Emma - CMM - Year 2

Manchester School Of Art ~ Second Year Blog ~ 2015-2016

[emma-cmm-year2]

[emma-cmm-year2]

Unit X - Placement - Job Interview at Reason Digital

Evaluation

After applying to Reason Digital earlier in the year, then finally hearing back and being set quite a large task within a very short space of time, I really never thought I would have a chance at gaining this interview. 

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed re-designing the virgin pioneers website, as I learnt so much about UX, UI, and web design all within only a week. It helped me prove to myself just how much work I can achieve and complete when I put my mind to it. The processes I followed, from the mind maps, to the sketches, to the wireframes and research, all served a vital role in me creating the end product. I had to analyse over and over again, test every link and compare the website, in order to find the flaws and improvements which I could make, to improve user experience, and aesthetic qualities. My favourite part of this task however, was putting it all together, and seeing it finally how I saw it in my head when I first began planning, and then comparing it to the original site, and seeing how I had improved on it. The software I chose to use was really good to use too, allowing me to learn a new prototyping platform, and offering interactivity features. Thankfully I had used a lot of the skills I needed before, by completing Photoshop tasks, carefully creating matching colour palettes, and completing font research for other similar tasks, plus the UX skills from the BBC app. 

The interview went really well, it couldn’t have gone any better, which I really didn’t expect. I was confident in presenting my ideas and work, which just shows that being prepared really helps, and any questions which were thrown at me were answered with explanations. I also showed a lot of interest in the company, asking questions about what they do and specific projects etc. At the end it felt like much more of a friendly conversation than an interview, which was really relieving for me. 

If I had more time to create the website, or I could do it over, I wouldn’t really change much about the home page, as I spent so much time adding interactions to each and every section, using the guidelines to ensure everything was lined up, and standardising colours and fonts. However, I would want to go on to make the web page go live, taking it one step further than just a prototype, doing a little more of the back-end stuff, just so I would know how to do it for future possibilities. I would also have liked to take my UX skills one step further, and guerilla tested the website, however I didn’t have enough time to do so this time, but obviously with professional projects testing is key, a lab test with a discussion guide for this would have gone a long way. 

Overall the creating of the website was challenging but thoroughly enjoyable, and the interview was really relaxed and went amazingly. They are a great company and I could learn a lit from having this placement with them over the summer, it would be great to experience working a little bit in each department as well, in order to find out about what it is that I’m really interested in most. I’m glad I had the opportunity to create something out of Uni, and challenge myself at my first proper interview, and I hope to hear back from them soon!

Since I had completed my interview at Reason Digital, I have since checked up on the virgin pioneers website just to see if it was a work in progress, or they were just challenging me on my skills. I was amazed to see that they had altered the main feature which I talked about in my interview, the introduction video replacing the duplicated links at the top of the page:

As you can see above, they have altered the main feature to the same video which I presented to be on the home page, explaining to users more about the website before making them scroll through every page. It may just be coincidence, but either way I am glad that something has changed which I managed to pick up on! 

[emma-cmm-year2]

Unit X - Placement - Job Interview at Reason Digital

The Interview

I was really nervous for the interview at first, as it was my first ever non-hospitality job interview, however knowing that I was overly prepared made me feel a lot better about things, plus the fact that I had already met a member of the team at the talent day. 

I was greeted by the head of the design team, Jonny, another designer, and the animator. They were all so welcoming and lovely and I felt at ease straight away, they started off by asking me what my interests are and a little bit about myself, I jumped straight in and told them about the projects which I had been working on, they were impressed by the BBC app which I had created, which I had pre-loaded on my phone already for them to have a look at. They were also impressed by my bury art gallery installation, as I explained to them about the coding, projection mapping and animations which I had created for it. I then went on to talk about myself, where I am from etc, after they had all introduced themselves and told me a little bit about the company.

I expressed that I loved that they were a social enterprise, working with only charities and do-gooders. They seemed quite pleased that I knew a lot about the company already, and went on to tell me about what kinds of work they do, and what each department does. They create mostly websites, some applications, and also animations to add to these sites, and do everything from the back end PHP, to the front end design. Everything that they were telling me sounded really interesting, and the open-plan office was really relaxed and seemed like an amazing working environment. 

