#ctec500

[benmillerbct]

integrative practice week 4. pughs method

for week 4 of creative technologies, I learnt how to use morphological charts and pugh's method of ideation.

using it, I worked as part of a group to try to figure out what makes a good story, by coming up with key attributes to a story, (immersion, themes, characters, etc.) come up with example details for each, and then use said examples to create 3 possible story concepts. finally, after figuring out a grading system of 1-5, we graded each concept piece on which makes for a good story.

Pugh's method is definitely incredibly useful, since you can take about any idea for a project and consider each part of it to come up with the best possible version. a chair on it's own sounds very simple, but considering each part of a chair (seat, back, arm rest, wheels, height, etc.) allows you to come up with the perfect chair for your needs.

my own project for this semester is to create some sort of experience to simulate the sensation or feelings of hearing loss. the problem I immediately face in regards to this is what kind of experience should it be, but using pugh's method, i can safely take examples of possible experiences and grade them each on different qualities i want for the project.

overall, pugh's method and the morphological chart are incredibly useful and i can easily see how i might use them myself.

[ispywithmythirdeyeofficialbct]

Integrative Practices. Week 1

Here’s my drawing of sketches from the exercise we have to complete for the first week of Integrative Practices aka CTEC500.  In response to the first question:  In what ways did this exercise assist in seeing things you may have not have noticed before? I noticed that the larger the space I drew I tried to fit it into the same sized shape. I noticed also that, once again if I was dedicated again if I could really be bothered with doing realism, I really could, but the tedium is not necessary for the message to be conveyed in a difficult form, but it is mainly because I am lazy and dont want to spend forever thinking about detail. I want to create and get the message across. 

I guess this is why I never finish writing my stories unless they’re short stories, and then again even that is difficult because the amount of detail is fluid, the potential depths of it coming into being, is not up for me to decide and that is what frustrates me but im not, wait, am I not interested in being a “good” artist? Well, in theory, no, but I admire the detail that a month worth of painting takes on a single piece. What am I doing here in this world? Am I really painting how I want to paint..? Or am I still painting? Well, no Im typing, my favourite way of sharing my quintessence. No I am painting the way I want to, just not when i’d like to. I should just paint a masterpiece. Im going to start planning it now.

I just want to have a smoke, lay here and drink my water. See that? I’m gone. Not here. I’m in another plane altogether. I’m not even reading or seeing the words, or the screen. I’m dreaming again. 

I’ve been thinking about building that treehouse in the cabins, with the woodfire burning out by our stairwell, and the evening light is still bringing warmth through the glaze of the glades and the river as brilliant as a mirror, reflecting what it sees of the sun. Im wearing a swandri, red, and I have my beard and long hair in a bun, and I’m near the end of my life, and I know you’re not far from home, that’s why it is set up the way it is. I wait here for you everyday so you get home and you’re alright. I dont know who’s in that window, but it may be our daughter. She’s waiting for you too. And the pine needles that are around the fire are always so much more orange and drier than what piles in heaps from gravity and pressure pockets in the sky.

oh yeah 50 words or less, right.

Second question:  How might you use or adapt this method in future for your work?

Okay. Well I dont want to waste all my 50 words, on how the last question isnt the same as this question, but it’s really all relative. Okay well, if I get to start with my 50 words or less, again, from here: I’ll definitely take more action to get a reference if I want to make the art I really envision for myself to make.

I guess I’m going to buy some more rolls of paper for a canvas.

[hohbct]

Week 10 - Systems Thinking

(Pictured above, looking to experiment with a more “complex” version of the predatory prey system, where there are multiple ‘rungs’ in the ladder and an ultimate apex that primarily hunts most of the other lifeforms that’d “predate” the original food source)

1. How could you use systems thinking in your creative processes?

Systems Thinking feels like it’d be a good way to help picture an overall theoretical roadmap for long running projects that’d require outside input—most notably something along the lines of an indie dev project is what comes to mind immediately, such as early access or beta testing. Where the dev would roll out a new play test version, users would play test and give feedback, looping back to the developers who’d work towards a more stable version of the system, and rereleasing it to continue the cycle.

2. How could this method complement (or contrast) another method we have explored in CTEC500?

Overall the Systems Thinking method feels like it’s an integral part to each and every one of the methods we’ve learnt about, where the intent is to design and innovate in some way, then garner feedback and utilise that feedback to further enhance whatever project may be worked on. It feels this is the ultimate point of the methods we’ve learnt, where Systems Thinking is a more readable and approachable visual understanding of that common thread between these methods.

[xkhbct]

Week 4:

Material Interrogation:

This was my selected object. It’s a st Christopher necklace which I got before I went travelling on my OE, it’s meant to keep you safe travelling and I met many other people around the world also with one so it was a good conversation starter and way to make friends.

At first I took that initial photo, then put it into a text editor where the data of the photo comes up.

After deleting parts, adding parts, moving bits around for a while, I saved the data and saw what happened to the image.

