danielha97-blog

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Game

Here is the game, working with the NFC tags

Its been a long time coming but we are here. 

The NFC tags do not always work but I have managed to get them working. I will have to glue them down so they do not move at all. 

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The end is near - reflection

As we near the end and graduation is approaching. It’s a nice time to stop and reflect.

This semester has been a rollercoaster and I must admit, one of the most difficult. As I had a lot of personal things happen and poor groups (not studio). I feel I did not accomplish all I could. Although, I am very proud of what we accomplished this semester and achieved what we set out to do there will always be that feeling like we could have done more.

A task I set myself this semester was to learn something new. I decided to make a game which uses NFC tags. I’m not the best at coding and used a lot of tutorials and help from Stefan but I am happy with the outcome.

As we were setting up we had a bit of trouble. The laptop needed to be updated or downgraded, to run my game properly. It was a bit unfortunate as I had swapped the laptops with another student who needed one that could use mac setting and mine could. The game had worked properly on that one and didn’t really think twice about it but it was also the weekend so there wasn’t much I could do about it. Thank goodness for Stefan as he came through and helped fix the problems. The next thing that went wrong was the NFC tags. They would work one minute but won’t the next, which caused me a lot of anxiety and stress. In the end, we got it running but was unsure if it would work properly. I had programmed the game to work with a mouse just in case so it can work either way. All you have to do is to unplug the Arduino.

Next time, I would solder the board together to ensure a better connection. I did try but because the wires I was using weren’t the best quality they would break and I didn’t want to run the risk of it breaking on me. I am also not very confident when it some to soldering, especially when it comes to soldering a board.

Overall, I am sad to part ways with everyone but I am also very excited about the future.

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Studio | Effects | Transitions

What? Through out our game we need visual ques for the player to know what is going on without using words or images, I feel like having these kinds of effects to give off ques for correctly answering a question, incorrectly answering a question and progressing to the next question would look a lot nicer and gives off a more interactive vibe. So? As cool as this looks on paper, implementing it as well as how well it would run is a different story, I’m unsure if the program we’re using can run it without lagging or if implementing this would even be possible. But we can only find out by trial and error, hopefully we can though! I’m sure it would leave a good effect on audience especially since our audiences are mainly kids. Every kid likes special effects.

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Studio | Progression | Next Step

What? So to continue with our project I would need to finish the rest of the drawings, only completing 33/44 images. But that shouldn’t take too long to complete, my next goal would be to design the board. I actually have no idea what to do with it really, since the board we had for last semester was a bit too plain for my liking. Due to not having enough time to design and paint the board last semester I feel like I could improve it where it could have a heavier impact on the audience. Since the board is the first thing the audience sees I feel like it is very important.  So? What I plan to do next would be to look at designs that other people have used and the impact that they had. I want to prevent using images or text as the background since it may be too crowded. I may consider painting the board and using laser cutting for sure for clear detail. The results of the title for Dyslexi-AR was spectacular and I would want to keep that element.

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Studio | Break | Work

Just an example on the drawings of homophones, Knight and Night, plenty more but don’t want to flood my tumblr.

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Studio | Tutor | Discussion

What? We had a critique session with Andy and Yvonne about our new and developed idea. We talked about the reasoning behind going back to Dyslexia as well as the improving potential it still has. With the discussion we had with Ruth who pointed out that our past idea seems to be more catered to children without Dyslexia we know for a fact there is definitely room to grow. We expressed that we wanted to improve the freedom aspect of our idea as well as creating a completely new activity in the process.

So? The results were positive and they seem to really like our idea and encouraged us to continue forward with it, asking if there were any problems we could face. Kelsea was quite confident with what she had to program while I feel like I could get the drawings out of the way. So as a result we are on the right track and just need to start moving really, with the dead line coming up we really don’t have much time left.

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Studio | Reversion | Dyslexia

What? As we were discussing our idea and broke it down to exactly what we wanted, we came to the conclusion that the idea was a bit too difficult to program as we well as not being a strong enough idea for a studio project. So what we needed was a direction as well as a purpose. The idea that we had for studio last semester was a very good base as well as having a strong purpose. So? So we decided to take a step back to Dyslexia being our main purpose and having a set target audience. We decided to follow the same idea but we will not be using any of our past projects within this one, everything that will remain the same would be our knowledge on Dyslexia and how to deal with it. We wanted to create an activity that gave children with Dyslexia the freedom to do as they please without focusing on a linear learning pattern. 

