#ctec708

Now that all the masculinity related stuff on my wall has been pulled down, it's time to start at square one again.

Below is my starting point for my next topic: balance. A kind of sprawling mind mappy thing, a leading question and a drawing of a horse - all the essentials.

I had a bit of a breakdown end of week 2. I needed to make changes in my life because I wasn't coping. One of the changes I've made is to change my studio project (see previous blog post). I've also made other changes in my life, and how I made those decisions was through drawing out the areas of my life as circles (bigger the circle, bigger the area of my life) and then using those circles as rough pie charts for how much of that area of my life I like, don't mind and don't like it ends up looking something like this.

This exercise has been very useful for me and helps me visualise/externalise/reflect on my life, and once I've done that I can put changes into action. I would love to build on this simple exercise I do and perhaps expand on it into something physical. I'm struggling to recall where I first came across this exercise or what it's called, unfortunately.

While talking with Dermott about my new topic, it became apparent that this new project is very much in the realm of psychology, which is great - except I don't know anything. So, I got busy learning some psychology stuff. Below is three important psychology things I learnt today. Know the terms that relate to my project will be a huge help for navigating through the psychology space for research. Externalisation feels like the most directly related to my project so far. https://dictionary.apa.org/ this website has been very helpful for this.

To continue my research I googled "life balance" and just looked critically at what the image results were. In yellow I've circled everything that had some sort of duality to it (WORK/LIFE) and the purple is the other images that represent something with more than two dynamics. I find it interesting how common the work/life came up when "life balance" was searched because it's a very very narrow view of life. And why would work and life be separated? Work is life and life for many is also work to a degree?

Next I came across a "wheel of life". It's another example of a similar exercise to the one I do. It's a bit more narrow than the one I do as it doesn't represent the amount of time or your relationship to that time (like/don't like).

And to finish here are some post it notes of key words that I'm finding sit well with my ideas.

This diagram shows the start of my scent design planning. You will note the potential scent selection from the story captures taken from past family members lives.

I will have to learn how to distil and extract flavours of concrete powder, mud and sawdust to incorporate within my install.

I used the incredible search engine BaseNotes to find the notes that my Granny's discontinued perfume was made from. It will be key for my Mum to be a part of this design as she is the one most familiar with the old fragrance.

The notes that have been made pink are scents that I have available to trial with at the studio. I will ask my Mum to come in with me for a session to critique and reflect on scents I develop.

Brackeys Game Jam 2021

In the the second to last week of February, the 15th to the 22nd, Nate, Matt and I took part in the Brackeys Game Jam 2021.1. Game Jams are commonly known as 48 hours where participants have to create a game from scratch, but this one was slightly different as we were given one week to make our own unique video game.

We entered this Game Jam as all three of us are very passionate about game making and wanted to grow our skills in this area, while also mentally preparing us to get back into university as it was just around the corner. 

As all three of us had been in a group together before and thanks to everything we’ve learnt from Creative Technologies, we had a huge advantage, as we knew all of our individual strengths and we used methods that had been taught to us to efficiently sort through ideas. We crafted a google doc for our ideas to compile them together, and used discord as a means of communication. We had our meetings on Discord from 10:00 AM to roughly 5:00 PM every single day of the week, but more than often we kept working in our own time to get our tasks completed. These seven days were the longest hours I’ve worked in my life. 

Our ideas we sorted through:

We went through our ideas using the different coloured hats, which helped us sort through us favourite ideas for the next stage, which was to vote. We didn’t want to take too much time deciding what idea we would choose as we needed to be as fast and efficient as possible. The theme for the Game Jam was ‘Stronger Together’, so we made sure to take that into account which games best match the theme when we each voted.

The Lucky Concept Winner

The game concept which had the highest amount of votes was a concept we were referring to as ‘Bomb Bros’. We chose this as we thought it checked off all the boxes. It was do-able in the amount of time we had, it would be fun and interactive, and it had a deeper meaning and perfectly matched the theme ‘Stronger Together’. The way we wanted this game to work was to have two characters which both had bombs attached to them, the characters were connected with a magnetic link and when they players were too far away from each another they trigger a countdown then eventually explode, the catch was that the players would have lots of obstacles and puzzles that they had to go through, some would force the players to have to seperate from one another.  Originally we envisioned our game to be multiplayer, but as the Game Jam was marked by other participants we had to think of a more simplified version which allowed someone to play the game single player, but switch between the two characters. We also scrapped the magnetic link, as we wanted the player to always be pressured by a timer that would explode if they didn’t make it to the next checkpoint with both playable characters in time.  Over time, naturally our game concept slowly changed and adapted to what we are currently calling ‘BroBots’. 

