#ctec607

Today my group and I got together to finalize our idea for our presentation tomorrow.

We started by looking at the prompt questions for the assignment.

This asked us to consider why the project is important, what the idea is, who it’s for, and where/when it would be implemented.

To save repeating myself, below is a copy of our answers to these questions.

Why is the project important?

Helps people relieve stress

People who fidget tend to wreck things over time

Fidget toys can also become fads (like fidget spinners) and get discarded

Contributes to a circular economy. Using what can be considered as waste as a resource.

People who are neurodivergent actually focus better when fidgeting, thus the creation of fidget toys. Helps both in class and workplaces where lots of being still is required (such as offices)

FIdgeting can also be an anxiety and stress response.

Fidgeting lowers cortisol which causes stress interferes with learning → fidgeting helps with learning and memory

What is the idea?

Using recycled materials to create fidget toys that, if broken, could be recycled again. Contributes to a circular economy.

Who is the idea meant to help?

People who are neurodivergent

People who are prone to fidgeting

Students

Where/When is the idea going to be implemented/take place?

Schools

Offices

Universities

Places where concentration is required for long periods of time, and people may be prone to fidgeting.

Planes, due to limited ability to move, and a consequential urge to fidget.

This was a useful exercise as it got us to critically think about our idea and its wider impact, allowing us to accurately assess its viability.

Once we had answered the questions to a decent extent and prepared some presentation slides, we got to work creating some prototypes to show off as a proof of concept.

The idea is to make use of either recycled materials or materials that would otherwise be thrown away, in keeping with the circular economy theory the project is based around

Thus, our first prototype consisted of a nut enclosed in some green off-cut material, as a very primitive fidget toy prototype.

We liked the idea of concealing an object in some material, but found the shape of the nut to be somewhat restrictive when moving it about in the fabric, and decided that a sphere would more easily slide around.

Thus, we went for a walk into town to purchase a few marbles to use in our second line of prototypes.

We also experimented with different types of fabric to sew the marble into, as well as varying the number of marbles in each prototype.

This resulted in two more prototypes pictured below

We liked the idea of having a range of different fidget toy models, with differing materials and number of marbles. This allows the user to choose what's best for them. The significance of this became apparent to us when different members of the group preferred different prototypes models. For example, I really liked the squishy texture of the dark netting prototype on the left, while Connor preferred the smooth texture of the prototype on the right. So, using our four person team as a miniscule focus group, we realized this is likely to be the case with eventual users. One size fidget toy does not fit all.

Fortunately, two of the group members are already proficient in sewing, making this stage possible. I tried to observe and learn from them throughout this creation process, and plan to do so more going forward as this will prove to be a valuable skill.

In keeping with the theme of reusing materials, we played around with weaving strips of old plastic to create strings that could be used as a strap for the fidget toy which connects to the user's wrist, preventing accidental drops, breakages, and consequential unnecessary waste.

Overall today was a pretty productive first day working on this project. We thought critically about our end goals and created some decent prototypes. One of the key lessons I’ve learned throughout the four prior studio projects and our Intro to Creative Tech class is the importance of prototyping at every stage, so I’m glad we’ve already made some models at the very beginning.

In all my classes, due to lockdown, one of the first things I noticed about online teaching was the loss of student to student learning. In film class our projects are individual, but I felt like I needed that connection with other students in class to talk to about our projects. With that, I’ve set up a google document that three of us use to write down our ideas and thoughts with the ability for others to comment on them. 

For Kelly and Liam’s sake I’ve blurred out the content, but I think the concept remains clear. We needed people to listen to us, because lockdown often left us with only our own thoughts. Creativity thrives on collaboration and diversity, and although online delivery is okay, it’s not perfect and one of the reasons is the casual student to student learning that occurs so often now takes much more effort. Calling someone up to talk over ideas is on the higher side of commitment and assumes you have good connections with people, both parties have a time that works and you are both easy going enough to shoot the breeze (which is possibly the biggest hurdle). Doing it this way is much less confrontational, gives you time to compose your thoughts/find helpful resources and is flexible with time commitments (you just pop in whenever).

Constraints of this exercise: 

You only get email notifications when someone comments, not adds additional work. 

Primarily a word processor

Requires participants to be motivated to participate

My feeling is the main problem here is that it’s a google doc. It’s not a purpose built tool for collaborating and sharing perspectives on ideas, but what it does do is allow us to trial if it’s something people will engage with. And with this tiny prototype, I feel optimistic that the purpose built website has potential to be of value.

