Give Kids The World: Sweet Dreams

The End of the Semester

2007-12-14T13:31:00.002-08:00

We all can't believe the semester has finally ended! It's been a very fun and rewarding semester, and we'll be sad to go. After this semester, the team will be separating, with some of us ending up on the opposite coasts (Orlando and Los Angeles). Nevertheless, we really enjoyed working on the project, and appreciate that this opportunity was given to us. We worked hard, played hard, and learned a lot!

We also received a lot of help and feedback from many people and would like to thank:

Give Kids the World Village for the opportunity, espeically Kathy Aubruner, Jeff Staples and and the entire Give Kids the World;
Bob's Space Racers, especially Jack Mendez
All of the faculty, staff, and students at the ETC, especially Brenda Harger for being our faculty advisor
John Dessler for his flash help
Oscar Ramirez, Edmundo Ruiz, Julie Charles, and Bob Haley for the voice acting and translations
MaryCatherine Dieterle, Rebecca Lombardi, and the Carnegie Libraries project for bringing us children for testing
All of our user testers for their helpful feedback

We're going to end this blog with a poem that was given to us by the Give Kids the World village staff. They were words that really moved us, and hope that others can find encouragement within these inspirational words.

What Matters

One hundred years from now,
It will not matter
What kind of car I drove,
What kind of house I lived in,
How much money I had in my bank account,
Nor what my clothes looked like.
But the world may be a better
Because I was important
in the life of a child.

"Follow your heart... It knows the way" - Motto of the Give Kids the World: Sweet Dreams team

Final Presentations and Lessons Learned

2007-12-14T13:31:00.001-08:00

Our final presentation went well, and we're all looking forward to the break. While we're sad to go, we all learned a lot of really important lessons this semester.

Skills Learned

How to animate in Flash
Lighting Control Software and Hardware
How to outsource (construction, sound,…)
Multitasking and time management

Lessons Learned

GKTW = AWESOME
Difficult to combine disparate themes
Interactivity != Experience
You can make a great experience for an audience with limits
User testing is invaluable
How to work with your friends
... and there's always room for ice cream!

The Home Stretch

2007-12-12T02:26:00.000-08:00

We spent the last two weeks between Soft Opening and Final Presentations cleaning up the animations,

adding sound effects and language translations, finishing up the documentation, tightening up the DMX, code robustness, backup. Since final construction won't begin till may, we've also started making packages to send to Bob's and GKTW. We'll be sending over all of our hardware, software, content (i.e. sound/video files), and 150+ pages of documentation for the entire process and creation. Since GKTW won't see a physical product till at least May, in addition to all of our documentation, we decided to send them a teaser containing promotional posters, a back-story video, a trailer featuring Hermes the Owl, and some artistic elements to create give-aways and theming needed for an experience.

Because the physical construction won't take place till May, there are still a few things left to do. We as the ETC have committed to finishing this project, and below are some of the things that are left.

The ETC has committed to:

Work with Bob’s Space Racers, when they are ready
Integrate computing with mechanical pillow delivery
Integrate sensors with input devices
Install Sound System into tree
Install screens, etc into tree
Install the final Tree at GKTW
Install Lighting in space
Program Lighting for show
Make sure that final art for experience matches real pillow tag
Computing backup and redundancy
Mirror entire system
Create backup system

The GKTW Sweet Dreams Team has committed to:

Finish Documentation

Needs to be very detailed and complete for external manufacturers and future ETCers

Already +150 pages

Will take MANY drafts to convey all that the 6 of us know about the skills required to make the tree

XML Lighting Generation Software

For programming and timing the eventual lighting in the space

We have a great playback system and specification, but it’s tricky to create right now

Be prepared for construction in May+

User Testing II

2007-12-10T10:00:00.000-08:00

We did our second set of user testing this week. The goal of this user testing was to specifically test the interface including story, character, controls, user actions, and height to make sure it was appropriate for children.

We formally did in depth questioning and observation of five children (2 girls, 3 boys), ages 4 to 12. We also laid out surveys and wrote down observations after the BVW show. Over 40 children and adults went through the pillow tree experience.

We learned that:

1. Our experience is fun. Some children played through the experience over 15 times in a row, even though they weren't receiving any gift from it. They just enjoyed the actions such as pulling the vine and turning the heart.

