ultraisabellaroyal-blog

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26/09/19

This is the video showing how my Arduino interacts with the graph. 

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26/09/19

Here are the photos of my Arduino for my computing assessment. 

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8/08/19- 13/08/19 

Because at on the Tuesday we would be meeting with the Rush employees and having a mini interview with them to see what things they wanted to get out of the entry space, we spent the week leading up to it creating concept.  I created mine on sims so that they could see clearly what I was trying to get across. 

Interestingly, I described the kind of space we were planning on designing before showing them. The ideas we had got bad feedback from the employees. However once I showed them the image of my concept and our ideas they changed their mind. Like we expected each employee’s ideas for the space was completely different from the last, and we found it hard to figure out what we could do to keep everyone happy. 

Here is some research done by Isaac for our designs: 

“In our design, our main focus will be the digital feature wall, and we will like to direct people’s attention to our main feature wall in Rush, and divert their attention away from the parts of the studio that we do not want them to see.

To achieve this, road design modules and certain camouflage theory were studied and adapted into our design. Vibrant, alerting colours in the form of blunt shapes (circles/ovals) surrounding an object’s placement can divert the audience’s attention to it. This often gives creates the illusion of enlarging or enhancing the desired object’s presence, hence will be useful in diverting our audience’s attention to the feature wall.

An example of this implementation, although used for a different purpose being to slow drivers down will be the use of Polka dots on the shared pathway intersection located on Shortland and Federal Street, and the loading docks in AUT university, as shown on the images.

However, this still leaves us the problem for directing the audience to walk through the hallway before reaching our interactive wall. This can be solved using road design modules that used for designing highways.

Long, straight paths make the actual distance seem shorter to the traveller. Along with certain design features such as uniformed stripes along the peripheral vision and utilising colours along the black and white scale will help us achieve this.

Imagine a narrow hallway with nothing on the sides. The only way is to travel forward or backwards. Our goal will be to subconsciously recreate this, and divert the attention of our audience forward to our feature wall. With designs implementing lines that are narrower than the actual hallway, situated on the ceiling, walls or even the floor will point the audience in a certain direction, similar to an airline’s emergency guidance lines. This design can be implemented with many variations, including overhanging light strips, patterned flooring, wall and glass art, and can even be integrated with plant walls.

(Open spaces with certain designs can direct the flow of people into certain desired directions)

A design aspects can be taken with WW1 ships, as camouflage was not only used to blend in with the background, but also to disguise their distance from the observer. With certain asymmetric line patterns, we can allow the audience to approach our digital feature wall by making the distance that they have to travel actually shorter than the actual distance.

This is also a technique that can be used to disguise the glass wall frames that are directly facing the audience, as they will see it as an ‘obstruction’ and reduces their willingness to approach. The lines will be of an asymmetrical design with thinner lines towards the middle, or guiding towards the door that leads to the feature wall, or the feature wall itself.”

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Splitting into groups

31/07/19- 07/08/19

This week meant that our group were starting to come up with concepts however the scale of the group (9 people) meant that we found it hard all agreeing on something. A problem was people committing to an idea and not budging, causing tension in the group, others having other commitments and being unable to come up with ideas. 

To solve this we went away and came up with presentations to show the rest of the group. These presentations contained our individual concepts and ideas for the space. Here were the photos I had for my presentation: 

Two different concepts of what could go in the space. 

Here is the link to the presentation I gave to the group: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1RvZ7XFgZuEdIEktz3TDhALR6KmocswrTe-4wPMTwCNY/edit?usp=sharing 

The idea was to show the presentations and create groups with others with similar ideas. Unfortunately this did not work as expected as we all had similar ideas too. In the end we simply split the group in the middle, which worked out great. The group is now Isaac, Ben, Jamie, Kavi and I.  Next Tuesday (13/08/19) we will be meeting with Rush again and so we want to have some ideas and concepts in place to get their feedback on.  An issue that has come up is that different Rush employees have different opinions on what should go in the entryway. This is something to keep in mind next week when interviewing them as they may give us contradictory answers. 

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22/07/19- 30/07/19  Some of the notes that we made from the first week of brainstorming ideas for the RUSH space. 

The bottom two pictures are where our brainstorming lead. As a group we wrote down the keywords that meant the most to us and then after tallying them up we came up with our main four that we would show to RUSH: organic, evolving, interactive and modular. But what do those words mean? 