I will stick my neck out and say: schools and universities overlook just how important student to student learning is. It’s collaborative learning, figuring out how to do things from each other, together. I don’t feel like I’m in the minority when I say this is where I find most of my learning comes from. Years ago in chemistry, I would sit patiently while the teacher spoke and as soon as he was finished turn around ask my desk mates what just happened, as if it needed translated for my small mind. And, in the crunch time before exams or assessments I saw students meeting up in study groups in their homes as this was a productive way to learn. Humans are naturally diverse and collaborative, it’s what makes us so great (sometimes).

For our final product we are aiming to create an interactive website so for the trash to treasure exercise I decided to make a physical prototype of what the website might look like.

Supplies

Step 1

This is what I put together in the first 15 minutes. The buttons represent different constellations and the string is the ‘red string of fate’ that displays the connections between the stories behind the constellations.

Step 2

I rearranged it a bit and added text to each of the constellations because realistically the story will be written next to the constellation image. The tin foil triangles represent that the website will be aesthetically pleasing and not just one bland colour.

Step 3

Some of the constellations have been covered. This is to show the idea that the constellation you see will depend on the path you decide to choose (which red string you click on). I also tweaked the top a little bit.

Over the weekend I did some brainstorming and sketching to see how I could make a low-fidelity prototype. I’m not going to sugar coat it - coming up with an idea for a prototype about ‘misinformation’ and/or ‘spreading’ really sucked. I spent hours staring at my pot plant wondering if it had the answer to all my problems. It somewhat did - when I think of spread I lean more towards ‘nature’, because there are a lot of things in nature that spread.

^ Brainstorming what ‘spread’ means and how I can visualize spreading ^

^ First 3 drawings; the dangers spreading false information has on people, the influence the spread of information has on others, the unnoticed impact information has on everything ^

^ Last 3 drawings; how far information can spread, people not realizing the information they’re spreading is false, how much of a mess we can make on studio’s floor ^

At the last minute I decided to go with an easier concept 1 drawing, and brought it in to class to demonstrate my idea.

My idea behind this prototype was observing the effect the user (person holding ball gun) uses the information (ball) to negatively affect other people (plastic cups).

I’ll be posting a video of it separately, but the video is more for the aesthetic as it’s hard to see the reason behind the testing.

Grouping & Idea Generation (2 Weeks)

This time was at the start of the semester where it focuses on the initial ideas I personally had, the process of getting into groups, and the beginning stages of idea generation.

Initial Ideas - Personal expectations, goals and interests for Studio

Getting into Groups - The process of how our group formed; our shared interests, previous knowledge of our compatibility

Project Keywords - Aspects, topics and ideas that we wanted to base our project around

Initial Research (2 Weeks)

This time was spent doing broad and general research into the topics and keywords we had previously identified. This was done in hopes that we would be able to find a sub-topic, aspect or area that interested us, that we could base out project upon.

Initial Project Idea - The first idea we had for a project

Social Psychology - Researching the umbrella topic of ‘Social Psychology.’

Critique Session Feedback - Feedback and suggestions from the critique session

Initial Brief - The initial brief for our Studio project

Social Psychology: Mob Mentality - Research into the topic of Mob Mentality

Research: Brain Games - Watching the episodes on Peer Pressure and Morality for research and inspiration for projects

External Factors of Choice (3 Weeks)

These three weeks were spent focusing on the idea of the ‘external factors that affected choice.’ We decided to focus on this area as we were able to see how different physical and environmental variables could affect the choices we made. Personally, I could see this from a consumeristic perspective with insight gained from the Marketing papers I was taking on the side. This decision was also made due to our interest in an existing study in which the use of mirrors changed people’s behaviours.

External Factors of Choice - Our move into this topic; why and what we plan to do

Play & User Testing: Mirror Scenario - The beginning of play and user testing the use of a mirror and how it affect individuals

Play & User Testing: Scenarios to Test - Describing and explaining the type of testing we planned to do any why

Final Outcome Brainstorming - Regrouped and reaffirmed what we wanted our final outcome to look like and what we wanted people to experience when they interacted with it.

Revised Brief - Revised and refined brief after the events of the previous blog post

Final Outcome Brainstorming #2 - A continuation of the process of thinking about a final outcome. The start of a redirection of focus.

Cause and Effect of Choice (3 Weeks)

These three weeks were spend focusing on the idea of the ‘cause and effect of choice.’ The shift to this area stemmed from the idea Ravenne had for a final outcome, that we believed as a group, was a better direction to go to compared to the other ideas we had (explained in the previous blog post). 

