Introduction
This week we focused on fabricating the hardware prototypes and preparing for the upcoming playtests on Saturday, April 1 and Monday, April 4. We have also started documenting our design process and making tutorials for our activities. On Friday we had the chance to talk with members from Simcoach Games, Jack, Pavan and Bryan and our faculty consultant Mo Mahler.
Tech Updates
Whiteboard activity
The whiteboard activity is fully functional. The buttons control the color of the light and When more than 1 button is pressed, the color of the light will be a mix of the colors. The LED light in the blue button isn’t functioning properly so we’ve ordered a new one to be installed. Our faculty consultant Mo and some of our peers tried out this activity, and they really liked it. We have been exploring ways we could introduce this activity better, such as providing sample drawings that create an animated effect under the light. In the future, we want to look into different types of markers that work well with this activity.
Make a Rainbow activity
We have made a second hardware prototype for the “Make A Rainbow” activity. This one has a better animated effect after the user puts in the color. We hope that this activity now gives kids more motivation to play with and is more rewarding when they complete.
However, we see the technical constraints that could hinder us from making this activity more spectacular. Our faculty consultant, Mo, also thinks it’s still lacking in depth. We are still trying to figure out ways to make this activity stand out more.
LED Strip
We have assembled the LED strip activity and put it into its final form factor. The electronics are in a box made of laser cut plexi glass that allows kids to see the wiring and components inside. We also added a capacitive button to the backside of the box, while that still needs to be wired into the Arduino, it will serve as an on/off switch for the sound in the activity.
Shadow Puppet
Light gels have been cut to size for easier setup. On Wednesday some ETC students came by and had fun playing with the light.
Colorize software prototype archive
Caitlyn has put together an archive for all the software prototypes, including all past iterations. This is part of our design documentation. We want to allow people to see our design process and how our activities have evolved. It is currently playable on PC.
Documentation
We have started our documentation process including writing our design and iteration process, and putting together the schematics. We have also finished a draft of the list of all prototypes, their descriptions, if they were implemented or killed, and why, and a design documentation detailing the process of making hardware prototypes from software prototypes . We have also written the script for the tutorial video of 2 activities.
Meeting with Simcoach Games
Simcoach visited our project room on Friday. We demonstrated our activities. They seem interested in our activities, especially the LED strip and whiteboard. Jack suggested that we need to sand the plexiglass edges on the LED strip.
Playtest Days
We have 2 playtest days coming up: Saturday April 2 at the ETC and Monday April 4 at the WLU.
For the playtest at the ETC, we have set up all the activities. We are expecting 16 kids aged 5-14, some will be accompanied by their parents. Our main goal is to find out how kids will react to the “Make A Rainbow” activity. We also want to test the sturdiness of our hardware prototypes.
For the playtest at the WLU, we are also bringing all the activities. We are expecting 15 kids including some kids that have participated in our past playtests. We are also bringing some instructions for the activities to see whether they are good enough to support teachers to run the activities. One major new aspect to this playtest will be having teachers and our clients’ students run our activities with the kids rather than one of the Colorize team. The idea is to get closer to how our project will actually be used in the classroom and to get some feedback from the teachers on what type of documentation they would need to feel comfortable using these activities in their classroom.
Looking into Next Week
- Monday Playtest at WLU
- Finish the Arduino LED activity
- Continue Make A Rainbow hardware and design
- Work on website
- With playtest feedback start thinking about more documentation