily become part of a parent notification system that calls her up and tells her in a robot voice about someone else’s son being absent from school. Using cybernetics models to analyze the system, she found some opportunities for change… Adding a quality control of the parent contact information would make sure that the person receiving the message about the child is the actual parent. Changing the robocalls to email notifications would eliminate the problem of bad sound quality, would be less interruptive and allow the parent to read through the message at own speed. It could also enable the school to add more in-depth information for those parents that are interested in more statistics about the child’s absence.

• Benjamin Gadbaw : Improving Drug Adherence in Stroke Patients: Behavioral Economics as a System Model Intervention

  

  Stroke is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States costing the US an estimated $73.7 billion in 2010. While effective drugs exist to reduce the probability of stroke, doctors continue to struggle with adherence. A pilot study conducted by a behavioral economist, George Lowenstein at Carnegie Mellon, reveals how the provision of Warfarin to stroke patients can be improved so as to increase adherence. By providing a lottery-based incentive for taking medication, the study creates a feedback loop in parallel with the pre-existing goal-means mechanism where the loop is discontinuous. In modeling this system we can being to understand the underlying architecture of the goal structure and thereby apply similar improvements to corollaries in healthcare as well as other realms of human behavior where problems seem intractable (e.g. addiction, weight management, and personal debt reduction).

• Catherine Young : Interactive and Interdisciplinary Museology: A Conversation between Science and Art

  

  Science and art museums are concentrated repositories of knowledge that engage in conversation with the public to disseminate knowledge, to educate and to stimulate. For me, both the sciences and the arts are ways of seeing the world. Each is not the antithesis of the other; they are two unified approaches that humans have used to manifest their wonderment of the universe. What must happen is not a continued separation of these disciplines, but a conversation between them and an insurgency against their confinement. Through this new model, it is my goal to redefine the purpose of science and art museums, increase engagement and stimulation of the public, and facilitate conversation between disciplines. As an example, I have modeled a conversation between science and art on the work of abstract expressionist Mark Rothko and visual perception. If visitors understand that our neuroscience allows us to experience “the transcendent” when looking at one of his paintings, then they reinterpret the painting. Their experience is therefore enriched, and the museum’s impact and relevance are increased.

• Adjoa Opoku : Mental Models of Education: Black Male Youth

  

  Nearly all statistics having to do with black men and education are not in their favor. They are the least likely to graduate both high school and college and continue to perform lower than their peers throughout the country on almost every indicator.I believe that these problems are rooted in the way the black youth perceive the patch to success and the role of education in that journey. Many young black men want to be extremely successful and have a prosperous adult life, but it seems that they do not see, nor feel the direct correlation between academic and financial success. This model shows the gaps in black students mental models of success in comparison to their teachers. This results in a distorted view of what success is and how it is achieved. The gaps represent opportunity areas where reform can be made in education to help close this achievement gap.

• Tina Ye : Reducing Food Waste Begins with the Individual

  

  Household food waste is a $45 billion yearly problem, compounded by the unbalanced internal conversations we may have with ourselves about food.  If a person typically listens only to their preferences when buying, storing, preparing and eating food, opportunities for food waste abound.  Alternatively, this model proposes a redesigned internal conversation that allows practical attitudes to mediate between personal preferences and the general goals involved with consuming food. This allows a person to still eat what they desire, but reduce food waste.

• Allison Shaw : Second Order Feedback: Citizens, Government & Air Quality

  

  My improved system represents one of many ways the United States could begin to effectively address global warming. Currently, the government’s Environmental Protection Agency creates emissions standards for some polluting gases. This protects consumers from the true bio-cost of the products they use, and passes it on to the environment itself. By bypassing the EPA, an ineffective agency that refuses to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, and enacting an anti-plastic bag law, the government could begin to pass on the true bio-cost of using such products to the people actually consuming them. This would help involve citizens more in the choices they make and provide better incentive for makers of plastic bags to improve both their materials and their processes.

• John Finley : Writing & Editing

  

  John outlines some of the ways in which a specific form of writing management—copy editing—affects the process of writing. He prescribes a method of improving that process by making editing a collaborative learning experience.