Goldberg Machine Plans - This was basic reseach into the initial idea of a Rube Goldber Machine for our final outcome.

Machine Exploration - Exploration and testing Rube Golberg inspired machines (leaning towards a marble run type machine).

Redirection - Redirecting again, this time due to more and more obstacles with this idea and the looming deadline.

Indecision - The topic we seem to have moved on to (partly inspired by our own indecision for our project)

The ‘Paradox of Choice’ & ‘Decision Fatigue’ (4 Weeks)

This month was spent on focusing on these two topics which stemmed from the original idea of indecision. They were also our final area of focus for our project which we based our final outcome around.

Final Outcome - Discussion of our final chosen areas of focus, justification why, and further steps.

Button Exploration - Discussion on the importance of the types of buttons w would use for increased interactivity

Revised Brief & Specifications - Revised and refined brief to better suit our final area of focus with the addition of specifications for our final outcome

Making the Prototype - Covers the process of physically making our prototype that was to be presented and tested at Open Studio

Final Prototype - Our prototype and final set up 

Prototype Analysis: Evaluation against our Brief and Specifications - How our prototype met or did not meet our brief and specifications

Open Studio: Feedback - The feedback and insight we gained from the testing at Open Studio

Proposed Final Outcome - What we hoped our final outcome would look like

Above photo taken by Melissa of us discussing idea with Herewini

Today we got the opportunity to talk with Herewini Easton, one of the learning and teaching advisers at AUT. We were meeting to discuss our ideas so far, and if we were understanding the Māori legends accurately.

We had been talking as a team about what to ask in the meeting, so this morning I wrote down some general questions that ask about things we don’t have much information on.

Questions I wrote for us to ask.

Is a Fantail an appropriate bird to use in regards to our story? Is there another kind of New Zealand animal that would be better to use instead?

Yes. Our fantail will show leadership, and look after others, which is how we are humanizing our story. 

We originally got the idea of the Fantail warning others from the story of Maui and the fantail where the fantail warns the night mother of maui’s actions. [1] 

Finding a specific telling of this story would be beneficial as we would have richer resources to pull from, as well as being more accurate as to what was told in a specific area.

What characteristics would a Fantail have?

Our fantail will be showing leadership, strength, caring, and fear. 

Herewini mentioned studying the physical movement of the fantail, picking up characteristics from the way that it moves. 

He mentioned the dance of the fantail and it being like the Wero, or how some waiata are based off the rhythm of the fantails song. Taking aspects of the bird and giving them meaning could be how we come up with it’s characteristics.

What would be an appropriate name for the game and/or main character? (Piwaiwaka?).

Depending on the area the game is set in or around, will determine the name of the game/fantail as there are may be between 20-30 different names [2].

What audio would be alright to use? (Just bush sounds, or can we weave in some sounds that may relate more to Māori?).

We could include songs based around the fantail call/song, sounds of the New Zealand natural environment.

In regards to Māori waiata, I think if it has some relation to the story we could ask what songs to use, but using for the sake of is not understandable.

Are we representing the story of Tawhirimatea well? (What details are we missing or shouldn't include?)

So far we seem to be understanding it well. However we need to decide on what version of the myth we will use as different areas have variations. 

Would Tawhirimatea or the other deities show themselves in this story? Is it ok that we plan on not showing them, instead having their influence felt? 

Question for Robert and Hohepa. However Herewini was ok with us not displaying them visually, and just having there influence shown/felt.

New Questions to answer.

After the talk, we now have some new questions we would like to answer.

What place are we choosing (and what story is told there) and why are we choosing that place?

As Herewini suggested as to do, we plan on focusing around the Auckland, more specifically, the Ngāti Whātua iwi. 

This is because AUT is what connects our group together, and we would like to talk to the people at AUT’s marae Ngā Wai o Horotiu (named after the stream that used to run down Queenstreet). [3]

Check that the birds and wildlife that we are including where actually found in that place.

Not to sure on the specific animals and plants, but so far it seems that the animals we have chosen did all live in Auckland. Will need to check up on the rest of the wildlife though.

[1]  Fantail/pīwakawaka. (Accessed at 2019, March 22). Retrieved from https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/native-animals/birds/birds-a-z/fantail-piwakawaka/

[2]  Ngā manu – birds. (Accessed at 2019, March 22). Retrieved from https://teara.govt.nz/en/nga-manu-birds/page-2

Just messing around with colours, having a good time