Creating BroBots

Once all the planning through Google Docs and Trello was completed, we begun the making stage. Nate and Matt were the developers and had different jobs they had to complete, while my job was to complete all of the required 3D models, rigging/animating and level design which I will be including seperate blog posts for those.

Prototypes

Robot models completed + Player movement script

Rag-dolling + Obstacles working

Gameplay

BroBots Play-through

Nostalgia has been proven to improve psychological health by increasing positive moods, self-esteem, feelings of belonging and optimism for the future. 

People with meaningful lives also tend to live longer - There is more about nostalgia and existentialism linked here. People who lack meaning in life report low vitality and have and increased vulnerability to stress. but nostalgia successfully mitigated this effect. Nostalgia and nostalgic therapies is one of the ways that help people with existential disorders to search for a meaning in life. 

Reminiscent therapies are often in group settings like nursing and retirement  home communities and consist of group members who share and respond to positive memory prompts which promotes positive feelings.

Nostalgia and past reminiscence encourages reflective and improving habits and processes that help with developing cognitive abilities such as problem solving, planning and other activities. 

References

During our showcase, we had our Demo VR going on and two videos (below) along with a wall full of processes. To set up our wall we printed all the process we could and set them up in a way it wasn’t in people’s faces and they could look if they wanted to. During setup, we noticed that we didn’t have much to place on the wall and while we did have our physical documentation on paper, it wasn’t refined. So, what we did was remake our physical documentation into new refined documentation made on the web. ** The type of people we had was aged between 13 - 27, this was great as our main target audience was 18-24 which as a large chunk of our participants for the night. We didn’t expect our project to be so popular, I was thinking that we would have to get some classmates to play so people could experience what was happening without getting in, but we were barely free the whole night as the only time we had it free was when we were changing users. It was great to see all types of people to play, we had a couple kids play (we didn’t get them to do the survey, they just wanted to experience VR, not our phone data) and seeing how much fun they had was worth not having someone who would give data. During the night we were ‘cable managing’ (where one of us would make sure the users didn’t have to worry about tripping over the cable, so we would hold and ‘dance’ with the cable) and when a user was taller we would have to dance like a monkey to keep the user from tripping. The showcase/playtesting night was so great, I wouldn’t wish to do it any other way because we were collecting data and data comes from failure. I do wish we could have had more people though  

Video links

These are the videos made from the recordings. One is our main video where it dictates what our experience could be.

Edited by Traz.

This video is a blooper for our recordings. 

Edited by Samy.

Images

Our Final Wall Setup. (Without Ipads)

Our Final Wall Setup. (With Ipads)

**

Some Documentation that was on the wall.

A Group Photo where we all have cupcakes (Thanks to Smay)

VR in action (outside)

VR in action (Inside)

I realise the importance this semester of showing the documentation of my project, Koha and the de-emphasis of the open studio artifact. For ease of access for the tutors as well myself and others interested in re visiting Koha in the future I thought it was best to re structure my individual documentation and my individual reflection into a blog post. What I have written below is mainly a reflection on my blog posts which I wrote throughout the semester, and I encourage you to read all of the linked post as well as this reflection to gain a full picture of my journey throughout Studio V.

Week 1:

Week 1 Blog Post: Studio V - Initial Ideas

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/183201418611/studio-v-initial-ideas

In the first week of studio I didn’t begin working on Koha. I had thought of the idea in 2018 and originally planned on working on it for Studio IV. However, I went overseas on an exchange and never completed Studio IV so the idea was shelved. 

I knew that if I worked on Koha it would have to be by myself and after not having been in BCT since mid 2018 I thought it was safest to work with a group. After some talking to different people around studio I found I was interested in the studio idea that Sam Vea had. The first iteration of his idea was to create an app where potential tenants can rate landlords to help others find a house to rent which will be warm, safe and well maintained. At the time I said - 

“I’m interested in developing this idea further as such a service does not currently exist in New Zealand and I would want to use something like this myself.