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Trans N | Week 5 | Story

What? This lesson we learned about the structure of almost every story, how a character/hero is portrayed, change and adapts. The animation that explained how the process of this cycled was portrayed really well and easy to understand, which gave me insight on how to portray a character as well as a method to express our ideas.  So? I feel like my group wouldn’t really focus on a character journey aspect as our idea does not revolve around one as well as being too hard to implement. I feel like what we would do would be to follow some aspects of this cycle and somewhat give the audience an experience of this cycle through a story like medium. Opinion Before My current opinion on Transmedia is that it is more complex then simply different mediums on a product, but rather choosing the right medium could make or break your business.

Opinion Currently Opinion did not really change from the last, but just adding another layer to my knowledge of Transmedia and character developing.

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Trans N | Week 4 | Business

What? This Transmedia Narrative session was based around defining our audience and why. The example that was shown to us was based on Mech Mice, a mmo based game from the creators of Club Penguin. The game was a medium for business and expand into different medias. In the game the player could customize and create their own mice to have it personalized for themselves. 

The company of Mech Mice could then develop their brand further towards their target audience. They can do this by introducing different mediums to their fan base, such as animation series/movie and toys.

So? The creation of Mech Mice was target towards ages 14 - 21, a good audience base that if became a fan of the game would be interested in their other products. We were then given a business model canvas sheet to complete, showing us the process of how business works as well as sections for us to fill out for our own project. The points were Key Partners, Key Activities, Value Propositions, Customer Relationships, Channels, Customer Segments, Cost Structure and Revenue Streams. Our idea being an app that teaches university students how to cook, we tried implementing our idea into this structure which was proven useful. We managed to hone down on ideas we want to focus on as well as details that we need to be more attentive to. 

Opinion Before I thought that trans media was more of a different outlet to show the same thing over and over again. As in not mattering what platform it is, as long as the base is the same, everything will be taken the same. But after reading through the readings, it makes more sense to me that medium being the message since its the way the audience is taking the message

Opinion Currently My current opinion on Transmedia is that it is more complex then simply different mediums on a product, but rather choosing the right medium could make or break your business. 

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Trans N | Week 3 | Presentation Slides

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Studio | Daniel | Self Notes

What? So I like to keep things tidy and write down things I have to keep track of, sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it doesn’t but I guess its part of the process? So? So I created notes for myself and ideas that I wanna implement to try out or to discuss with Kelsea Structure -Screen that displays the story/questions -Board that contains NFC tags / possibly 2? Puzzle pieces in either image form or text/ both require their counterparts in a ying yang format -A printed story (probably from storyboard) as a physical book the child could read as well as a cheat sheet ( May need more than 1) -Statements -Poster? -Logo/Title laser cut

Daniel-Selfnote

-Make sure title and board rises in aesthetics

-Images to be painted and clear well before due date since it takes a long time

-Story board links and makes sense, if possible different difficulties

-Images and story need to be up to standard, backgrounds and art may need re-do’s

-If possible, trial with children (not mandatory)

-Use shapes that could be split in half or 3 ways

-If possible, have words that match their images

-Prototype if NFC tags work/overall concept, ASAP

-Careful of errors such as possible answers for different questions

-Having examples printed behind each piece to give the player a clue on what the word is?

-Competition between players?

-A method where the child could create their own?

-Having a preset character for the player to build?

-Website creation on side if possible

-Tablet from Kelsea on Tuesday to start on drawings

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Studio | Structure | Idea Pitch

What? So as a new direction, well more like a part 2 to Dyslexi-AR, we honed down our idea from instead of dyslexic children to just children in general. As for the augmented reality factor of the project. It was too much of a risk last semester due to inconsistency and lack of time management. So we decided to take a safer and better approach to the interactive factor.  Stefan gave us some feedback on our last project on why didn’t we use NFC tags instead of just relying on Vuforia’s camera as it is quite inconsistent, we continued to ask questions on if it was actually possible without a camera and consistent it was. He compared it to the key card that everyone uses to get into the studio. That gave us hope on what we could do and the possibilities with NFC as our interactive factor. So? So we continued to brainstorm different creative ways to teach homophones to children. I really enjoyed the puzzle factor of Dyslexi-AR and wanted to keep that discovery element. So I purposed to go with a sort of ying yang idea that keeps the homophones together but could still separate. Kelsea said she wanted to have the NFC interact with a quiz type activity that requires the correct answer to be placed on the board for it to continue, creating an activity for children to figure which homophone to use. The infinity cubes that we used for last semester are really creative and fun to play around with, but in my opinion still a bit too repetitive for my liking, I wanna have some change to it, even if its something minor, instead of text maybe images or the way the activity is played, something to keep the flow going instead of the same puzzle.