They then asked me to talk through my website, after asking me if I had managed to complete the task or not. I presented from my laptop, firstly showing the diagram I had created, highlighting all of the points on the original site which I thought I could alter, explaining that I completed my design from more of a UX point of view. They nodded at all of the things which I pointed out and seemed a little surprised by how much I had thoroughly worked my way through the page. I then went on to show my final design, explaining how it needed to be dynamic for the target audience, how the about video should be on the main page, and how I had got rid of a lot of text and made it more minimal. I finally said about getting rid of the embedded twitter feed, they were really happy I picked up on this as they agreed that it was totally unnecessary. Overall they seemed very pleased with the website which I had designed, and I took about 15 minutes talking through it top to bottom. 

To finish off, they explained that there was yet to be a more precise plan for the student scheme, and asked me a little more about myself, and if I was more interested in UX or UI. I said probably UX at the minute as I am enjoying developing my skills, however throughout creating the website, I realised that I really enjoyed the UI side of things too. He then asked me a few typical interview questions based on clients, such as ‘would you complete the whole website and then show the client, or would you keep in contact along the way?’ etc. of course I replied keep in contact, so no time or money is wasted creating something that the client could potentially dislike if they are not involved in the making of.

All of the questions, I answered confidently and quite easily, which came at quite a surprise to me, making me realise that I would definitely love to work in a place like this, where I can learn from other people, and do what I love doing. They then told me that with the student scheme (placement), they would look to put me in a different team every few days or week (design, UX, coding, animation, management etc), so that I could get to know about how the company works, and they would also try to put me in a client meeting too. This sounded perfect for what I wanted, so I was really enthusiastic in the interview. They finally walked me out, and said that it would be a little over a month before I hear back, but not to worry, as the woman running the scheme was working away currently, and he said he hopes to see me soon. They all seemed really pleased with the work I created, and my other work which I talked them through, and were therefore passionate about telling me about their company. I am quite hopeful now to have a chance at this placement, and I’m really pleased I applied! 

[emma-cmm-year2]

Unit X - Placement - Job Interview at Reason Digital

The Final Website

Overall I am really happy with my finished website, I feel like I have applied my UX and UI skills appropriately, and worked really hard to meet an important and tight deadline. I enjoyed learning new software, researching into other companies, and creating something appropriate for the target audience, something usable, dynamic, standardised and aesthetically pleasing. At first I worried as I thought I wouldn’t be able to find enough to change on the original website, but after mind mapping, sketching and researching, I feel like I have changed a lot and improved on many UX aspects. 

[emma-cmm-year2]

Unit X - Placement - Job Interview at Reason Digital

Interactivity

I really liked using this software because of it’s interactivity features, which I could use within the 30 day premium trial which I downloaded, and as I had finished designing the whole digital prototype with a day to spare, I thought of adding some additional features. 

It allowed me to add an ‘event’ to different aspects of the page, and alter them depending on certain user functions, such as click, scroll over etc. This was perfect for me to be able to demonstrate how certain text may become underlined or change colour when the user scrolls over it, to show it is a hyperlink. 

The first thing I did was made it so that when the user scrolls over the links in the top banner, they would change to grey. I decided to do this instead of an underline as it looked much cleaner and minimalistic, matching the theme of the page I designed. Because the ‘Join Us / Log In’ links were quite small however, I decided to add underlines to them to make it a little more obvious, as I wanted the text to remain dark:

For the video section, I made it so the ‘More About Us’ link would turn to grey once the user scrolls over it, instead of white, and also the play button in the middle of the video would turn to grey when the user hovers over it. This just allows them to know where to click and what is a link or not:

As you can see here, I had removed the duplicated headings from below the descriptions, and added the links to the main headings instead. This is apparent with an underline, as the white writing needed to stay white so that it was visible over the images. I also added small triangle bullet points for the descriptions, to make them look less blocky, and match with the other arrows with I used throughout:

I finally used the interactivity feature to allow the user to read a brief description on the advice section, when they scrolled over each link. This allowed them to know the aim of each link quickly, to minimise bulk text, and to keep it hidden and more visual/image based on the home page, instead of lots of jargon: 

I was glad I got to add all of these features as it made it look a lot more realistic and better to show my intentions for the website’s final form in the interview. 