2. Our experience is intuitive. We asked all of the children to lead us through the experience they had played through, and to explain in detail the reasoning of why they did it. All of the children, even as young as 4, knew what actions they were supposed to do, when to do it, and why they were doing it. Additionally, the children were able to find all of the interactions (i.e. buttons, the vine, the heart) on the first try. The only confusing part was when the children were supposed to put their hands on the heart-shaped button to make a wish. All of the children let go too early. We resolved this issue by shortening the length of time required to hold on, and allowing the child the option to let go whenever they wished. We also fixed the broken vibration motor and added visual and sound effects to show how long the child needed to hold on to the button.

3. The experience left kids wanting more. When asked, all of the children thought the experience was just right or too short.

We plan to implement all of these findings to make our user experience better.

Soft Opening Feedback

2007-11-30T20:00:00.000-08:00

Soft Opening went really well. We received a lot of positive feedback, and in general faculty seemed pleased with our progress.

The three concerns faculty had were:

Concern One: Hermes (the name of our owl).

Solution: We chose the name Hermes because he means winged messenger in Greek. Some of the faculty were concerned because the name Hermes is also associated with being a trickster. After much discussion within the group and with concerned faculty, as well as after doing a lot of entomology research, we decided the name was o.k. to keep.

Concern Two: Our animations need to be smoother.

Solution: During the two weeks between soft opening and final presentations, we worked closely with our resident faculty flash guru John Dessler, and reworked a lot our animations and artwork. Since reworking the animations, we have received positive feedback about the changes.

Concern Three: Show seems too long.

Solution: Faculty thought our show was too long, so we cut out a lot of “waiting”, rewrote parts of script to be more concise, and during our play-testing, we found that we left the kids wanting more (a good thing!)

Soft Opening

2007-11-29T23:23:00.000-08:00

The last two weeks have been really busy for the GKTW team. We’ve all been working very hard to get ready for Soft Opening, similar to a “preview” in the theater or a “beta release” in software. It basically means that we should have our project complete and ready to go, and the next two weeks should only be spent on testing. Tomorrow we'll be presenting all of the work we did this semester to the faculty.

Fortunately we got a lot done in the last two weeks, so we’re prepared to show off our work! We voice-recorded our show script with two actors – one in English and one in Spanish. We were also able to get our script translated into French, and plan to use it as subtitles. Additionally, we finished up all of our animations for the show, and synced up all of the music and voiceovers. We also spent some time documenting our project so that our clients, manufacturer, and future projects could understand the details and reasonings, as well as properply build the real Pillow Tree installation. While the document is still underway, it’s already 112 pages strong!

Our biggest accomplishment of the week was making the mockup of the tree. We created this prototype so that we could test our DMX as well as our interface. We’ll find out in the next few weeks what changes will need to be made – if any.

We’ll be posting pictures of our tree prototype soon, so be sure to come back and visit our blog soon!

Week Summary: Nov 12-16 and IAAPA!

2007-11-19T14:23:00.000-08:00

This week most of the team (except for Anuja) went to IAAPA, the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions.

So what did we learn at IAAPA?

We learned that we really don't have that much left to do. Jack's own words were "We understand building things, you guys leave that to us. We need 'new ideas', that's what you guys do, and that Pillow Tree is a good, new idea".

We were hoping that this was what they would say; as it was very nice to hear them say this in person, seeing as we only have 2 work weeks left. We are right on target to get everything we
have to do done.

What else does Bob's need?

What Bob's wants from us is all the documentation we can throw at them. They want structural CAD for the tree, but they will "figure out the aesthetic part" on their own. They also want us to test, for placement of all the input devices on the tree.

There are 4 main things we have to do by the end of the semester for Bob's:
1- get all the animations done
2- get the tree in a working state to test
3- test the locations/placements of all sections
4- document like mad

So how are we going to do this? (with Thanksgiving, finals, and the BVW show...)

The following are hard deadlines; as we have to stick to this schedule to get it all done. For each week, we've listed what has to be completed, and then each person has their tasks broken down. We have tried to account for thanksgiving and BVW:

***November Nov 19 - 23***
Things that have to be done this week:
- Order all components for mock up
- Get software architecture robust

Evan: BVW stuff; order stuff; documentation
Rich: Fully determine what we need to buy to make the tree mockup, and order it (so we have it by next week)
Brendan: Animations
Rob: Work on show software remotely
Karin: Animations
Anuja: Clean up all audio, documentation; work with Staque; Record French Audio

Events this week - Thanksgiving

***November 26 - 30***
Things that have to be done this week:
- English Animations
- Spanish Animations
- French Animations
- Music
- SFX
- Soft Opening
- Tree Mockup Built

