For this week’s deliverable, I wanted to give you all an opportunity to think and express yourself a little differently by using LEGO as a three-dimensional and haptic medium to do so. When we think about media, we might think about writing, speaking, video, recorded audio, painting, sculpting, etc. LEGO, likewise, is a medium that can be used to communicate ideas, such as to illustrate a thing or express an idea or process.

First, we are going to use LEGO to build models about your experience and then report to the class what your builds are meant to convey. This will serve as practice for the next phase.

Then, I want you to think of something related to what you think about technical communication. It might be an idea of the technical communicator at work, the tools a technical communicator uses, the technical topics that you’re most interested in, or something else. Build a model of what that scene or thing is with at least 10 bricks (you may use more but not less), and report back to the class what it is, what it means, and what inspired you to build that particular model.

Next, take your model to the photo booth and take isometric view photos of your model (see example below) from it’s completed form to it’s disassembled form (removing one or two bricks at a time for each photo). Be sure to include a photo of all of the required bricks for your model as your first step image.

Using your photos of your model and its deconstruction, build an instruction manual that combines photos and words to guide your user through building the model. Also, your manual should include an introduction page that explains what the model is, what inspired you to design it, and what you hope your user gains through the process of building the model themselves (e.g., what should they be thinking about, what does it relate to or connect to in the workplace or school, etc.).

Your textual descriptions of each step should be in your own words. You may use the specific LEGO brick names, but it is not required–just make sure that your descriptions describe the bricks and placement in meaningful ways.

For this week’s deliverable, use Google Docs to create your instructions using this model as a guide. To submit your deliverable for credit, compose an email to Prof. Ellis (jellis@citytech.cuny.edu) with the subject, “ENG2700 Deliverable: Instruction Manual,” and write a short, professional email with a link to your Google Doc (use Share > General Access > Anyone with the link | Viewer > Copy link > Done).

Next week, you don’t have to print your instruction manual. Instead, we will use the digital copy for the User Testing Report.