By developing these ideas we found the vibe of RUSH that we wanted. Something that felt natural. A place that could change over time and be transferable to another building should RUSH move locations. A space that would allow clients to have mental and emotional stimulation and by doing so, remember the RUSH office and company. Should the space need to be used for a different purpose, the furniture and walls should be adaptable so that the area always has purpose.  Although there are no solid concepts in place, knowing where we area going and what end results we would like to see is a good place to be currently. 

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RUSH Stream

22/07/19 - 30/07/19

This week was about creating groups and getting the ball rolling for what ideas we had for the RUSH space ands then presenting our first ideas and concepts to the RUSH employees.  Our ideas started as An interactive diorama showing all the past/the projects most representative of Rush’s story - something like a museum exhibit. These would be housed in glass boxes, with some empty boxes with covers on, sort of like a ‘watch this space’.

Which was adapted and changed into showing past RUSH projects through objects and screens, and having a functional space that can be used by employees.  Right now we do not have a solid concept for the RUSH space as it has only been a week, however we do know that we want the feeling of the RUSH entry space to have the same vibes as the rest of the building so that it is cohesive and doesn’t feel out of place. 

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Physical Computing 16/08/19

Layout of my breadboard and Arduino. 

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Physical Computing 16/08/19

Video showing how my buttons work on my Arduino. 

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Process

Our group:  - Isabella Royal  - Ben Rogers - Isaac Young

Here is a list of my technical process throughout this assessment. 

https://ultraisabellaroyal.tumblr.com/post/184732698815/finding-groups

 https://ultraisabellaroyal.tumblr.com/post/184861985060/80419-playing-around-with-vr-and-google

 https://ultraisabellaroyal.tumblr.com/post/184862782225/90519-the-first-pictures-are-what-we-took-on

 https://ultraisabellaroyal.tumblr.com/post/184863223975/130419-progress-isaac-came-back-after-the

 https://ultraisabellaroyal.tumblr.com/post/185074858735/update-230519

 https://ultraisabellaroyal.tumblr.com/post/185538722225/270519-monday-has-come-back-around-and-isaac

https://ultraisabellaroyal.tumblr.com/post/185539668290/creating-the-office

https://ultraisabellaroyal.tumblr.com/post/185581768756/300519-here-is-a-video-of-yasmin-playtesting-our

https://ultraisabellaroyal.tumblr.com/post/185583014804/300519-here-we-have-fox-play-testing-our

https://ultraisabellaroyal.tumblr.com/post/185618049530/fitting-the-last-puzzle-pieces

https://ultraisabellaroyal.tumblr.com/post/185618284595/70619-open-studio-today-went-better-than-i

https://ultraisabellaroyal.tumblr.com/post/185618308054/this-is-bens-feedback-on-our-soundscape

https://ultraisabellaroyal.tumblr.com/post/185625813915/here-are-just-come-examples-of-the-feedback-forms

https://ultraisabellaroyal.tumblr.com/post/185625840535/posters-designed-by-ben-that-we-showed-at-the-open

https://ultraisabellaroyal.tumblr.com/post/185626794155/method-and-abstract-isaac-young

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Method and Abstract- Isaac Young

Here the method and abstract for our studio project written by Isaac Young: 

“The original plan was to create simulations of disabled people in emergency situations, and let user experience those situations with 360 videos, VR’s and audio soundscapes. The task has proved to be difficult, and with the time span that we were given, we have created a soundscape that simulates a blind person in an active shooter scenario, and have prioritised this task over the other ideas of: a deaf person with a real fire alarm blaring, and a mute person trying to call for an ambulance.

The intention of this project is to allow the user to experience rare, but realistic and distressing situations that those who are disabled may experience. An emergency situation is distressing in itself, however simulating physical disability creates more of a sense of hopelessness for our mostly physically abled users instead of letting them default to our natural survival instinct: what can I do to survive this situation. 

Our methods for the blind victim in an active shooter scenario utilised a pair of goggles that makes our user legally blind, only allowing them to see very faint shadows/lights with no real visual input through the modified goggles. A headset is then placed on the user in order to play the soundscape. The setting before the user puts on the goggles and headset is an office setting for a call centre. There is a lamp, pot plants, filing cabinets and other items that are commonly seen in an office. While we were not able to source a lamp running a white light bulb, a white light bulb was supposed to be implemented as it simulates more natural sunlight during daytime, causing our brain to naturally be more alert as it is a natural response. A fan was also used to cool down the user. After playtesting, my group found that a colder temperature by a wind/breeze is that it causes a slight discomfort, preventing the user from getting too comfortable in our simulated office settings. 