Evan: BVW stuff; documentation; final budget; prepare for soft opening
Rich: Build Tree
Brendan: CAD; Build Tree
Rob: Integration, Tech Documentation; Help build Tree
Karin: Animations; prepare for soft opening
Anuja: Audio, Animations, Documentation; SFX

- All Animations Done (all languages)

Events this week - Nov 30 - Soft Opening

***December 3 - 6***

Things that have to be done this week:
- BVW
- TESTING

Evan: BVW / Final Presentation / Documentation
Rich: BVW
Brendan: TESTING / CAD
Rob: BVW / TESTING / Teach everyone how to run all the software
Karin: TESTING
Anuja: TESTING

- make final presentation
- work on documentation
- make BVW happen
- Finish all CAD
- Test Tree Mockup

Events this week - Dec 5 - BVW Show

*** December 10 - 14 ***

Things that have to be done this week:
- Pack it up
- present

Evan: Document / Presentation
Rich: TEST
Brendan: Technical Documentation
Rob: Stress Testing / Tech Documentation
Karin: Tighten up the graphics
Anuja: Documentation

- ship it
- ship documentation for review

Events this week - Dec 12 or Dec 14
- Final Presentation

Week Summary: Nov 5-9

2007-11-09T20:51:00.000-08:00

This week we:

- Finished the detail model of the tree in maya
- Got a first-pass of the music
- Recorded the Spanish Voice Over
- Determined animation timings and pace
- Finished the detailed OWL charechtor
- Started Animation
- finished the art for the owl's house
- got 7.1 sound working
- got video to play reasonably
- figured out a good codec
- made a sweet DMX application
- made a video of the 'Legend of the Pillow Tree"
- kept the blog up to date
- were awesome TAs

------------------------------

-------------------------

Brendan will:
- Finish up all the lighting passes, and document a lighting scheme
- determine if it makes any sense to get the maya model into solidworks

Anuja will:
- Work with staque to make music
- Get the sound effects all sorted out
- Record the English V/O
- Organize GKTW letters sent to the ETC
- work on animation (cleanup)

Karin will:
- work on animation (key)

Rob will:
- work on animation
- integrate animations into show
- integrate audio into show
- document codebase, so it can be modified later (adding com, adding
language changes, etc)
- automate program start and computer boot

Rich will:
- make functional demo input devices
- mockup functional tree
- work on animation

Evan will:
- figure out the plan for the last few weeks, accounting for a
possible big BVW show commitment
- work on total project documentation (inclusive of what we can't do
this semester)
- encode animations as they are done

-------------------------------------------------------

Also... Here's the IAAPA Plan

Wed - Team drives to airport.
- Fly to orlando
- get in cab, go to hotel, check in
- go to conference
- TEA Party

Thurs - Go to conference
- go to disney world

Friday - go to conference
- go to GKTW

Saturday - go home to PGH

-------------------------------------------------------

Also... Here's the plan for Thanksgiving week (Nov 19 - 23)

Rob will be gone all week
Karin will be gone all week
Evan will leave monday night

By the end of the week:
- we need to have all the animations done and encoded
- we need all the audio to be done, with the music muxed in
- The system needs to be ready for play testing
- we need to have a plan to build the tree mockup at the ETC

Hermes the Owl

2007-11-08T14:51:00.000-08:00

Here is our owl, Hermes! He will be the caretaker of the Pillow Tree. Karin created this final version of the owl that will greet the children.

Week Summary: Oct 29 - Nov 2

2007-11-02T16:02:00.000-07:00

This week we:

- Finished the Tree Model, sent off photos
- worked on Spanish version of the Script
- Play tested the Owl
- Worked on the Maya Model
- started lighting planning
- fought with Panda (sound and video)...
- acquired Staque's services for music
- started the final owl art
- started the final on screen scene
- planned the IAAPA trip
- Determined that Linux and WinXP are bad
- Storyboarded and determined scenes
- kept the blog up to date

Next Week:

Brendan will:
- Finish detail model of tree in MAYA- Monday
- Determine "Best Case" Lighting for Tree (as we designed it) - Friday
- Spec lighting hardware - Friday

Anuja Will:
- Organize GKTW letters sent to the ETC - Friday
- Work with Staque to make music - Friday
- Find sound effects - Friday
- Work with Language Departments to get script translated/approve
Oscar's translation - By Wednesday
- Further Testing?
- Get audio ready to animate against (placeholder)

