Lachie Douglas

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University of the Future

The Poi Room

Our university of the future consists of an AI teaching experience designed so each student gets their own personal tutor at the push of a button.  Using human centred design we would conduct mini surveys to determine the best ways our students learn, that way we can tailor our AI tutors specifically to each students needs.  Cultural probes would be used to determine the best ways people interact with AI robots.  This would also act as a prototype to see if Ai robots can effectively interact with humans. 

 We would use curational walking to develop friendly-looking robots, walking through robot factories pin-pointing features that stand out to us in a user friendly way.  Benefits of having AI based one-on-one learning are:

 Each student can learn at their own pace.

 Sickness and viral diseases won’t spread as easily.

Faster and more efficient learning.

Teaching is fair and equal. Everyone gets the same amount of “teacher time.”

Can be done from the comfort of their own home if they choose to.

Powerpoint link: https://autuni-my.sharepoint.com/:p:/g/personal/qrx9000_autuni_ac_nz/EX89qt3a7C1NsByAdZl7nhkB5vY1EhgioIwvbY639RIJ7Q?e=owNhQ3 

By Lachie, Xavier, and Krishant.

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Loopy Diagrams

This week we were instructed to make a series of “transition diagrams” to show differences can occur by changing or adding things to the diagram.  

We started with a Foxes and Rabbits, and had to add a series of “changes” to cause a difference in the diagram, while also keeping a balance within each change.  My group started off with adding Grass, therefore the Grass would decrease from the Rabbits feeding on it, but would increase when the Rabbits got eaten from the Fox.  Next we added Hunters and Seasons, the Seasons would decrease the amount of Hunters hunting, as some parks only allow hunting in certain parts of the year, and the Hunters would decrease the number of Fox and Rabbits.  However, the Fox and Rabbits would increase when the Hunters decreased.

To view the full Rabbit and Fox diagram click here.

Secondly we had to prove how Damp housing can lead to Deprivation.  For this we branched off into sickness, rheumatic fever, leading to time off school, low income jobs, then low income families, and then deprivation.  The next step was to come up with a solution to this, we came up with an idea to launch a policy for a requirement for better building standards for state housing, including existing state houses, along with a higher standard for all new homes.  This would prevent the damp housing issue, eliminating all of the following symptoms to damp housing.    

To view the full Damp Housing Loopy diagram click here.

I enjoyed this exercise, I can picture myself using it to see what effect a design/idea could have in it’s chosen environment.  It can also be used as a brainstorming tool, to see who or what your idea could be used for, whether its people, transport, or communication etc.  

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Human Centred Design

This week we were instructed to make a wallet after interviewing a partner. afterwards I tested my wallet on another friend, and she gave her feedback…

What did they like?

She liked the fingerprint security feature, as no-one can pick up your wallet and steal your cards.  She liked the gum compartment as she eats gum regularly.  And the simplicity of the design and how the cards pop out instead of having to reach for them.

What would they change?

She wasn’t a fan of the material, as it is supposed to be made from metal, she prefers the traditional materials e.g. Leather.  She would have liked it to be another colour other than silver, maybe have a range of colours such as red.  She likes to carry cash for emergencies, so she would like a pouch or sleeve to put notes and coins.

Any questions?

Would come in different colours?

How many cards can fit inside?

Do I need to charge it?  

Any ideas?

Battery… This got me thinking about solar power, as people leave wallets in the kitchen or on desks in the sun often.

I added a solar panel to the exterior of the wallet to charge it, along with patterns and replaced the gum pouch with a place to store cash.

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Assignment 2

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Sectional Drawing

This week we took objects and cut them in half, drawing these new half objects as cross sections.  Next we scaled them to different sizes and drew imaginative inhabitations at the two different scales.  

This is my Lemon half which I turned into some kind of apartment block, with outlooking windows as the flesh of the lemon.

The second image I scaled down much smaller, to create a tyre of a car.

Homework Questions:

Q1.  Consider how you use drawing as a research method in your own work and tell us about that.

To discover how the object or product could work in the real world, using scale and taking a closer look on the inside of the object by using cross sections.  You can draw different ways the object can be used by up/downscaling the object.

