An Bui BCT

App prototype

Traffic light with 2 buttons. Button 1 is switching the LEDs light and button 2 is switching the mode to emergency blinking with 1Hz frequency.

bonus:

Abductive reasoning is when a person observing in a situation and give the best conclusion. The conclusion would be best for the present and the future. I realize that when I experience Creative Technologies in a vlog project. Abducting reasoning will help us reduce our burdens and make the best choices. When I was doing the vlog, I must list an option and observe to develop the best option. Through the Abductive way of thinking of American philosopher, Charles Sanders Peirce shows us that we have to observe and make lists of possible choices that will appear or able to do in a situation or event. From there, draw conclusions based on which option is best for current and future situations/events, and then apply it. In addition, we can change that conclusion later with a better one in the future.

This week we learnt about Effectuation Logic.

Effectuation logic is a thinking method to address an idea and a problem based on the means we have in hand and our knowledge to achieve the goal. There are 5 principles:

- Bird in Hand Principle: You take action based on what you have instead of waiting for an opportunity.

- Affordable Loss Principle: Considering whether the problem is at an acceptable level, the risk can be accepted to lose

- Lemonade Principle: Accept and learn from failure. Failure is inevitable. Prepare for any possible failure in future. ​

- Crazy-Quilt Principle: form a partnership with people who willing to make a commitment to you.

- Pilot in the Plane Principle: Control something that can be controlled. Not everything can be fully controlled, but effectuation encourages you to focus on an aspect that you are good at, an aspect you can control.

In week 7, we experienced the Lemonade Principle. We were doing the pitch for our idea in Studio. We presented ideas to the teaching team, and my group received suggestions that our ideas were still not unique. The teaching team suggested that we take a step back to the drawing board and think about some other solutions.

I was very disappointed because I liked the idea, but it was not appreciated. Through the ICT courses, I later realised that this term taught us that failure is not a bad thing at all. If I've never failed, I've never tried anything new.

Other example is when I was doing the Vlog project for my 40% ICT assignment in the first 4 weeks of semester 1. When I doing the script for the video, I ask Luca for his advice and suggestion. He said my content is good but very lack of connection between the content and my script does not show any message from me to the audience. He recommend me to do another draft, I learnt from him and I made a lot of versions until my script get perfect.

Week 4:

- We present our instrument to the class.

- Summary of the instrument: our instrument contains 6 different sound, 3 buttons and 3 strings. The player will be given a ring that connects to the Makey Makey board, when they touch the buttons or strings it will play a sound. For the sound, our team decided to create an uncomfortable and scary sound such as sharpening knives, door closed or screaming cat...

- This is what we see during Wednesday week 4: +What goes well: our priority is to make the instrument works well. We have cables management so that it won't get tangled during use. +What did not go well: We have a problem with the strings, the strings are not very stretched. Also, our ring broke, but we got a backup ring. +User experience: users seem happy and uncomfortable (this is what we want). We make these sounds to stimulate the curiosity of the users. People dislike these sounds, but they still want to hear them. +What we could do to improve our instrument: This is a prototype, it is not completely complete in terms of materials and experience. If we have more time we will make a music box make out of wood, we will also research for more sound and provide sounder options (some more buttons and strings). We can add the light for every button, this means when we press the button the light will be on.

Week 3: 17th of March 2021

- We present our board game Jenga to the class.

- Summary of the game: There will be 2 players or 2 groups for the game. Each team will pull the block out like the traditional game. Some blocks will be the key and there are 4 colours and each colour will have 5 keys. If the player found the key, they will put that block on the board ( or the locker), the block will connect to Makey Makey and it will generate a random letter. The team which collect all 4 letters will win the game. They need 4 letters to type in the program that we wrote to check it correctly or not. Plus there will be 2 special keys that can use for any lock.

- This is what we see during Wednesday week 3:

+What goes well: our main priority for Wednesday week 3 is to make the game works well. We try our best to let the player finish the game without or at least we can minimise the problem as possible.

+What did not go well: We have a problem with the LOCKER program that doesn’t run as we want. Also, the lock size is a bit smaller than the key but the problem solved.

+Dan is one of the people who have experienced our game and he is very excited about it.

+What we could do to improve our game: Because this is a prototype, it is not completely complete in terms of materials and experience. We will change our material of the board to wood instead of paper to ensure quality and have a better design. We also add LED for each lock, when the player put the lock in the LED light will be turn on. We will also work on the LOCKER program to ensure it work efficiently and we will have some research for more game mode.

Week 3: Monday 15th of March

Week 2 -This week we learn about circuit and make our own basic circuit with a battery, LED light and conductive material (tape, pen and paperclip). The most exciting part is when we play with Makey Makey. Makey Makey is a tool to connect everyday objects to the computer and work as a keyboard but with other objects. Our team was guided to use Makey Makey and received a link to the game. Our task was to create a tool to play that game. My team used the hard paper as a controller, we connect it to the paper clip as a button. When the player presses the paper clip, the character in the game will move.

-This is what we see during the class: +What goes well: Our controller works very great. We understood how Makey Makey works and succeeded in interacting with a computer with any object through Makey Makey. +What did not go well: The connection joint between the paper and the paper clip is still quite loose. People thought that the idea of using paper and paper clips to make controllers was nothing special because Makey Makey could do so much more. +Those who have experienced our controller are excited +What we could do to improve our game: We can improve the design and experience if we have more time. We can use wood instead of paper and metal bars instead of paper clips.

LOOPY about music industry

-What is it? The event, the thing?

My Loopy is about music distribution from the artist to the consumer in the music industry. The artist signs a contract with the label and the label responsibility is to support the artist in producing a song, CD and digital song online other in return they will have ownership of the song. In another way, some artist works directly to a streaming company such as Spotify without the label (It depends on copyright if the label owns the song the streaming company will work with the label). 

-What are the events responding to? What are the trends?

Technological changes and developments lead to a change in trends in the way music is distributed, the way consumers listen to music and, most importantly, a change in power in the music industry. Before the 2000s when technology and the internet were still in their infancy, most people listened to music on CDs and because of that, record labels were the most powerful in the industry. In 2000, after the music copyright lawsuits against Napster was also the time when online music was born, power was in the hands of the consumers. Now music streaming services currently dominate the music industry and power is shared equally. This shows that the more technology develops, the more thinking of new music container and consumer lifestyle will change.

-What has influenced the patterns? 

Technology change has influenced music distribution. It changed the way consumer interact with music. During the period 1999-2000 was the highest revenue in the music industry of around 21-25 billion dollars and 95% come from CD but in 2017 this number reduces to 30% and gradually replaced by streaming service (38% of the share). Technology changed shows that consumers have changed the way they listen to music and streaming is the best option, cheap and even listening to all the songs.

-What assumptions, values, belief underline the structure?

In the 20th century, it was widely assumed that the value of an artist depends on signing a contract with major record companies such as The Big 4 (including EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group). This was the golden age of record labels, which held power in the music industry. This assumption and belief completely disrupted in the 21st century when the advent of peer-to-peer files sharing or pirate music, the most typical example is Napster. This time has significantly reduced the value of major record labels and this also causes the value of artists to decrease (because before that artists were dependent on record labels). At the present, inventions such as the smartphone, apps and the internet were widely used lead to the birth of streaming service such as Spotify. Streaming service restores the industry damaged and the value of both individual artists and record labels but has also partially reduced the assumption that artists have to depend on record labels because now individual artists can arrange distribution by themselves for streaming companies without going through a record label, reducing dependencies.

Reference: https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/global-recorded-music-industry-revenues-grew-8-1-in-2017-to-reach-17-3bn/