This is mainly because in the first half of last year before I disappeared to Europe I was living in a flat which was not kept in good condition and hadn’t been inspected by the landlord for years, or even the property manager who was meant to oversee it. As a result there were vines growing through the windows, it was moldy damp and my bedroom had water come in every time it rained. Rats lived in the cupboards and I was constantly sick whilst I lived there. The house was bad, but with care from the landlord it could have and would have been a nice place to live”.

I connected to the idea personally and I thought that I could both have a good contribution to the idea and push myself to become closer to employment at the end of BCT. 

Week 2:

Week 2 Blog Post: Team Dynamics

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/183254798456/team-dynamics

In the second week of studio I had formed a team with Hiren Patel, Sam Vea, Stephen Solis and Osamu Tajima. We’d created a base concept for the idea that Sam had thought of and it was named Slum Lords (now Renters). 

The service was for prospective tenants to use to see if the landlord or property manager in charge of their prospective house creates a positive environment and does a good service for them in their time there. 

At the time I said - 

“Our idea is promising and I hope we can expand on it further throughout the semester. I believe the group dynamic will work quite well as this semester I’ve expanded outside of my core group of friends to work with people based on their skill set. I hope that throughout the year I can think on a more professional level to ready myself for the workplace at the end of the year”.

I knew it was important to expand from the same group of people I had always worked with in BCT, despite these people having great skill sets. I knew there was many different skills throughout BCT and choosing a group outside of my friend group was a great decision professionally to improve my skills of working within a group. I explained this as well as how we would all contribute to the project throughout the semester in this blog post and at the time I thought it would be a great project to work on.

Whilst I was dedicating my time to helping with this project, I knew Koha was still in the back of my mind. While I could contribute to the group, all of the necessary skills within the group to complete this project were already there and I knew there was a potential of me riding in the project. I had set plans in place to ensure I would add my share of value to Slum Lords, but at the same time I was re gaining my confidence to perform in BCT as well as I had done in the past and realized my semester away had not set me back as much as I had thought.

Week 3:

Week 3 Blog Post: Team Dynamics

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/183553882556/the-new-project

After heavy consideration in the first two weeks of Studio I knew that I needed to either commit to Slum Lords, or I needed to commit to building off my 2018 which I would soon re name from ‘Supply’ to Koha. In the end of this week was the week three pitch to Laurent and Donna and I knew to prove that I would be able to complete the project and to show it to them and my peers it was important to have decided by that day. I quickly created this logo and announced to my group that I would leaving to pursue my own project.

In hindsight, now that I have seen how successfully Renters was implemented without me, and how successful my exploration of developing Koha has gone this semester I am very glad that I chose to work on this project. 

In semester 1 of 2018 in the BCT Entrepreneurship & Innovation class I came up with a concept of an idea I called ‘Supply’. Supply was a “platform connecting, travelers, adventurers and their gear.” From the people I pitched this to in 2018 it was generally well received. As this idea began to further shape and iterate it became Koha. 

Week 4:

Week 4 Blog Post: What is Koha?

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/183554263261/what-is-koha

After the week four pitch I listed what I wanted to achieve with Koha, and explained a basic concept of the app. In this post I listed what I wanted to achieve for the semester - 

“Right now I sit in the Initial Concept stage but I’m quickly moving into the Research stage which I then need to be into the Refined Concept and Market Research which then needs to evolve into the Design Prototyping phase.

My goal for the end of the semester is to have the UI/UX design completed, have the final concept completed and have the platform in suitable condition to be developed and launched. Ultimately, I want to do this with the goal of launching the platform creating an active user base. If I can do this, I can make life for backpackers easier in New Zealand, and keep the Earth somewhat less polluted”.

Looking back over the semester I did refine the concept through research, after which I conducted market research. I did this through looking for graphic design inspiration, conducting a comparative analysis to similar apps in the existing market as well as drawing data from my past market research done in 2018.

As shown in my open studio display I also had a completed UI and showed that to the public to receive further feedback on the idea.

