#ctect501

Well, here we are; final assignment of the semester.

Sadly due to a pressing doctor’s appointment I missed Mondays class where we found out about the brief (or lack thereof) for this assignment, but thankfully I was filled in by some classmates. Already the concept of not being ‘given’ a brief is daunting, but also exciting. The idea that I can pursue something which interests, or ‘resonates’ with me for an assignment is definitely something I am keen for. To start with I’m thinking of either leaning towards something video-game or board-game related, or something more like a social issue I can bring awareness towards.

I think both of these Ideas would be fun to pursue, and I’d absolutely love to work with a game concept as it is something I am passionate for. However the point all of the tutors have brought up throughout the course so far is that this year is really a year for experimenting, and finding out what works well for you. They seem to be stressing this point a lot and It makes me think I should lean away from the gaming aspect, especially the video game aspects of my current ideas. This is because I already know how to do a lot of the steps involved in bringing something like that to life, and the prospect of doing something new and exciting is probably going to be more of a learning curve for me, and help me add some skills to my skill-set.

This makes me lean towards something societal-based? maybe even psychological? I am unsure, and will evaluate after talking to everyone in class and seeing what others are thinking of.

Today we consolidated back into our cards for play team KitHawk. Even though as a team we already knew each other we decided to get all our individual strengths down to help gauge how achievable different project concepts will be with our limited timeframe.

We also thought of what play aesthetics we were all pushing for and the general consensus of the group was Narrative, Expression and Discovery. More about play aesthetics can be found here: http://gamedevelopertips.com/mechanics-dynamics-aesthetics-game-design-theory-behind-games/

This worked well as after defining these skill sets and play aesthetics our individual goals for the project were aligned and we began to brainstorm a storyline based project, we used Sangeeta’s Team Canvas idea and decided to focus on a purpose. I declared that as a team the main ideas that we needed to define is 

• The medium or format that we wanted to present our project through

•The message or issue we wanted users to discover

•The storytelling method

https://www.space.com/spacex-falcon-heavy-triple-rocket-landing-success.html

I find that Elon Musk landing all 3 of the rockets shows the progress of humanity and the advancements in space exploration as they managed to land the 2 side boosters in perfect unison with the 3rd rocket coming down as well. It gives me hope that they will be able to enable easier space travel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4TMFCDfS5A

I have mixed feelings about “What a Wonderful World” and the find the lyrics extremely impactful as I have a few very important and personal memories based around this song with the most prominent being dancing and singing with my mom in the kitchen and pausing slightly on the line “I hear babies crying, I watch them grow, They'll learn much more than I'll never know.” finally realizing the importance of that line and what it truly means.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1bFr2SWP1I

Curious to test our how well our objects would be received, we talked to a few of our classmates to hear their opinions.

After we had the wind chime idea more or less sorted, we sporadically had another idea pop up. Using the excess bamboo, we wanted to make a recorder to map our data too. Instead of just using data for Canada, USA and Mexico, we used worldwide data for our recorder.

After a few calculations and measurements, we managed to drill the appropriately sized holes in accordance to our data. 

During the holidays, short of ideas and desperate to make any progress, we came together in hopes to coming up with a bunch of ideas with which we could progress. 

While brainstorming and cracking open a few ciders, we experimented with the idea of using the bottles in some way to represent our data set.

Filling the bottles to varying degrees, we wanted to change the way they sounded when hit. 

Although this was a very basic and quick idea that we had come up with, it more importantly inspired our future ideas. Focusing now on sound, we wanted to somehow make an object which would implement our data and produce some sort of sound.

We have started to collect all our individual ideas and put them together in a group. Each really cool and I think would make great projects. But the main ideas we keep coming back to is some thing you can experience by having on! A lot of our individual ideas are coming up with  things that you can feel the difference yourself. So therefore with this in mind its important to state we want to target our object at those that don't suffer from a disability them selves. 

As a group we have fully decided on the fact that we want to incorporate how disability isn't something that you can't always see physically. This is an important aspect because when talking about dis ability it is all so broad, there fore we have to cater towards a huge demographic of people.

With all considered I think that we are all coming back to Nat’s initial idea of the chair! It just makes sense as to what we are trying to convey! Obviously we have to make a lot of changes and think of what is vital to put on the chair and what is not. This is a big step we have take to fully commit to the chair I think because we have been away with the conversation fairies for a few days now and we just need to get making some prototypes.