Q2.  How might you use drawing in other ways in your work? 

Drawing could also be used as a prototyping method, putting ideas onto paper.  It is also a good way to describe and pitch your ideas to group members or other people.  During the ideation period this is a quick way to jot down ideas, so they’re not forgotten.

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Ideation

While doing the lotus diagram it helped to get away from sticking withy original idea.  Usually during the ideation process I tend to build on one idea rather than come up with multiple separate ideas.  The thinking hats was a good way to step back and observe my ideas, and improve them according to the given scenario.

I will most definitely use this ideation process in future as it keeps an open mind, allowing me to come up with a range of individual ideas rather than building on the same one.  I is also a useful way to look back on ideas, and combine them into a single idea, taking the best features ad putting them together.

Lotus Diagram Link: https://miro.com/welcomeonboard/WDdy34awxAc4tm6gRL4XN1IbgkoCYEqdvaTIhWKEQdKSnpp07yUOkenmZclJo0Ug 

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Lo Fi Prototyping

My idea was to create a sky walk which continues across the entire length of Fort Lane.  This is because the road is very narrow.  On google maps there is a rubbish truck collecting rubbish, however with the rubbish truck and other vehicles in the way this makes it very dangerous and for pedestrians as there is very little space to walk safely.  The sky path would either be suspended in the air via cables attached to buildings, or propped up by supporting beams coming from the ground.  The frame and walk boards would be constructed from lightweight steel and aluminum, for the strongest and best looking effect.  To access the path there will be steps coming down from each end of the street.  

This helped with developing a structurally sound design that wouldn’t fall over.  It helps to understand the physics behind the design as when prototyping you get a chance to see how the design will function in the real world.  I had to add additional support pillars to one of my prototypes as it flopped over when I stood it upright.

These are three of my prototypes.

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Physical Computing

Assignment 1

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Material Interrogation

My significant object is a craft knife.  It is special to me because the safety feature on it stopped me from cutting off my thumb this one time.

I started with taking a picture of the knife and opened the image into text edit where I cut and paste and deleted a bunch of the image data.  Next I screenshot the image data and ran the same procedure, then copy and paste that data into the original image data.  Next I ran the image through photoshop creating the final image displayed on the bottom right.  Next I opened the raw image data into Audacity and fiddled with the sound to finally create this...

https://autuni-my.sharepoint.com/:v:/g/personal/qrx9000_autuni_ac_nz/EW4PM_RO2GhHnBlKNHhT1YoBg-nSdM3ms-HE64ygg-vwmA?e=L9MOME

Throughout this exercise I noticed how breaking down a material and flipping it on its head can create a new material entirely.  I found it very interesting how you can turn an inanimate object into digital sound.  It has opened up new ways of exploring and turning ideas into new artforms.  In terms of my future development process this idea can be very useful, creating totally new perspectives of an idea.  Material interrogation is an adventurous and eye-opening way of the development process.

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Sound Walk

Albert Park Rotunda

A gentle breeze of traffic in the background muffling the faint murmuring and giggling from people having lunch.  Tweeting and chirping of birds.  A continuous gong of scaffolding and construction.  Pitter patter of a mans feet against the concrete.  Echoing emptiness of a Diesel engine.  Screeching of brakes, searing the silence of a gentle brush of leaves.

I would place a series of speakers on lampposts surrounding the park, these speakers would project opposite sounds to what is happening behind them in the city.  For example, when an engine roars, the speaker would play gushing water.  They would work much the same as noise canceling headphones.

To create a more peaceful environment in the heart of the city.  Creating an area where there is no man made noise allowing people to relax without having to travel great distances out of Auckland.  Although the park is quite relaxing, there was never a moment where there was complete peace.  I would like to change that.

Sky World Entertainment Centre

Vast escaping air blowing out of the air-conditioning ducts.  Zinging from the lift as it soars past.  Faint music breaking into song.  Murmuring and laughter, along with squeaking footsteps on the floor tiles.  Dinging knives and kitchenware from restaurants below.  Clinging and clanging from the nearby arcade.