[emma-cmm-year2]

Unit X - Placement - Job Interview at Reason Digital

After completing my wireframe, I could then begin to put all of my ideas together on top of the wireframe, to complete the finished digital prototype ready for my interview. I wanted this to be as complete as I could make it, because as well as wanting it finished for the interview, I also wanted to develop my skills with web design, and to see how fair I could push myself. 

Digital Prototype

To start off, I created a new prototype, I chose an empty canvas with custom dimensions. It took me a while to get this right, as I had to keep editing it based on the content and how long the home page was going to be. I made sure that I chose dimensions which would leave blank gaps at each side of the screen, to streamline the page, instead of the content hitting each side:

I then dragged in the outlines, text and boxes from the wireframe, to my new document, so that I could work on top of it and test everything as I go along. The first thing I did was find a good quality version of the logo online, and imported this into the page, I could then use the eyedropper tool to select the red colour from it, for other components of the page, and I made a note of the colour code. I then stuck to two shades of red, and two shades of grey, for text and outlines etc. This would keep to the theme of the company, and also ensure that it looked professional and nothing clashed. 

After laying out the main parts of the page, sectioning it into different parts for each component, I could then work more on the UI side of things, as by drawing my wireframe and conducting research, I had already covered most of the UX side of things. To section it, I decided to use grey panels between each section (one grey then one white). 

I then added the introduction video from the ‘about’ page to the home page, to allow new users to be able to find out more about the website without having to scroll through all of it’s pages. I positioned this where the duplicated ‘get inspired, get connected, get ahead’ links were. I also changed the top toolbar where these links were, and used them as more of a slogan for the company, as I thought this looked better than having them each underlined. This made them more of a main focus, and I removed the ‘about’ link too, as the link to that was now within the short description from the introduction video, instead of duplicated twice within a small space:

For the ‘get inspired, get connected, get ahead’ mid-section images/links, I then added the links to these pages to the actual headings which were embedded within the images, instead of the same words again below the text, which looked a bit messy and unnecessary. This was one of the first things I noticed about the website, as I attempted to click on the headings and images, but they did not contain the links. You can see this here on their website, and is something which I definitely wanted to change:

To tackle the ‘expert advice’ section, and the fact that it wasn’t dynamic on the mobile version because of the scrolling issue, I created a grid of the images instead of the up and down scrolling ones. Because there were originally 10 categories for the ‘advice’ section, I thought it was a little too much information and text heavy for the home page, so I therefore chose 6 to be shown at once, with arrows the user can click on to view the next four separately. I also added a brief description to the left of the advice links, and a button to allow the user to go to the main advice page, to view all of the information there instead of on the home page. I used the same fonts, colours, positioning and style as the top ‘about’ grey section, to ensure that it was sleek and standardised: 

I did like the way they had fit all of the information in a small space, however after reading through two or three of them, it became a little tiring and I thought that smaller descriptions and less text was key. I also wanted the images to line up with the top video on the page, so I used guidelines to ensure everything was perfect, making it less text heavy, dynamic, and also aesthetically pleasing: 

To finish off the home page and add the links at the bottom, I then used my ideas from the research, and created the social media links in grey, and rounded. This worked really well with the colour scheme, and when the user would scroll over them, they would change colour. I finally added a search bar, for users looking to search for a specific thing quickly, and removed the embedded twitter and facebook pages, as they were so small and looked a little messy, making the bottom of the page unnecessarily cluttered and large. I placed the logo at the bottom again, to add a little colour and break up all of the links. As you can see in comparison, I got rid of a lot of the white space, and removed a lot of things which just weren’t needed: 

I was really pleased with how much I managed to get done within such a small space of time, as I doubted my ability to even be able to come up with a solid wireframe, especially as I had never designed a website before. 

[emma-cmm-year2]

Unit X - Placement - Job Interview at Reason Digital

After I had analysed the web page and marked out all of the sections which I wanted to change, I then emailed Peter and Hannah to gain some advice on how to create the final design for my interview. As I was panicking for time I wondered wether to do a wireframe, or push myself to do a full digital version. Both advised that I do the digital prototype and try to do my best to finish it, bare in mind that Reason said it didn’t need to be fully polished, so I thought I could do my best to do as much as I could, to demonstrate my UX, UI and time management skills.

