#studioplaystream

[gmonro]

Studio

So for studio, I’m aware it is slightly late, but we are starting to make some more important decisions about our play space. For example we have created a sketch of what we want the space to look like, and now we need to create a very easy to make easy to view model so that we can start to put all our ideas together and so we can get ideas of what the space will actually look like. Will have photos soon, and will update very shortly.

[marlosanmiguel]

Studio 4 - Project Schedule

From the start of this project, our group has managed to work well with each other remarkably considering we haven’t worked as a group before. As we near the finer details of the project, involving more decision making and designing, we’ve slowed down and haven’t managed to keep it in track. This is based on what I think our capability as a group.

This is why I tried to make a point for our Monday meeting to ensure that we write down expectations on what we want to get out of the meeting but also from the next coming weeks. For the recent 2 weeks, we have had meetings where it was a lot of talk and very little decision making. It felt a little slow. Whether or not that was meant to be the pace, I’m not sure but it didn’t feel right. A part of it was a lack of direction, not knowing what I should be doing.

We managed to write down expectations for the next 4 weeks, breaking the expectations into two main columns, Overall project and BCT Showcase. The difference between the two is that the overall project covers things like concept development and preparing for the pitch with AIAL while the BCT Showcase involves coming up with a book and poster for the BCT Showcase event.

The timeline goes as follows:

Week 11:

Overall Project - Determine one concept through a collaborative floor plan, implementing different technologies

BCT Showcase - Equipment list and location chosen

Week 12:

Overall Project - Prototypes of different technologies working together incl. playtesting. Narrative creation.

BCT Showcase: Planning book & poster design and content

Week 13:

Overall Project - Further develop prototype and produce portable version to show in AIAL pitch

BCT Showcase - Final draft of book and poster (finalised overall aesthetics and layout)

Week 14:

Overall Project - Writing pitch

[marlosanmiguel]

Last week, Lara and I came up with an assumptive journey mapping for the different stages with flying from pre planning to post sharing. We tried to map out the emotion of adults throughout the process and based the children’s journey based on that. Based on our assumptions, we think that the children’s experience will be very extreme, whether they’re going to be indifferent about the experience or very excited about it. This journey map gives us the opportunity to design the experience outside of the emperor lounge to compliment the experience inside whilst improving the overall journey of flying.

While I’m not sure if we will be designing an experience outside of the emperor lounge, it gives us a visualisation of opportunities that we have if we ever need or want it.

Besides the journey mapping, I also tried Resolume Arena for projection mapping to test out how to do the basics. Because of its free version, I found that it comes up with  water mark every so often but seeing that this is only a prototype, it’s not an issue. It’s fairly easy to use but it lacks integration with the kinect so if we were to implement projection mapping with the kinect, we will have to find a workaround. Otherwise, Dillon and Jenny said that Millumin has that functionality. Sadly, it only works with Mac, so we will need to use a P-Lab if we’re to test any kinect + projection mapping prototypes.

[gmonro]

PDF documents

So, I have now made 2 PDF files which I cannot upload to google plus because of some strange reason which I plan on finding out tomorrow. So, instead of dwelling on what I couldn’t do, this is what we did over the past week. 

We gave jobs out to everyone in the group with the idea that when we came back together we could go over it all and talk about what worked and what didn’t. I was given interaction and therefore I went to two interactive play spaces for research. Now I will give very brief explanations on these and when I can upload the PDF files, I will edit and redirect you to those PDF files which have far more in depth information along with the info I can’t talk about.

Firstly I went to motat to view their exhibitions, and I found that firstly, there are multiple kinds of personalities and secondly, it’s hard to keep kids quiet. The multiple personalities is a big point because we have kids who don’t want to run around and would rather just stay quiet in some smaller area. Now, with Motat that would be easy, given less room, I can’t promise that this would work anywhere close to as well.  In terms of keeping kids quiet, also important in terms of stress levels on flights and keeping kids and parents relaxed enough to have a good flight and not cause any trouble for themselves or others. Again, this is just a very brief discussion and not all the information I gathered.

Second I went to the museum and I looked into their kids space and honestly, I found the same thing in terms of personality. I found kids who were running around in tree houses and going absolutely wild, while I also saw a lot of kids who would much rather just sit down and colour in some pictures. The museum handled this well with a large area, but again, depending on the limitations of the space we have, this might not work so well.  A second part of this is that AR wasn’t used in the way we would expect. They had a small camera which they would use with their drawing to see animals come to life. However some kids just tilted the cameras up to look at themselves instead, showing that AR isn’t as interesting to kids that don’t understand the technology. 

Finally we had the crit, where everyone came together with their research and we got to see everyones work. I think that we had some incredible prototypes with Lara’s E-textiles and the Kinect which Aaron had going (I need photos I know). I will work on getting some photos soon in order to paint a more descriptive picture. Big catch up. Late night. Long day. Sorry for lack of images.

[gmonro]

Studio Jobs

So for studio we have now separated into individual jobs again so that we can look into different aspects of our piece so that we can use our time to the best of our ability. And the way we have separated what we have done is so that everyone can bring something to show the group which can have an affect on our final piece. So for this next week, I am researching interaction in a general sense and in doing so, I will be talking with Francis Valentine and also looking at Motat and hopefully being able to talk to them in order to have a more in depth look into how they create their interactive spaces and how I can try to use those same sort of ideas with my own work. 

[marlosanmiguel]

Studio 4 - AR Testing and Next Steps

On Tuesday, we tested out the use of animation with AR. Patricia helped get it going on and the video above shows the result. I wish to use this as a foundation on figuring out how models moving in space looks like with the use of AR but for now, I’ve decided to move onto projection mapping and journey mapping.

During our meeting on Thursday, Aaron pushed as to be more specific as to what we want to achieve by next week. Having done a lot of Design Thinking Processes, I thought it would be good to cover more on that before next Thursday. The Auckland Airport has given us some information on the passengers’ journey map and how they want to change that. I’ll be looking into that in detail to create an assumed journey map for the kids and assess where we can improve the experience and how, hoping that it would relate back to what everyone else has developed throughout the week.

[gmonro]

Studio

So what we have done so far is go away and research each of our own area’s, as I mentioned previously. And now that we have come together and talked about our findings, we found the use of “Lumo” found on our google+ page in order to look more into how we can make it our own. Again, looking from my side of accessibility, Lumo looks incredible. It can be programmed in any way to fit anyone and looking into a document I made this week which brings up the negative aspects of disabilities in terms of gaming, and how Lumo or something like it could help/offer some form of solution to it. 

I will find a way to post that up for blogging this coming week.

[marlosanmiguel]

Studio 4 - Prepping for Prototyping

With the return of the semester, Aaron and I are back to meeting up on Tuesdays to discuss what new tool we can use to further our progress. This week, we’ve discussed that we’ve spent a little bit too much time talking and researching and very little on doing. So, we’ve discussed that we’ll be doing surface-level prototyping/testing with a kinect and possibly a projector on Thursday. With a concept that heavily relies on interactivity, we thought it was key to test out just how interactive people would be with it.

I’ve tested and run the Kinect with Unity and it’s up and running. It’s now just about putting it out there and trying to see what we’ve got. What I’m hoping to get out of this session is seeing how people interact with it in a way we never could have thought of and being able to latch on it. I assume that the most important and crucial information we’re going to need is a subconscious act that the majority does, so I’ll be looking out for those while we do this.