The main body of the audio soundscape was created by two parts: the footsteps and environment is simulated from Unreal Engine, and the gun sounds are taken from the game: Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege. The goal was to create a sound simulation of the shooter approaching the office, then slowly executing office workers one by one, with various ambient background noises, and then adding on sound effects of people’s screaming or cries for help. After creating the main soundtrack, the audio was exported into Audacity, and tweaked accordingly to ensure consistency in terms of volume and footstep sounds. 

Various audio clips from movies were used for ambient background noises, taken from movies, clips, soundscape sources and documentaries. The various sounds were then pieced together in audacity, tweaked with a range of audio effects and amplified accordingly to fit in with the volume levels of the main soundtrack, and then modified to play in a way to simulate the moving sources of sound effects. The sound was originally exported as a 5.1 surround sound file, however we have used a version that was stereo, since the headphones that we were able to source at the time of the presentation was stereo, and this was to eliminate any potential technical compatibility errors.”

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Posters designed by Ben that we showed at the open studio. 

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Here are just come examples of the feedback forms that were filled out. In total we had 12 sheets filled out. 

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This is Ben’s feedback on our soundscape. 

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7/06/19

Open Studio!

Today went better than I could have imagined. 

We got such amazing feedback from people. Previous to the night I had created a form for people to complete once listening to the soundscape. This whole studio day was for playtesting, and through these forms we are now able to get so much feedback from the users. 

Overall I think it was a success. We had some people take the headphones off and not complete the soundscape- but this was good! Ben our tutor made a good point- that he could not listen because now he had children and its much more stressing to him. We noticed that the only people who took the headphones off were people who had children! This was so interesting. 

By people not taking off the headphones this meant that they didn’t find it too uncomfortable. Which also showed that some people had become desensitised to the shooting sounds, which was also something we wanted to look into. 

We had one man take off the headphones and say “this is disgusting”. He was so uncomfortable through the experience and so disturbed that he was angry that we had made this soundscape. Although it was hard to hear, this feedback was also good for us to have. This man was not desensitised to the shooting sounds. He was still shocked over it. 

All feedback that we got was feedback that we could use to explain people and their sensitisation to shootings, as well as the feeling of being disabled in these emergency situations. 

The road from here is to look at the feedback forms and look at what could have been improved. 

I would like to thank Isaac and Ben for being such great team members, and on the day allowing me to leave our station to go and have a look at what everyone else had done. Y'all are the best and I’m so glad I worked in a group with you guys. 

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Fitting the last puzzle pieces

3/06/19 - 6/06/19 

The open studio is at the end of this week! Super exciting, I’m looking forward to it. 

The past couple days have been super stressful for me because of the programming assessment. I pulled an all nighter Tuesday night and handed the assessment in at 5:30 in the morning. It was not an idea situation, but I did get it done to a standard that I’m proud of. Because I was up all night I slept in most of Wednesday, until the afternoon as we had a flat inspection. Our group didn’t meet that day, as we all needed a break from uni work.  We meet up on Thursday to put the final pieces for our office- I had gotten some filing stuff from Kmart, Isaac had found some office supplies and brought in his headphones for us to use. We were debating on bringing in a lamp, etc. These things we wanted to sort out before Friday so that nothing would go wrong on the day.  Because our group didn’t meet on Wednesday, we missed an announcement that said that we had to get all of our electrical tested before Thursday midday. Although class had technically been over and the week of the open studio was unguided by the tutors, our group still stuck to the usual studio hours and so turned up to uni on Thursday at 1pm. By this time the electrical person had left, and our group now were told we had missed the chance to get our electrical tested. 

Why did we not get a notification about this? This wouldn’t make or break our experience, but we had used a lamp and a fan that required electricity, which were adding to our experience. If this was such an important health and safety thing, why were we not warned about this previously? I was a bit upset and frustrated about this, because now how could we fix this?  The electrical guy was meant to be back in first thing the next day, so Isaac nicely said he would go in at 8:30 so that he could immediately get out stuff checked. 

The guy did not show that day, so Isaac came in early for no reason. 

Charles came up to us and said that he should have made it an announcement and that he was sorry about it, which was appreciated, and they said that they would still allow our stuff to be used despite not being tested (hush hush). In the end it worked out fine but was definitely something stressful for us to deal with the day before the open studio. 

Despite all of this, I am excited as heck for tomorrow.  

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30/05/19 Here we have Fox play testing our soundscape. He gave us good feedback on having the fan in the experience. 

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30/05/19 Here is a video of Yasmin playtesting our soundscape. As you can see in the video she looks very uncomfortable, which is the response we want to see from people who listen to it.