Research

Before beginning to make my designs and jumping straight in, it was important that I conducted some research into other, similar, websites, just to see if I could gain any inspiration for content or layout. To do this, I found a website, which listed the 50 best entrepreneur websites (http://www.inc.com/drew-hendricks/50-best-websites-for-entrepreneurs.html), and worked my way through the top 20.

Example 1. One of the things I really liked about http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/, was that it had a really strong introduction at the top of the home page, making it clear of the websites aims and what it had to offer. It was also side-sliding, making it dynamic for its mobile users when scrolling, not interfering when users slide up and down the page with their fingers: 

Example 2. Another website which I gained inspiration from was https://www.onevest.com/, for a very simple feature, the social media links at the bottom of the page. I liked how they were rounded, and all grey, not clashing with the colour scheme of the website. I wanted to do something similar to this, however when the user scrolls over them, have them turn into whatever colour they are meant to be: 

Wireframe

To start out the layout of the web page which I would be creating, I firstly thought it would be best if I create a simple wireframe, just so I knew where everything would be placed. This would give me the opportunity to then work on top of this wireframe once finished, and turn it into the final prototype. 

By doing this first, I could keep repositioning elements such as the logo and top banner, and then simulating it live in a web page, so that I could make sure that all of the positioning was 100% accurate and placed correctly. It also let me play around with colours, mostly shades of red and grey, to see which should be used and where. I could also test different fonts and sizes, and try them in the web page to double check that everything matched and looked correct. 

After adding boxes and outlines of where I wanted everything to go, I then realised that I was wasting a lot of time making the wireframe look too much like the real thing, so I quickly sketched out a rough wireframe instead. I could then transform the digital wireframe which I made, into the actual digital prototype for the website, replacing all of the boxes with assets I had found online.

I really enjoyed putting it all together and doing the research, as I gained loads of inspiration and ideas for my final design. This then gave me enough knowledge and material to begin adding images, text, and different assets to my final design. 

[emma-cmm-year2]

Unit X - Placement - Job Interview at Reason Digital

When I thought about creating the web page, I instantly thought of the UX skills which I had learnt earlier in the year when I created my BBC 3 mobile application. Therefore, before just jumping in and creating a new web page, I thoroughly worked my way through the https://www.virginmediapioneers.com/ website, in order to see what things I could improve on, from a UX point of view. 

To do this, I screenshot the whole web page, and then imported the images into the prototyping and wireframe software which I downloaded, ‘Justinmind’. I could then use the tools within the software, which are similar to photoshop, to label each aspect of the web page which I thought I could improve on or change:

Because of the 5 day deadline on creating the website, and having to do it alongside my week placement at ener.g, I had to take in my laptop on one of the days of my placement, and complete this diagram on my lunch break, after having created some mind maps the night before which highlighted all of the potential problems and improvements. I wanted to put it into digital form and have it all laid out nicely though, ready to present at my interview, and the software which I chose to use was good as it allowed me to preview it full screen once complete:

It only took me a couple of hours to put this together, and was really useful to me, to present off and work my way down the web page, instead of holding up lots of notes and mind maps with no visuals to demonstrate my points. 

The main factors of the web page which I noticed that I wanted to change from a UX point of view were:

- The social media links were duplicated at the top and bottom of the page.

- The ‘Get Inspired, Get Connected, Get Ahead’ links were duplicated in the banner, the main image feature at the top of the page, and also as three separate images nearer to the bottom of the page.

- There was no information about the website/service on the home page, and I had to go to the ‘about’ page to see what the Virgin Media Pioneers website had to offer. I thought that the ‘about’ video/introduction should be placed at the top of the home page, instead of the duplicated links on the slideshow/image showreel.

- When scrolling on my mobile phone on the website, the mid section began to scroll as I was just trying to scroll down the main page, so I thought of getting rid of the scrolling feature here, and replace it with a side scroll or a collage of images - also minimising the bulk text on the home page for each link. 

- For the three ‘inspiration, connections, opportunities’ image links near the bottom, I expected to click on the images as the links, where the embedded titles were, but instead the links were below the image and the text. 