The sounds I could hear were very faint, I would like to embrace these sounds by either enhancing them with speakers or place reflective panels on the walls to echo the sounds throughout the building more clearly.

One thing I noticed was that Sky World is like a maze, its hard to find your way around the place.  Being able to listen for what you're looking for would be a neat way to make your way around the building.

Aotea Square

Constant bell whistle from Auckland Live digital space exhibition.  Clanging of scaffolding and construction.  A “trugger” of machinery of some kind.  A whine from a belt cutting.  Shuffling of traffic along Queen St.  Beeping from a reversing truck.  Seagulls screeching at the ground. 

Place a sound installation within the square.  Either playing music or some form of sound for people to come and enjoy.

This would fill the empty space with sound that sounds good rather than the constant construction rumble, allowing people to enjoy the space more.

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Cultural Probes

This week we looked into Cultural Probes. My group was given a scenario were we were designing a drone to help farmers farm their land.  We came up with a small box which we would post to the farmers, in the box was 2 small tubes that would hang around the farmers neck, and a load of small cards.  The idea is that the farmer would write whether the task he/she was working on needed improving, and what needed to be improved, and vice versa, then post the card into either the blue tube or grey tube.  (The blue tube being good and the grey needing improvement).

A potential issue I found working with Cultural Probes is the person who is conducting the research for you may not fully understand what they're suppose to do.  When we gave our package to the group of “farmers” to test they were a little confused as to what exactly we wanted from them.  Although we thought our explanation was straight forward it wasn't interpreted the same way as we had anticipated. 

For our studio project we have considered using a cultural probe to find which certain spots throughout the city make people feel uncomfortable or unsafe.  Giving a bunch of people some kind of small GPS tracker where they can press a button when they feel unsafe in a certain location, this would record and pin point where this location is and send it back to us.  This could potentially be a very efficient way to conduct our research.

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Walking and Curatorial Strategies

This week we were instructed to draw a complication of drawings using different drawing techniques.  Using walking to increase brain function and improve effectiveness in our thinking, we walked around campus drawing the indifferences we could see in our surroundings. 

Personally I found the walking part of the exercise very refreshing, even standing while I was drawing helped to get the ideas from my head onto the paper faster.  Looking for the indifferences was something I had never looked for before, it makes you look at everything from a different perspective. 

These techniques could easily be used when thinking up ideas for projects, thinking out of the box from different angles.  Looking at different perspectives as to how a problem can be resolved, or taking short walks while brainstorming ideas.  When coming to a group agreement, trying everyones ideas before writing them off, sometimes the combination of two ideas can be more effective.

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“Change my View” Activity

Which is better? Speights Gold or Speights Summit?

I believe Speights Gold, the original Speights ale, is better than the newly released Speights Summit, low carb larger.  This is mainly down to the taste of the beer, but Speights gold is the original classic New Zealand beer cherished by students throughout the country.  Yes, Speights Summit has less carbs and the “same great taste,” but I disagree.  It doesn’t taste the same nor does it deliver the same vibe as the beloved original.  It does not carry the heritage and character of Speights Good. 

I interviewed two friends to gather their opinions as to why Speights Summit was their preference.  These are the points they argued:

Neither of them are particularly good.

Because Speights summit has a lower carb content

Has a cleaner taste, not as “dirty”.

More refreshing on a summers day.

More appealing packaging.

Gives you a crisp taste in your mouth. 

Less hung over the next day due to less carbs.

Has a higher percentage of alcohol.  Most students drink to get drunk, not enjoy the beer.

We don’t have the connection to the heritage of Speights Gold, unlike maybe students in Dunedin or the older generation.

Less carbs- doesn’t make you fat.

Don’t like the taste of the Speights Gold.

I explained to them why Speights Gold is the superior beer, but they did not agree with my arguments.  I saw where they were coming from with many of their points, however, I still prefer the taste of Speights Gold to Speights Summit and that will never change.  They did manage to persuade me to buy a box of Summit and the teste wasn’t as bad as different as I remembered.  It was incredibly difficult to sit and listen them insult Speights Gold without interrupting, but I am able to see their side of the picture more clearly now.