Then I added the image as raw data to audacity. As it was pretty much just white noise I played around with the sound first. Sapling wasn’t working so I only got the one sound edited through audacity.

I really liked this method as it got me thinking creatively and outside of the box. Showed us how something so simple can be manipulated and transformed into something completely new. What Clint was saying about using things in the incorrect/ unintended way was an interesting way to look at how we use apps and programs. The creative opportunities are endless when we start thinking in new ways. 

[nitraj-sethi]

Integrated practice week 6 Lotus blossom/Ideation:

This weeks exercise was to use a lotus diagram with a scenario given to us, which worked on ideation and to empathize, define, ideate and prototype test. The lotus diagram is where you write down the problem in the center and come up with ideas around it, sort of like a brainstorm of a sort but then we repeat this process with each of the ideas we came up with and further think of more ideas within the ideas. My scenario was to redesign Aotea square to support all weather conditions. We then used the six hats to refine the three best ideas and further develop them. 

The lotus diagram helped in creative thinking by having empty squares around the center idea, it forced a expectation to cover all of them with an idea and exhaust all options for the idea and branch out on ideas by using divergent thinking, this led to wild ideas which was further developed into a more specific idea by repeating the lotus for each idea and coming up with further ideas for the ideas, this lead to convergent thinking, which was really helpful because the going from divergent to convergent thinking allowed me to get various ideas spontaneously by not worrying about the specifics, then going into the specifics to turn the idea into a more developed version and think about the possibilities from each idea. This helped narrow down the best ideas and give us an idea of where each idea leads which can be helpful in deciding which direction to pursue for any project. The six thinking hats helped further develop the ideas and give us a thought of where each idea could lead to.

An improvement for this method could be to limit the ideas to a smaller number, due to some ideas not being worth expanding on because I felt that as my mind got more challenged for the ideas, the ideas got more desperate to fill out the squares rather than think of good ideas, this method may be quick in thinking of ideas but I think it would be better if the ideas were more limited so only the best ones are expanded on and the lotus is repeated again if need be instead. 

[barksbct502]

Studio game WIP 3: Great success! My room management system works perfectly! I’m not sure what to do next, probably refine it a little better or get on to player movement and emotional states.

[abramvalenzuelabct]

CTEC500 Week 1

My exercise for Week 1 of CTEC500 was drawing irregularities off the street. Things such as gum, cracks or anything irregular in the environment.

We were timed around a minute for each stop we had to draw and had a different approach to the drawing. It was sort of like a fitness circuit with different sets and reps. We either had to draw in one line, one minute, etc. Each drawing stop was different in approach and method.

I learned to take in my surroundings in different ways and learnt how to increment my approach and method.

We ended up condensing our drawings together and to remove white space and make it into a single unit.

My drawing:

[mybctexperience]

Surprise Me! Final

The finished presentation:

Team: Caitlin Maeve Kirkwood-Woollams and Sarah Pearson Topics: Phycology, all the different uses of the seaweed are representing the other topics.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ywKa4IBiCjy9GQWRCKVeRGi1u2xU-cTUsBrX9oZYPIU/edit?usp=sharing

[muttonbct]

Square Mile Project House Walktrhough

[malsbctslam]

Cultural Probe

Our cultural probe to find where foreign students like/wanted/could afford to eat? If I recalled that correctly?? as there was a lot of confusion as to what we were doing!.

communication was flying around well trying to figure out what this cultural probe was suppose to be about and took most of our teams time. seems a difficult way to gather insight about users. ahh learning new sneaky tools... I'm sure implementing it more will allow me to understand how useful it can be.

what worked well for the cultural probe directly was getting minimal information specific to not much in a fun-ish way without making a survey. Being able to add that 'play factor' into gathering info can be much more engaging for the subjects, However the short time and complete lack of grasping the implementation of using this tool made the info we gathered minimally useful.

Tested is a stretch for the 2 min that we had testers but I can see potential scenario for children engagement and possible closed or difficult youth to gather information just from clever design.

possible failings with this method in data being bias from the design or from the input being non-truthful skewing the results or poor design missing the point and wasting time gathering data that could be completely wrong. Is there such a thing as useful incorrect data?

cultural probes being a qualitive method relies on good design and good implementation. it is easy to be critical of a method when you lack understanding but having a good grasp about the information you are needing would help when designing. we lacked understanding fully in the group but pulled off a Hail Mary at the end to smash out a rough cultural probe.

[marclombct]

Week 11: Design Challenge

The strategy that me and my team did was a university that was self-functioning in isolation. This is because in situations like a pandemic, it is near impossible to have a normal functioning in-person class due to limited class size or social distancing be separated 2 meters apart, this is especially detrimental for courses that are more hands-on. How we are going to do this is either an underwater university or just somewhere far from external cities. The university will function as a small-scale city, complete with its own mall, cinema and other entertainment. This is for the benefit of the students and staff so that they will not get bored in this quarantine.