- The text to advertise the social media links on the bottom left was abnormally large and I thought it didn’t really blend into the home page theme very well.

- The social media icon colours clashed with the colour scheme of the home page, so instead I thought maybe having them as a light grey, changing to colour when the user scrolls over them.

- The embedded twitter stream took up a lot of space at the bottom of the page, and also had an annoying scroll, similar to the other scroll on the mid section, making the website less dynamic for mobile users, which is key as their target audience is primarily young smart phone owners.

- Finally, the bottom of the web page was quite plain and boring, and so I wanted to add the logo again at the bottom near the toolbar.

[emma-cmm-year2]

Unit X - Placement - Job Interview at Reason Digital

After sending off my CV and covering letter to reason digital, I did not hear back for over a month, and therefore presumed that they were over-applied to and I wouldn’t hear back. However, then I received this email saying that they are working on a shortlist for applicants, but that they are not able to get back to everyone because of the amount of people who had sent their applications:

A few weeks later, I then got an email asking if I would be interested in coming in for an interview, which I really didn’t expect, but of course I jumped at the opportunity, and I replied as soon as I saw it, and accepted the opportunity to come in for an interview and talk to them, to learn more about the student scheme and to see if I would be suitable to do some work experience with them. 

They then replied and told me that for the interview they would like me to create a piece of work, to demonstrate my skills and thought process, to highlight my strong points and see what aspect of design I was most interested in. 

At first this made me quite nervous as I had never had an interview like this before, or had to create a piece of work which I would be showing to professionals, outside of university. They said it would be a really casual interview, more of a discussion, and not to worry about having anything too finalised to show. This made me feel a little better, however as I only had a tight deadline to work to, about 5 days, to re-design a whole web page, something which I had never done before, I wanted to start working on it straight away. 

Because they asked me to re-design a web page, which at first glance appeared to be quite flawless, I wanted to base it more down the UX route, rather than simply design, but also incorporate a little UI into it as well, as I thought this was a really good chance for me to demonstrate a few different skills. 

[emma-cmm-year2]

Unit X - Placement - Job Interview at Reason Digital

After attending the digital talent day at the town hall early on in the year, and talking to different companies and design agencies in order to make contacts and gain work experience, I sent off my CV and cover letters to a few which really stood out to me. The company which sounded the most suitable for me was Reason Digital, as they are based in the city centre, and have teams for a lot of aspects of design which I am most interested in, including; UX designers, UI designers, Animators, front end developers, PHP developers, and researchers. 

The company is a social enterprise, only working with charities or companies which ‘do good’, this really stood out to me as they aren’t a huge money-making business, and were really easy to chat to at the talent day. I was shown a really cool animation and a website which they had created, and decided to ask more, I was then told that they had a ‘student scheme’, where over summer they are looking to take on a few students for work experience, which also may possibly be paid. 

After researching the company more that evening and looking into some of their designs, I decided to write my cover letter and send off my CV for a chance at gaining some work experience. Here is the letter which I wrote to them, and also a copy of my CV, which I also updated:

I wasn’t very hopeful at a reply as hundreds of people had attended the talent day, and most of the companies were looking to take on third years for longer placements, however as part of my Unit X I needed to try as hard as I could to find a placement, and also wanted to gain experience to better my skills for future employment possibilities. 

[emma-cmm-year2]

Unit X - Placement at ener.g

Evaluation

After spending the week at ener.g; meeting new people, learning what they do and how they do it, and getting a good idea of the working atmosphere at the company, I definitely gained a lot of skills and experience to be able to be confident enough to do something similar again. Everyone was really welcoming and they had a prepared plan to me to work to, so I was learning something new every day. 

It was the first time which I had used CAD since school, except the new version was much better and more updated with higher capabilities. Throughout the week I learnt new skills every day, which I then finally put all of them together at the end of the week in order to create a more complex design. I found the software very similar to Adobe Illustrator and the creative suite, therefore it was quite easy for me to pick it all up, and even some of the designers there were surprised at how quickly I was getting through the workload. 

I started off by using simple shapes, measuring each line precisely and converting measurements from inches to mm, as standard at this specific company. Once I had everything drew out on paper and converted, I then began the drawing in CAD, measuring as I went along, as it seems simple and easy to get carried away, but I got to the end of my first design and the last lines didn’t match up by less than a millimeter which was annoying. 