Week 5:

Week 5 Blog Post: An in depth look into Koha’s original concept

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/183576073946/an-in-depth-look-into-kohas-original-concept

To refine Koha’s concept it was important for me to document and properly reflect on Koha original concept from 2018. In this time it started out as Re-Supply, then evolved to Supply, then evolved to Koha. I wanted to give the service a name which reflected it’s New Zealand roots, and also showed its social side of having the foundation of encouraging people to donate for the good of the environment and not only purely for making money. 

That is how I came to the name ‘Koha’ meaning to gift or donate in Te Reo.

To see Koha explained in the form of a business plan, please see the link above for the concept blog post. 

Week 6:

Week 6 Blog Post: Decent: X Challenge Results

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/184546972891/decent-x-challenge-results

I spent much of the time between the fifth week, and the days leading up the mid semester break finalizing the entry for Koha into the first stage of the X Challenge - the idea. 

The X Challenge team said -

Your idea ‘Koha’ has been chosen as one of the top 40 ideas and won $250!

We were blown away by the number and quality of entries and had a really hard time picking our winners so a big congratulations for making the cut.

Now that I have spent the semester exploring Koha, I’ve decided that I don’t want to continue working on it (explained later) but back in week six I said - 

“If I was to take Koha forward it would be essential to spend Studio VI building it as well as taking it through the next stage of the X Challenge. To bulid it I would make a studio team, but I have not decided on this yet.”

I knew from earlier I would have to dedicate the rest of BCT studio to Koha if I wanted it to materialize, but now I have decided it is best to focus on a new idea for Studio VI.   

Week 7:

Week 7 Blog Post: Koha - Market Research

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/184677972381/koha-market-research

After the formative assessment where I was asked what research i’d done I realized there was room for a lot more. After receiving that feedback I did further research and explored effective ways to do so.

After my research I’ve come to realise that market research is crucial for the success of Koha and apps and websites in general. I took some advice from an article by (de Vries, 2017) which I have expanded on further in my original post.

One of the recommendations I gained from my research was to look into existing data on the internet rather than trying to make my own. To gain credible data I would have to have much more than the simple be convenience sampling available to me. I would have to use a reasonable statistical method, which would have taken either a lot of time, or a lot of money both of which I didn’t have and wouldn’t have been the best to develop Koha.

Week 8:

Week 8 Blog Post: Koha - Comparative Analysis

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/185560708321/koha-comparative-analysis

After initial market research I began to look into how I wanted to prototype Koha. After considering multiple directions I could take I decided that using Adobe XD would be the simplest way to achieve my goals of showing a working prototype in Open Studio. 

Once I began to prototype, my research stage and my prototyping stage began to merge as I changed between the two, with my research building my prototype and concreting the idea that Koha could make a difference, and succeed as a service.

Comparative Analysis:

For an explanation of the analysis, please see the link above.

Weeks 9 - 11:

Week 9 - 11 Blog Posts - Post 1: Creating Koha for Open Studio

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/185561129031/creating-koha-for-open-studio

Post 2:  Koha UI Inspiration

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/185561303916/koha-ui-inspiration

Post 3:  Koha Inspiration from existing apps

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/185561584396/koha-inspiration-from-existing-apps

Between the weeks 9 - 12 I didn’t have a lack of documentation, however it was easiest to combine all of these weeks into one summary as I spent the entire time prototyping, and researching to prototype. Koha was my first time creating the User Interface of an app and crafting the User Experience. I began to create Koha in Adobe XD so I could focus my learning on crafting the design rather than running into coding issues.

Once it was completed in XD it was fully intractable in XD, but the button mechanics were not reliable enough to showcase it through mobile in Open Studio. I’m glad I chose to show it in video format as this created a professional display, whilst also showing that my project was still in progress. At the time I said -

“Because of this my current plan is display the app in the form of a screen recording, on a large screen with a simple display which reflects the simplicity of the Apple interface”.

I created Koha to fit with iOS so I tried to make it fit the Apple aesthetic as much as possible. Even though I’ve decided to put Koha to rest for now, I would also design an Android port and a desktop and mobile website if I was going to launch it. 

