Refining my dissertation idea further

Over the last week I've been thinking about not only the vague idea of what I want to show with my dissertation, but the specific elements of animation that I want to learn and be marked on.

I want to show a series of very expressive emotions through a limited model / rig. The perfect example of this is the Pixar lamp; specifically speaking, the animation 'Luxo Jr' produced by Pixar in 1986. It's a two-minute short film with two lamps as the protagonists, one big and one small. The animation clearly shows different emotions, or what the lamps are "thinking", without having any spoken dialogue. 



My favourite part in the animation is when the small lamp accidentally deflates the ball he was playing with, and his movements suddenly slow down as he jumps away in a sad sulk, only to be back to his energetic self moments later as he quickly jumps back with a much larger ball.

I want to take it one step further, and show a a few different emotions in short bursts throughout my animation (say, 10 seconds each.)  As my story isn't going to be marked, I can arrange it in a way which is practical to my animation; I will write a list of emotions I want to show, and then plan the story around them.

My current emotion list is as follows:
1. Panic / Desperation
2. Fear
3. Relief / Hope
4. Excited / Panic
5. Joy

I will expand on these 5 emotional states once I've got a better plan for my storyboard, and I plan to have a rough draft up this week.