Once I got to grips with the basics, I then started to use curves, breaks, circles etc, using diameters, raduis’ etc, which I had to use quite a lot of maths for and was constantly using the calculator. After finishing with all of the 2D tools and shapes, I could then move onto isometric drawings, which use diagonal lines in order to make drawings appear 3D, showing depth and scale. This was a lot harder as the lines were harder to measure and get accurate, especially with the curves and cylinders and knowing which isopane and angles to use for each line.

Once I had all of the drawing skills, I was then shown how to bring the drawing into the paper sheet, scale it, and add all of the measurements. This was much simpler than the drawings, and was simply getting them ready for print, adding text and details etc. Thankfully the software allowed me to drag the dimension tool over lines and the measurements automatically appeared, so I could just add the relevant ones. One of the designs I did was a live project, and once I had completed it, I sent it to the manager for approval, signed it and printed it off. This was then submitted to the online folder and sent to the shop floor to be printed. It was nice to actually contribute something during my time there as it felt meaningful, and I was shocked at the two parts I created cost over £400 together in order to make out of steel.

This placement taught me that I want to do more design based stuff and teach myself illustrator to see what I could create, maybe making some illustrated designs to start off with. I really liked the atmosphere of the office as it was quite easy going and everyone was really chatty, and so now I know that I think I’d quite like to work in that environment again, maybe in a design agency. The only down side to this placement was that it was definitely too technical for what I want to do, and the topic of engines and machinery didn’t really interest me enough, but I initially went to learn different softwares and I definitely gained a lot from it and glad I tried something a little different. 

Overall, I’m really glad I did my placement there as it wasn’t too intense but I learnt a lot about how the company functioned and the hierarchy of job roles, and how everyone had to communicate and work together and get a job done, similarly done in many companies. I learnt that I could pick up new software quickly and I really want to try more digital design stuff. 

[emma-cmm-year2]

Degree Show Projection Mapping - Unit X -Research - Illuminated 'Future Ruins' Unite the Future and the Past

In order to come up with some ideas for the degree show projection mapping project, I firstly looked at The Creators Project website, which I follow in order to see new multimedia and art installations and designs to gain inspiration from. I came across this piece when I was looking to project onto the outside of the cornerhouse, as I thought it was really cool how they brought the building to life in the night time, making it look as if it was moving, mixing an 1700′s old building with modern technologies. 

The use of LED light structures on the ground at the front of the building also creates more of a 3D effect, bringing the whole area to life, instead of just the 2D projections onto the building.

Obviously something this detailed would take months of planning and creating, but the concept is really cool and I’d love to create maybe a more simplified version of this at some point, and play around with outdoor projection mapping. 

http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/neoclassical-audiovisual-installation-future-ruins?utm_source=tcpfbus 

[emma-cmm-year2]

Degree Show Projection Mapping Unit X

After taking the outdoor photos at the corner house, we were then told that the degree show was to be moved into the Grosvenor building, and so we then took a visit to there instead. The potential for projections here were much greater, as there was the huge open plan room with entirely white walls, as well as the corridor leading up to it with loads of surfaces to project onto. 

At first, I thought the idea was to create something, maybe a video or animation, to advertise the degree show itself, but after meeting with Peter we found that it was simply something to enhance it a little, and make it more lively. It was suggested that it could even be a little animated mouse running along the bottom of the wall etc., something fun and not too complicated, so I took pictures from floor to ceiling in order to decide what I could do. 

I thought that the arches above the door frames would be really good to project onto, maybe even colours or moving patterns to make people look up and around as they enter the exhibition space. To do this I would either need to angle the projector upwards, or have it suspended from the ceiling somewhere so that people walking past would not distort the projections.

The space here is huge and has loads of potential for cool design ideas to projection map somewhere. I look forward to researching and exploring ideas so that I can contribute something towards the exhibition. Hopefully I will have time to create something around completing my other Unit X projects, including my upcoming job interview and project which they have asked me to complete for it too. 