Karin Will:
- Finish Owl Char - By Monday
- Start animation - Friday

Rob Will:
- Get Videos playing in Windows - by Friday
- Get 7 channel sound in Windows - by Friday
- Get DMX working in Windows - by Friday

Rich Will:
- Finish Room Art - By Monday
- Animate Owl and room details (lighting) - By Friday
- Do V/O for "Ms. Merry story" - By Wed

Evan Will:
- Make animation templates
- English V/O
- Spanish V/O
- Find Language Voice actors - ASAP
- make "Mrs. Merry" Story Video
- Integration
- Video Compression

The Tree Model Is Done

2007-10-30T17:45:00.000-07:00

The physical tree model is done. It took us a couple of weeks to get everything done. Big thanks go out to Karin & Rich for spending so much time and effort into molding the tree. A special thanks go out to Anuja, Brendan, Evan, & Rob for helping out with the leaves too. Here are some photos of the tree:

Here is the entire physical tree model.

Here are the buttons that a child will press to indicate if they're a knight, princess, or jester.

Here is the heart button kids will need to press to fill their pillows with all their wishes and dreams.

Here is a close-up of one of the branches.

Here's a close-up of the intricate vines.

Here's a close-up of the button path.

Here's a view of the tree once it's covered with the fabric leaves.

Here's a close-up shot of the fabric leaves.

Here's while the tree will look like as a child enters the canopy.

Here's a view of the tree from underneath the canopy.

Here's the tree enclosed in the entire canopy.

Owl Testing

2007-10-30T16:00:00.000-07:00

This week was the first time we got to test some of our ideas with kids. Thanks to another ETC project teams (shoutout to the Carnegie Libaries project!), we got two classrooms of second and third graders.

On Tuesday morning, the biggest thing we wanted to test was our owl character. We had 13 different owls and we had to narrow it down to one. We asked the kids to choose owls they thought were the wisest, oldest, and friendliest. Although we weren't sure what to expect, the kids' answers were a surprise! On a good note, now we have a clear direction on what features we should give our owl.

Here is a summary of our results:

1. Kids thought the two oldest owls were #5 (13 kids) and #12 (13 kids).

2. Kids thought the two wisest owls were #6 (12 kids) and #10 (8 kids).

3. Kids thought the two friendliest owls were #2 (8 kids) and #11 (9 kids), but overall, there was no overwhelming favorites for this category. Votes were disbursed fairly equally for each owl.

4. There were no large gender differences. Girls and boys pretty much had same choices for oldest and wisest.

5. Overlapping categories included #6, #10, and #4 for wisest and friendliest. Oldest did not seem to overlap.

Conclusion:
A combination of OWL #2 and OWL #6 with a little bit of OWL #12 is my vote for the owl, because they received high scores overall with an average score over all categories.

Windows vs. Linux - The Ultimate Showdown

2007-10-29T13:42:00.000-07:00

For our computer we were debating whether to use Windows or Linux as our operating system for the pillow tree. We were going to use Linux but we ran into a few problems. They are as follows:

1. We're using Panda3D, a free 3D game engine made by Carnegie Mellon. Our input devices, called phidgets, are compatible with this engine. However, the Linux version of Panda3D does not contain the code required. The Windows version ran on DLL files, and recreating the code to work for Linux would have taken some time.

2. We also have code to interface with DMX, which would control all the lighting effects. However, our code currently involves Windows API. Redoing it in Linux would have also required a lot of work.

3. Video playback just didn't work at all in Linux. The framerate was terrible and it just didn't seem that Linux could perform as necessary.

We then decided to go with Windows. We tried to use Windows XP at first, but we had driver issues. We couldn't find the right drivers for the network adapter or the sound card, and our hardware description didn't solve the problem.

We finally settled on Windows Vista. All of the code works in Vista, so our main goal now is to try to maximize the performance, as the operating system eats up quite a bit of memory.

Week Summary: Oct 22 - 26

2007-10-26T11:45:00.000-07:00

This week we:

- Made the Tree Model
- Have a working version of the script
- Got most of our hardware in
- Got part of the software working
- Made storyboards
- Kept the blog up-to-date
- Planned out art tests for kids

Next Week:

Brendan will:
- Determine if we can do our animation in MAYA - By Tues
- Determine if MAYA can export to CAD - By Tues
- Detailed-model the tree - By Fri

Anuja Will:
- Test the owl models @ Children's museum - By Tues
- Work with Staque to set up Music creation - By Friday
- Finalize Script - By Wed
- Work with Language Departments to get script translated - By Fri