[benmillerbct]

semester 2 week 3

for week 3 of creative technologies, we learnt about project framing and considering different ways we could go about solving a problem you may be stuck on.

an example of problem framing would be handling keyboards for phones. most people had originally considered the best solution for giving a phone the ability to write was to add a large keyboard or find some other ways to implement a full keyboard to the design. however, by simply framing the problem differently, phones no longer have direct keyboards, but instead a touch screen that opens a multi-layered keyboard on the screen.

the exercise had us taking already existing solutions, looking t it's opposite properties and then trying to use those properties to find a solution.

for my group, we were tasked with coming up with a unique solution like that of a raincoat. of the different properties we found, the primary properties we considered were that a raincoat is light, deflects water and sits around the body. looking to try to frame the problem in a different way, we considered their opposites.

the 4 different ideas we thought of were:

water-based heating coat. umbrella hat which absorbs water hydraulic exo-suit (absorbs rain for use in the system) hamster wheel. while most of these are rather nonsensical, they are unique possible ways to consider the problem. in particular, one thing I realized after considering the possibilities is that a water-based exo-suit could also be used for generating electricity, giving it possible use in powering personal devices.

overall, problem framing can be incredibly useful when other solutions are not working or helping. however, it is really only useful in considering multiple avenues of solutions. it may also leave people considering pathways that would not be realistically viable or possible. if done correctly, you may find a solution that could revolutionize a form of technology. if done incorrectly, you create a device that will act as a gimmick at best or be unusable at worst.

otherwise though, so long as you consider framing as a way to find new avenues and less a solution in itself, this way of finding solutions can be quite useful.

[jonathan-bct-ctec500]

Week 1 - Walking as a research method

In today's class coming back from break, and our first in uni class since the lock down we tried an activity where we walked around the uni and at certain intervals we stopped a drew something below us.

1. In what ways did this exercise assist in seeing things you may have not have noticed before?

The ways this exercise assisted me in seeing things I may have not noticed before were that walking around aimlessly was in ways freeing, in that not having a particular destination helped me focus on what I normally don’t notice in my surroundings.

2. How might you use or adapt this method in future for your work?  

The way I might adapt this method in the future might be just sketching ideas for a problem with no real goal, just throw ideas out there but keep a visual record.

With this exercise I learnt new ways to access my surroundings by taking notice of things I wouldn’t see otherwise, looking for particular objects or scenery helped me narrow down my perception and made me focus, in the future I may use this to pick out details in a design that I wouldn’t normally take notice of and take that and improve on it.

[hohbct]

Week 5 - Lo Fi Prototypes

Describe how this ideas could be deployed. There are no limits! Choose any materials or technologies.

Overall Lo Fi Prototyping seems useful for giving a basic idea of how an object or area is intended to function, giving an audience a basic space for them to interpret as part of a basic overall pitch before actual architecture, engineering or overall building of a smaller object takes place. Further, with a little more work could also be a cheap way to explore particular functions.

How did engaging with your ideas in three dimensions (through prototypes) help you better understand your designs?

Whilst all I had was a picture of Fort Lane, utilising a pair of bookends alongside the lo fi paper lattice I made, I managed to picture the overall product in 3D in the ideal way I imagined, further adding details with SAI to help further add to it. Overall seeing how it could potentially look made it easier to appreciate the design more.

[brenaguilabct]

School of Future - Mars Tech

Our group decided to build a University in Mars, because why not. We were hoping that by 2050 technology would be advanced enough to bring a whole civilisation to Mars.

As our methods, we decided to do Ideation / The Lotus Blossom with Space X and N.A.S.A to figure out how we could plan around certain mishaps and unfortunate events such as natural disasters that may be occurring on Mars that we know very little of, or if living there with the technology that have will be sufficient enough.

For the next method, we decided to do Lo-fi Prototyping with Zaha Hadid Architects because we want our University to be a dome like structure, and what better way to prototype that than with one of the experts of making curved designs, Zaha Hadid and her team. Unfortunately Zaha Hadid has passed, but her company and team still exists and carrying on her legacy. Look no further than the Burnham Pavillion designed by Zaha Hadid. We want to make quick prototypes of what the structures would look like and IF the dome like structure would be the best course of action when building the University.

And lastly, with our last method, as a group, we decided to use Cultural Probes with SETi Institute. We did a quick research and saw that they have been studying Mars. So we can use their knowledge and discoveries to alter the way we’re going to teach students in Mars. We also want to know people’s knowledge about what THEY know about what they’re going into so that way we can figure out strategies to alleviate certain confusions that may arise.

[nitraj-sethi]

Integrative practice formative (Week 8):

I left my blog arranged in chronological order because I felt that it best fitted my learning and showed how each week helped flow into the next week and how previous methods complimented the next weeks methods and could be combined together. 

I enjoyed working with systems thinking the most because I found that method really interesting with the butterfly effect and felt it can be implemented into my creative thinking and development really well without making major changes and instead using small changes to make a overall chain of changes for a desired idea. 

I found the user centered wallet design challenging because it required me to interview someone and I was not a very confident person when it came to having a conversation with someone but went rather well and seemed to have worked.