[emma-cmm-year2]

Degree Show Projection Mapping Unit X

As part of my Unit X module, Peter also suggested that we create a projection mapping piece in order to advertise, or enhance, the third years’ degree show for the end of the year. At first we were going to be projecting onto the old corner house building, or out of it onto the building adjacent to it, and so I went down and took some images so that I could create some animated prototypes onto the images, in order to get a better idea of the space I was working with.

The first few, I took from outside, in order to be able to look at the potential of all of the different surfaces which I could project onto. I thought the white corner may be quite good to project onto as it was the largest area, however it would have been a little difficult to angle the projections around the curve. It would also be too difficult to position the projector to fir the angle to ensure that none of it goes too distorted. 

I then thought that the flat grey angles on the above floor would be good, as I could project white light onto the dark surface, which would stand out more, and I could also have the projections going from wall to wall similar to how I planned my Bury projection mapping project. This would work quite well with text, and would require two projectors in order to correctly angle the animations onto each wall. 

I finally went into the new MMU building, in order to see the views from inside, where I could place the projector I would be using, and where the projector would be fitted. Thankfully the windows were quite big, and the woman on reception said that the outer rooms were available to book, in order to be able to set everything up and fit the projector etc. My only worry with this would be the glare from the window as the light was projected through it, and also the distance from here to the other building, especially with traffic going by, and pedestrians. 

Because of this, the projector would need to be fitted high up, definitely onto the ceiling, and maybe onto the second floor, to help the light to avoid hitting any vehicles and disrupting the projections, but more importantly to avoid distracting any drivers. I was also shown ceiling space to as where the projector could be fitted, allowing me to angle it accordingly. 

Overall I really liked this space and took an array of photographs to work with when it came to designing the actual video/animation which would be projected. I had never dealt with outdoor projections before so was looking forward to trying this out and seeing what I could create. 

[emma-cmm-year2]

Unit X - Bury Art Museum Coding Workshop for Kids

Evaluation

After conducting some research into ardunios and experimenting with them for the first time, I was surprised by how simple they were to use once I had got to grips with the basics. It was a little difficult at first, mostly because a lot of the components which I needed to create the circuits for the workshop were not included in the box of ardunio pieces I had brought back from university, but after I had the wires ordered, and found some code which would work with the parts I had, it became easy to try out some different circuits. 

I was given the task to create a circuit by using a motor, and Dean’s task was to use the LED lights. I ended up using the plastic servo motor instead of the DC, as the code for the servo was slightly simpler, and so was the circuit, which I thought would be easier to explain for the age range of children who would be attending the workshop. I could also attach toys and different things to the servo, making it a little more fun and engaging. 

Thankfully, the code which I ended up using was already uploaded onto the arduino website as an example, so I didn’t need to spend too much time learning the arduino coding techniques, and could focus more on creating the circuit and allowing the children to put it all together. The arduino and breadboard itself were even complex for me to understand, so I wanted to use minimal components in order to highlight the main features of the arduino, allowing me to explain the basics. Therefore, I ended up using three wires which would connect the servo motor to the arduino; the 5V power wire, the ground wire, and the signal wire. I could then simply connect the ardunino to my laptop, and upload the code to the board by using the arduino software. 

This was then all ready for the day of the workshop, all I needed to do now was find a way of making it a little more engaging and fun. To do this I simply bought some miniature toys and blu-tacked them onto the top of the servo motor, taking enough to allow the kids to change them. I also wanted to teach them some basic ways of using alternate conductivity methods, so therefore I bought some tin foil, paperclips, and took pencil and papers along with me. 

We got there extra early to set up, I had two wires which I had connected to my laptop with a servo in each, of which I had uploaded the code to, and the arduinos on each side of me with plenty of space for the kids to look at them. When they first started to turn up, I firstly introduced myself, it was a little daunting as I had never done a workshop before, and also all of their parents were stood listening too. I then handed out the word-searches and circuit diagrams I had created the week before as a warm up exercise, which was a really good idea as when it got busy they could complete these when I was busy with other children. 

I then explained what an arduino is and how we can make it work with different code and different components, and showed the kids and the parents the code on my screen, explaining the basics of it and what each line of it does to the specific parts of the circuit I was using. I could then begin to show them how the circuit was put together, and why the different coloured wires had to go into specific holes/sections on the arduino to make it work correctly. I then allowed them to take it apart and put it back together so that they understood how it was done. 