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Assignment 2

Submitted #comp570 Assignment 2 last week.  Definitely the hardest assignment to date, but weirdly also the easiest.  After a couple of weeks trying to get the balls to stick together it finally clicked and I instantly understood what I was doing wrong.  At least thats what I think I was doing wrong, my grade might tell me otherwise haha.

A few tips to my future self:

Don’t give up; there were multiple times where I was going to settle with submitting an unfinished assignment but I’m lucky I kept working at it.

Do a little bit each day, or make a timetable to work on different assignments on different days. This helped with time management and making sure I wasn't falling behind with my other classes.

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Prototyping Pt.4

The Bear Pt.2 & Screen Development

I quickly made a few more rough prototypes to see what size the bear should be.  I concluded on this one, it’s quite a lot smaller than what I thought would be the ideal size.  I got each member of my family to hold the bear as if they were interacting with it. My youngest sister (10) held it with ease which is vital as the target audience for Huggles ideally starts at around age 10 and above.  My grandma was visiting and of course I couldn’t waste the opportunity to get her opinion.  She said the bear was very light and easy to hold, she did complain about the screen however which I hadn’t yet addressed the issue of it being on the smaller side.  Her advice was keep it as simple as possible, she hates using her phone because “it never works properly” or its too hard to use.   I’m constantly receiving jumbled text messages about her lawn on fire.

My idea is to create a screen face where you simply tap the screen in the same place to do everything, much like how my fitbit watch works.  Tapping the screen takes you through the menus and there’s one button on the side which selects the menus. Simple.

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Prototyping Pt.3

The Bear

I made a quick prototype of the bear’s body and head to get a general idea of how big the bear will be.  

Once I got a roughly sized model made up, I stuck a few of the screen faces onto the bear to see how it would function.  While testing this I discovered a few problems.  One being that the screen itself is quite small, my idea was to get people to use their own phones and insert them into the bear, but this may not work as we struggled to read what was written on the screen.  Along with this the bear was actually quite big to hold, it was a comfortable size to hug but I wouldn’t want to hold the bear for long periods of time.  

A few things I need to work on:

Make a few more models of the bear and compare sizes.

Play around with fonts and font sizes and hopefully find an easier font to read.  This will hopefully solve the problem and I won’t have to develop an entire screen to fit inside the bear.

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Prototyping Pt.2

Screen Face Design

I began drawing up a few ideas for what the screen could look like.  The screen will be the user’s phone or device that will run an application with all the features built in.  It will need to be easy to read.

I did some research into what designs are appealing to the human eye along with what fonts and colours are easy to read and interpret.  I had an idea that different colours could be used to signal different emotions.  Such as blue for calm and trust, red for love and anger, and green for growth and moving forward.  Of course, everyone can interpret colours and feelings differently so I will try stick to the main ones.  

The design of the app is one of the most important features, if something doesn’t look appealing at first sight then a large majority of people skip past it.  According to 3M, Multinational Conglomerate Company, human beings process visuals 60,000 times faster than text.  According to most websites, such as “enablewebdedsign.com,” there are four basic steps you have to nail in order to grasp people’s attention;

1. Design and colour.  The colours and layout of the app are key.  This is pretty straight forward, if you use sludgy colours and plot things all over the place people aren’t going to find your app appealing.    

2. Pictures and graphics.  Use your own pictures, this way you avoid having “stock” written across all your images.  This also means you can control what you want the photo to represent, and they look real.  Stock images look fake and unappealing.

3. Usability.  Make the app easy to use.  Simplicity usually works for all ages, as long as it’s easy to use no one can complain.

4. Consistency.  Keep colours and themes the same, you don’t want to over-complicate things.  Keep the menu’s, commands, and pop-up notifications somewhat similar to stick to the app’s theme.  Only use different colours to grasp the user’s attention. E.g. An emergency.

I ended up choosing the bottom right design from the first photo for the main theme/design for the screen.  It features the colour blue, which gives off a calm feeling.  This is important especially when dealing with anxiety. The circular design is very simplistic and easy to read.