Karin Will:
- Finish Details on Tree Model - By Tuesday
- Finish Owl Char - By Friday

Rob Will:
- Get 7 channel sound working - by Friday
- Get DMX working - by Friday
- Figure out a way to optimize the computer's processing power - by Friday
- Make video playback work - by Friday
- Tree Model support

Rich Will:
- Finish Room Art - By Friday
- Detailed story boards (including motions and tweens) - By Friday
- Determine what's going on with Candy Land - By Friday

Evan Will:
- Work with Tim Hearman (VO Guy) to get him into studio - By Wed
- Find Language Voice actors - By Fri
- Integration
- Video Compression
- Audio SFX
- Figure out payment schemes for VO and Music composition

Phone Call with Bob's Space Racers

2007-10-22T11:03:00.000-07:00

Today we had a phone call with Bob's Space Racers. We talked with Jack Mendes along with a couple of their engineers. Here are a few notes from the meeting:

- We cleared up a lot of our design with them. They are comfortable
with construction of the tree as we designed it, including the leafy
'cap', the stations of spindles and needles, and the tree itself. They
imagine the construction to be a combination of wood, fiberglass and
coating.

- We need to do more work on the pillow delivery system....

- They are cool with DMX and Phidget systems for the show control. For
the actual control of the delivery system, they want to use their
electromechanics, and interface with our computer via RS-232. Rob is
cool with that.

- For the 'shaking branches', they suggested something like a wooden
wind chime.

- Their schedule for production says that they can't really begin work
on this until May/June 2008.

1/2 Presentations Over

2007-10-18T11:45:00.000-07:00

Our 1/2 presentations are over! The faculty seemed to really like our presentation. Check out the stream here:

mms://wetc.tv/stream/semester3_2007/project/etc-pgh_half-semester_presentations_semester3_2007_day1.wmv

or download it here:

http://wetc.tv/download/semester3_2007/project/etc-pgh_half-semester_presentations_semester3_2007_day1.wmv

1/2 Presentations

2007-10-16T09:27:00.000-07:00

We have 1/2 presentations tomorrow! It's at 2:30 PM ET. We're going to be the 4th (and last) team going. They decided to save the best for last this time! Be sure to check it out at:

mms://broadwave.etc.cmu.edu/live

Wish us luck!

Orlando Trip #2: Meeting with GKTW and Bob's Space Racers

2007-10-11T19:30:00.000-07:00

Today we had our second meeting with GKTW. Jack Mendes from Bob's Space Racers was on hand as well. We presented our new ideas for the Pillow Tree and Rusty's Machine, as well as possibilities on how to combine the two.

In the end we decided to go with the Pillow Tree. A majority of the people liked the feel to it, as well as the story. We did get a lot of feedback though, including making sure it was interactive. We also learned that we can't really use cloth in the creation of the tree, as it can get tattered or dirty really easily, as well as fading. We want to make sure that what we give to GKTW is as good 10 years from now as when we initially hand it off.

Unfortunately it was a short trip this time, but we still had enough time for ice cream! Kathy always makes sure of that! We're back in Pittsburgh for a while now so we can focus on our project without travel fears. It was quite a long week, and we're all tired out. We're a little sick as well. Hopefully we can recover this weekend!

Orlando Trip #2: TEA / SATE, Day 2

2007-10-10T22:34:00.000-07:00

Today was the second part of the conference, which had the technology and experience parts of the conference. The technology portion was very interesting. One person talked about a lot of projects he was working on involving his shadow recognition system, which is similar to the PlayMotion system we use here at the ETC in our Building Virtual Worlds class. He's also worked with the ETC before on a fountain in Atlantic City. There was also someone from Thinkwell who talked about a lot of new and interesting technologies he found through viral videos and other places on the web. Finally there was someone from Electronic Arts who talked about their development phases for video games.

The afternoon session this time was about experience. Yves Pepin was the focus of this part, and he showed off a lot of his work, including his production of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. It was interesting to see all of the different experiences he had created.

The day concluded with a trip to Give Kids the World Village. 14 people from the conference came over to the village and we gave them a quick tour. We showed off all the past ETC projects that we had done for GKTW. We also showed them the pillow machine and talked about how we're redesigning it this semester. They all were very interested in what we were doing and they said that they had a great time. I'm glad so many people came out and visited, because GKTW is an amazing place.

In general, the SATE conference was a nice start in trying to get a basis and a general understanding of what everyone in the industry is doing, and why they perform their jobs in certain ways. Hopefully next year's conference will be even better!