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Studio | Shapes | Homophones

What? So homophones are 2 or more words that sound the same but have different meanings as well as spelling. For example ‘Your’ and ‘You’re’, ‘Night’ and ‘Knight’. So to make things easier to manage for us and the audience I decided to trial with shapes that could split into 2 or 3′s. or have an image that reflects of the word itself.

So? So most importantly we need to make sure our idea actually works properly, so to get to the testing stage as soon as possible I need to create the prototype. I have some ideas on how to draw them but I would need to base it off a story board that links with the activity as well as the physical story book.

Now What? So the task for this week would be to create a structure that uses homophones and have some drawings completed, laser, painted and NFC tag tested. But ofcourse I would need to have a tablet before starting, so for now its just my thought process, direction and overall plan. I’m somewhat prepared if anything goes wrong, but that’s part of the process right?

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Studio | New Direction | Plan

What? So after having a discussion with Kelsea, we’ve decided that the project that we did last semster, Dyslexi-AR already reached our peak in terms on what we wanted to get out of it.

We both spent a day in our own time thinking about new ideas and options for us to go, either a whole new idea, or just branch off dyslexia. I spent an entire studio session talking to people and writing down key words and interest about myself, to come up with something that has a good base to work on. Keeping in mind purpose, target audience, difficulty and interest. I was drawing a blank for majority of the time since I have no idea what I wanted to do. Since the last idea we did, Dyslexi-AR had such a good base to it and I had a lot of fun working on it. So to come up with another idea was a proven difficult task.

So? I wanted something that we could create physically and interactive, while still having the capabilities to connect digital on screen. I suggest that we branch out to a different side of Dyslexia since its a broad base and our last project was more suitable for children without dyslexia. We then broke down the pros and cons of our last project then we decided to focus on the issue of homophones, as children and many adults aren’t sure which your and you’re to use it would be an interesting project. Personally I wasn’t too bothered with the idea, but rather what I could do with it. 

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Trans N | Week 3 | Presentation

What? For Transmedia Narratives this week, everyone in their groups had to present their idea, roles and reasoning on what they want to focus on for the rest of the semester. I’ve decided to team with Traz and Kavita to keep the group compact and easy to manage. Having a bigger group would be harder to manage as well as past experience not being so well.

We decided with the idea on helping university students learn how to cook. The sole reason behind that is because of the necessity of cooking. Most students that enter university from high school live at home with their parents, where they don’t need to learn how to cook. But once they reach college, living in a dorm where they need to survive on their own is a different story. 

For students its mainly the money factor since they have to pay for rent as well the inability to cook preventing them from buying necessary groceries. It is a fact that you would live a healthier and economically sustainable life style by cooking yourself. 

So? So for our Transmedia Narrative proposal pitch we decided to cross platforms for on different methods students could learn how to cook, from games, VR, competitive photos and rewards for shopping. The idea was accepted and we are all excited to see where this takes us and how well we work together to complete this project.

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Trans N | Week 2 | Experience

What? The medium is the message! -Marshall McLuhan (1964), When this was first presented to me in class I was quite confused. What does he mean by the medium being the message. Isn’t the medium the medium? the method to present your message instead of the method itself?

Turns out what McLuhan meant by that was the way the audience understand  the message was the key factor.  Depending on social media, newspaper or just on the news.  So? So based on the different medium that I decide to go with, the way its interpreted would be different. So depending on what I am showing, the medium I choose would have to suitable for it for the right message and understand to be taken to its full extent. Opinion before Overall I feel that transmedia is timeless medium that needs to be used one way or another. Just because the reason or method of using it is different does not mean it is not transmedia. I feel that it is seen as a dead theory fully based on the solid meaning on what some people think of it, but not how the overall meaning behind transmedia.

Opinion Currently I thought that transmedia was more of a different outlet to show the same thing over and over again. As in not mattering what platform it is, as long as the base is the same, everything will be taken the same. But after reading through the readings, it makes more sense to me that medium being the message since its the way the audience is taking the message.

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Studio | Skills | Website

What? During the Dyslexi-AR project, I felt that what made the project work was the different focuses and objectives we all had. Te-Aroha being the core example, it gave a different element to the project, giving the audience more insight to our idea as well as Dyslexia as a whole. Even though we all work on a main core of the project together (Dyslexi-AR) we all had side roles to contribute and skills they wanted to develop, making it beneficial for the project as whole as well as their own personal benefit.  So? I feel like we should follow the structure we had last semester as well as another team member to join us. I personally want to hone my web development skills, so I would want to create a fully functional website for the project through out the next 12 weeks. 

Now What? For now we’ll continue to see what our next steps are, what are the options, opinions from Ruth and Dyslexia as a whole. We may not end up with another team member but that would be okay, not too big of a deal.