Heat Wave!

Sorry, it’s been a while since I’ve updated, but I hadn’t had a chance to take any photos, so I was waiting until I could snap a few more. Today I got a couple of shots of the outside of the Motorola building, which is as far as a camera can go without special permission. I’ve included a shot of the front (yes, the building is so large that I had to stitch two photos together), and a shot of the back of the building. The back is where my entrance is, and you can barely see through the trees a large band of window across the back of the building, which is where the Innovation & Design department looks out. Last Thursday I was finally given my summer project. They have an idea for an area of the market that hasn’t been thoroughly pursued by many companies, and they want me to do some research and develop a design. They want to look into improving the restaurant business by incorporating some kind of digital device, potentially utilizing Mobile Point of Sale. MPOS is basically centered on the idea of a mobile device that can read credit or debit card data and do transactions, eliminating the need for a cash register—except that for most retail environments, a receipt printer and bagging station would still be necessary. The beauty of MPOS for a restaurant is that there is no bagging of purchased items (except for the leftover “to-go” box, which wouldn’t change). So I will be doing research in middle-tier restaurants to identify what the problems of the industry are, what the needs of employees or consumers are, and how they can be solved. Monday, a few people from the Innovation & Design department came along with me to Chili’s, where we had a delicious lunch (courtesy of Motorola), and I was able to begin some observation and interviewing. I have spent most of this week compiling data and working out a Summer-long schedule for each part of the design process. Most of this month is dedicated to the research (and more free food, yay!), July will consist of design conceptualization and modeling, and August is designated for final computer modeling and summarizing the final design. Tomorrow, I have a meeting to present my schedule as well as my research protocols that I will be taking to each restaurant that I visit. From there, I will be able to fine-tune my research method and finalize more dates for specific eatings-out. The final intern, Jason, started this week. He seems nice, but we don’t see much of him because he has only had one year of school at this point, and is mostly stuck doing design busywork. I was trying to figure out how a rising Sophomore was able to land an internship like this, but today I noticed a man with a nametag that had the same last name as Jason (and unless LeGoff is just some common northern last name, I would say the puzzle is solved). Nevertheless, most of the “real” design work (at least as far as interns are concerned) is being left to me and Ally. It has been drastically hot here, and I have not enjoyed our lack of air conditioning in the house (multiple fans have now been purchased). Even at work yesterday the A/C was broken, leaving me no escape from the heat. For the past three nights, I have gone to bed with my room thermometer reading above 90 degrees—the record peaking at 93.7ºF (INTERIOR temperature! agh!). Today was much cooler (relatively speaking), and I am now feeling very comfortable at a chilling 86.2. Hopefully things will continue to cool down, and work will continue to go well. More to come!