Workshop 11: Our Project is coming together, new ideas and more!
This week the Bloom team attended a workshop to get some expert advice on how to build our project prototype. and wow, this was one of the most helpful workshops we have ever attended, as the workshop team provided clarity and advice in exactly how our project could be build and displayed. But with this new advice meant changes needed to be made to our handbook and brochure information.
To begin, Beth brought the science aspect to our project to make it more prominent (something the client was looking for where we had pushed the science aspect aside believing showcasing a flower blooming was science enough-- luckily Beth reapplied this was not enough, and decided to have the actual interaction as science based on the capillary action of flowers). Beth suggested using water to open the flower, which Acer, our workshop expert stated we could use water flower from one area into something that pushed the flower up to bloom. He explained we wouldn't be taking away from a physical interaction by making it more that the audience would have to do something even more controlling to help the flower open. This led to the idea that there would be a tube of water on one end leading to the flower, where on the end of this tube will be a watering can, filled with water, that would be lifted onto a platform to let the water flow through the tube and fill up the flower platform, pushing the water up and making it bloom. To our team, this presented as the most exciting evolution of our project, initially a flower wall, to a standalone interaction that we believe as more artistic, scientific and with greater audience involvement.
Through with this, a new material list needed to be made and further thinking about the logistics of using water in our interaction, such as would the watering can be too heavy to lift, are materials durable, and will this suit the shape of our design. Sophia was able to answer whether water would impact lift ability stating this could mean getting more people involved and emphasising the social aspect of the project. And if a child wanted to lift the water, their parent would be there for support, increasing the idea of the curious parent and child.
Following this, a final design of the full project look would need to be reconstructed, however this was something to be discussed once our first interaction of the prototype was completed to make sure this new idea and interaction worked.
And if it does, this is very exciting and innovative for Bloom AND Curiocity.