As well as taking inspiration from iOS and trying to use its common design features I also built from apps which are similar to Koha. I built its marketplace from my favorite features of Trademe and Facebook Marketplace and built the rental marketplace with a similar feel whilst integrating the best features of AirBnB and Hostelworld. 

I found that whilst it is incredibly important in design to stay original and not copy others ideas, it is often hard to keep that balance with staying within trends and guidelines to give users a familiar experience. I wanted to make Koha as user friendly as possible. This way users wouldn’t have to learn the way I’d re-invented the wheel as a designer and instead get a smooth experience with Koha.

Week 12:

Week 12 Blog Post: Koha - What not to do

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/185561790691/koha-what-not-to-do

As open studio grew closer and the XD prototype was completed, I needed to create my display for open studio and decide the best way to show Koha. I found the best way was going to be to show a video as I had considered earlier.

The video is purposely made silent, as it is made to succeed in a loud studio environment where the sounds of many other projects and stacks of people talking will be using the audio space.

Laurent showed me an example of a bad video, and I knew what to shy away from and felt I knew a good design to follow, by trying to keep the same aesthetic I had used throughout Koha. My studio outcome video is linked below and to see the bad example please see the linked blog post above.

Week 13:

Week 13 Blog Post: Koha - Open Studio & Feedback

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/185562539076/koha-open-studio-feedback

In Open Studio I kept the display as simple as possible and created a space where it was easy to hold conversation with people interested in Koha. I did this by creating the display shown above, and looking back I see it as successful.

At the time I said - 

“The video I showed totaled to about 4 and a half minutes, and I had it playing on a loop. What I had not thought about at the time and wish I had implemented was actually a way to set the video back to the start! All throughout the night I had interested people approaching the installation and I had no way to go to the start of the app to show it to them”.

This meant I either had to explain to them the video was going to end soon and wait, or simply start explaining what was happening part way through which often left people confused. This took some level of professionalism away from my display but I was still able to share the idea of Koha with people and gain constructive feedback.

My summarized opinion of Open Studio and with Koha is that Koha is a good idea. Koha is grounded, innovative, unique and has potential to grow into an application which can prevent tonnes of rubbish from going into the landfill. 

If I continue Koha, I know that I will spend hundreds, probably thousands of hours working on an app that may only get 10 downloads in the app store. If it does succeed, I know my hours will be fruitful to well below minimum wage. 

Finally I will say, it has been great to explore Koha as an idea throughout the idea and bring it where it is today, it has taught me a lot and the skills I have applied this semester will help me throughout time. However, for now it’s time to lay Koha to rest and change direction in studio.

Week 14:

Week 14 Blog Post: AUT X Challenge - Stage 2 The Accelerator

https://kalebuchanan.tumblr.com/post/185562781566/aut-x-challenge-stage-2-the-accelerator

After Open Studio I began to reflect on my journey for the semester and made the decision to not continue developing Koha. I have a passion for making physical things in BCT and since I don’t have a particular direction of where I want to be after graduating I feel the most intelligent thing to do is do what I’m passionate about and enjoy as that often leads to positive things.

Last week I said -  “I have had high encouragement from the X challenge staff to continue Koha to the second stage of the X-Challenge. I know that this potentially reaps the great reward of $20,000 to put toward the service, as well as learning opportunities unparalleled to those in a classroom. However, if I was to continue Koha I would have to put in many, many unpaid hours for the chance at $20,000. I know that being an entrepreneur is a hard road, but I don’t see profitability out of Koha in the long run which is why I am leaving the idea behind”.

We have Louie to do the 3D modelling in the group, I also help some part like chair and joystick modelling but more on texture. As we want to do a high level of simulation VR project, we have to make all the modelling become more like reality as hard as we can. A requirement we set for our project is we have to let the user feel they are inside a real bobcat car when they wear the VR. 

My part is making the texture we need in unity as we want the user to have higher experience in VR. Add the texture/material is the easiest way to make a grey rubber 3D modelling become a real car in Unity. We have checked the real bobcat car from our research, so we have a list of the texture we need.

-Orange -White -Black -Grey -Grey blue -Transparent Glass

It is easy to do those colours texture as all you need is changing RGB values. The hard part is glass. Fortunately, I did that last year and still remember how to do that.