General Motors Intern Project

WHEN

Summer 2023

Background

General Motors and Lockheed Martin partnered to design an autonomous and electric rover for the Artemis 3 Mission. During my summer internship, while I was working on the Advanced Design Team, I was tasked with developing a concept and designing its user interface to support the rover, future astronauts, and the mission overall.

Process

Met with the two designers of the rover to gain insights into the structure of the rover and its abilities

I educated myself on the Artemis 3 Mission and general space travel

I decided to focus on a specific astronaut embarking on the mission, Christina Koch, and made a POV to gain empathy for her needs related to the rover and her daily life on the Artemis 3 Mission

I created a “Day in the Life” based on Christina Koch (Artemis 3 Mission Specialist) to be able to use for ideation

Research

Learning about GM & Lockheed’s role in the Artemis 3 Mission: the rover

Ideation

I hosted an Ideation session with 15 employees split into two groups that ideated on specific parts of Christina’s “Day in the Life”

Group 1 was responsible for ideating on Christina’s morning routine and 2nd half of the day

Group 2 was responsible for ideating on Christina’s 1st half of the day and evening routine

After the ideation session was finished I was able to narrow the scope and finalize the concept design

The Persona & Concept

Christina Koch is the “main character” of the concept as the day in the life that I built the concept around is based on her needs as a woman and her specific day-to-day roles on this mission.

The concept is an AR HUD. It would look similar to the picture above, which can be worn both inside and outside the spacecraft with the appropriate gear. It can be controlled using voice control, eye tracking, & gesture recognition and can communicate with the astronauts via voice and vice versa.

User Research

In the last week of my internship, I ran three user tests on my concept and prototype

My first interview was with a scuba diver, as this was the closest real-life parallel to an astronaut for testing

The next two were with the GM designers of the rover, who I originally met with during the research phase

“AR technology is going to be critical to many parts of the Artemis mission. Providing context to the astronauts about these new environments is very important”

“Visor doesn’t have many moving parts, wouldn’t break easily, and being inside the helmet would keep it protected from the elements of the moon”

Prototype

Using Adobe Firefly, I created futuristic and space-like visuals; Figma to design the UI and add animations; and Premiere Pro for final presentation enhancements. The video below will walk you through the prototype which follows Christina’s day in the life POV, making the prototype feel highly tailored to her specific needs

*Due to losing company Figma access after my internship ended, I am unable to access the full videos from each screen in the prototype that had the moving overlays which depicted the eye tracking and hand gestures*

Final Thoughts

This project deepened my understanding of designing for exploratory projects where I had complete creative freedom while also prioritizing usability, safety, and precision. Through extensive research, iterative testing, and innovative tools like Adobe Firefly and Figma, I honed my ability to create user-centered solutions that integrate advanced technology.

Working on a concept inspired by a specific astronaut, Christina Koch, emphasized the importance of empathy and storytelling in design, helping me connect technical challenges to real human experiences. This project reinforced my passion for leveraging design thinking to solve complex, impactful problems and pushed me to explore new ways of visualizing and presenting concepts.

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