After explaining the basics, I then got them to scrunch up tin-foil, make chains out of paperclips, and draw things on paper using a conductive pencil, and then touch the wires on the ends of the different things they made, so that they could see that they could use other things in order to complete the circuit. This took up just enough time with each kid, and allowed me to talk to two or three people at once, once I had each child started on making their own circuit. 

After each child had played with the circuit, adding their chosen toys, putting it together from scratch, and using the different metal objects, I then simply talked to them about what else they could make by using arduinos, and how flexible they were for making interactive or non-interactive circuits/objects. 

Overall I felt like I had planned my section of the workshop really well, as I never ran out of things to talk about and the children were never sat with nothing to do. I feel like by keeping it fairly simple, I was able to teach them the basics and introduce them to arduinos, but also keep them amused and entertained by making it a little more fun.

If I could re-do it, or if I were to do another similar workshop, I would definitely teach myself a lot more about arduinos first, as it would have been nice to be able to change the code and show them how it could control the motor differently. We also could have done with an extra pair of hands, as at one point it did get really busy and there were a few children waiting, but we didn’t anticipate the workshop to be so popular! The good thing was, though, was that the museum had supplied colouring sheets and crayons for very young children, so they were kept entertained. We could have maybe focused a little more on the code side of things for the older children, and learnt a little more using the breadboard, but overall it went really well and I enjoyed myself a lot more than I thought I was going to - I would definitely do something like this again!

[cmultimedia]

bury art museum Decode exhibition opening. CMM 2nd year students.

[emma-cmm-year2]

Unit X - Placement at ener.g

Day 5 - Final Day and Isometrics

After playing around with some isometric drawings yesterday, I was then given some more similar tasks to do today, drawing out some 3D quirky building-like structures. This was more of a challenge as almost every line I drew required me to change the isopane in order to get the correct angles, and was also tricky as I was having to draw the circles at different angles, instead of having them all from the top view. 

I firstly had to draw out the structure, add any given measurements in millimetres, and then work out all of the missing measurements myself by using the others. This was a challenge in itself as I hadn’t done anything mathematical since school, but it was nice to be able to use another skill as I was drawing as it made it a little less tedious.

I was then able to sketch it up on CAD, which was a little different to previous drawings I did, as there was no centre point to the drawing and therefore I couldn’t really add any guidelines to help me. Instead, I used the continuous line tool to ensure that everything was accurate and just went from one line to another, snapping each line to the correct angle as I went. The only time I used the guidelines was to find the centre points of where the two circles would lie, and so I knew which isopane to use to draw them. 

I then moved onto the final task which was drawing out a large-scale house which included a cylinder as part of the design. I once again sketched it all out in preparation to draw it in CAD, figuring out any missing measurements.

I then started by drawing out the background of the building, leaving out the cylinder because I could not yet work out the positioning of it due to the lack of measurements. Once I had the building drawn, I could then use the guidelines to find the centre point of where the circle of the top part of the cylinder would lie, and then copy it and place it at the bottom of the building, symmetrical to the top one. 

I could then connect both sides of the two circles with vertical lines to create the sides of the cylinder, which created the correct shape for the drawing. It then looked odd because of the overlapping lines which I next needed to get rid of, but the basic shape was complete. 

I used the trim tool to remove all of the corners and extend parts of the building up to the cylinder so that it all matched up. I went over it and measured the sides and everything finally matched after redrawing numerous parts of the building again and again because of how easy it was to get some lines the odd degree or millimetre out. This was probably the trickiest drawing I had done so far. I definitely preferred the look of the finished 3D-style isometric drawing over the 2D ones, as it looked a little more design based and illustrated, and the settings within CAD could be really useful to create intricate drawings just like the one I did today. 

To finish the day, I said thank you to everyone in the office who helped me during the week as they were all so welcoming and eager to teach me what they do. Then I had a little walk around the building just to see how big the company was and to see if all of the offices had the same kind of atmosphere and size etc., just to see how the company worked. I finally had a little look at all of the awards the company had, mainly for being a sustainable energy supplier, which is something I really like about the company as they do something good for the planet, as well as having a great atmosphere to work in and really friendly employees! I will write a little more about my thoughts and overview in my next post...