We stayed at GKTW for Village Idol, and the children that performed were amazing! They're all so adorable and doing their best, and we are inspired by their effort. We hope tomorrow goes well.

And what day would be complete without some mini golf?

Orlando Trip #2: TEA / SATE, Day 1

2007-10-09T22:34:00.000-07:00

Today was the first day of the SATE conference. SATE stands for Story, Architecture, Technology, and Experience. This is its first year, and it is run by the Themed Entertainment Association. It is a conference that is designed to bring together leaders in the themed entertainment industry and try to get a better understanding of all the different parts required in order to make a good experience.

The conference was split up into two days. The first day contained the story and architecture sections. For the story part they brought in Bill Lepp, a "professional" storyteller who told us some tall tales. His stories were hilarious and they were a great way of showing how to keep people entertained in one of the oldest forms imaginable: oral tradition.

We then had different speakers talk about different projects they were working on and how they tried to create a story in order to market it to consumers. This included someone who had created stories to market for events such as the Olympics and the Pan American Games, and someone who tries to create stories for Coca-Cola. It was a nice way of allowing different people in the industry to explain some of the stories they had created and why they did it in that fashion.

The afternoon portion focused on architecture. In this section leaders in architecture talked about different projects they were working on or had created in the past, and why they had chosen a certain layout. One of the speakers was a former Imagineer and showed some of the past creations he had made for the Disney parks. The day ended with a charette in which we had to create a ride based on one of the stories Bill Lepp had told us. There were certain constraints on throughput and budget, and so it was interesting to see what ideas different people had.

There was also a mixer tonight in which we were able to relax and talk with people from different areas of the industry. It was a nice way to settle down and chat with leaders from vastly different fields. They all seemed interested in our program and what we were doing. We all had a great time and we met a lot of nice people.

On a side note, a lot of us now have colds. I'm guessing that the cruise made a lot of us sick. Hopefully we'll get better soon. One day down, one to go!

Orlando Trip #2: Repairs

2007-10-08T17:04:00.000-07:00

Today Brendan, Rich, and Evan flew down early to Orlando to make repairs on the Purple Kiosk / Haptipotomus / Hipo and the Big Surprise. These repairs have been a long time in waiting. It seems odd that a group of students should be working on a support role for past projects, but frankly, we wanted to do it. GKTW can use all the help it can get, and when it comes to technical maintenance, they are in dire straights indeed. Also, the ETC offers no repair plan or anything like that on our work (again, we are students), but for a client like GKTW, we want to keep everything running.

So on to the day. After an uneventful flight and a quick stop at a Waffle House, we got to work. We simultaneously worked on the Hippo and the theater effects. It turned out that the Hippo's power supply was indeed fried. We swapped it out with the new one Electric Owl gave us, along with a new hard drive and DVD drive. The system booted and worked on the first try! With the live Linux distribution it took a while to boot, but once the system was up, it was astoundingly stable. There was one problem though, the X axis on the touch screen was swapped, so hitting the top left corner of the screen registered a hit on the top left. Luckily, it was a simple 2 variable switch in the code that Phil from Electric Owl was able to identify. We made the switch locally, and Phil was able to get a new disk to the rest of our team who was leaving Pittsburgh later that night. With that and some touch up paint, the Hippo was up and running!

Now for the Big Surprise. The first thing that we learned is that DOCUMENTATION IS IMPORTANT! It turns out that there was no documentation of what device/light corresponded to what DMX channel in the theater. We spent half of our time troubleshooting each hardware device, and the rest of the time trying to figure our what DMX channel each dimmer should be set to, and then what channel each device was. It was a lot of running the show, testing, plugging it in somewhere else, and trying again. We brought a label maker with us, so hopefully it will be easier to set up again.

What happened to the Theater was two fold. First, at some point over the summer, Disney was nice enough to donate and install a whole suite of new lights. The problem was to do that, they had to take the whole effect system down, and then re-assemble it. Needless to say, they didn't put it back together correctly again. The second problem was the electrical system in the theater. A lot of the outlets that were in use had been moved to a secondary DMX control system, and were not 'on' like they were before, so many of the effects were not getting power when they should have been.

We got to play on Scissor lifts, and got the whole system up and running after about 5 hours. A bonus was that once the system was working again, we learned that there was an audience interaction bubble-bouncing game that we didn't even know existed! Sweet.

The rest of out team gets in around midnight, and tomorrow we are off to SATE!

Cruise!

2007-10-07T09:04:00.000-07:00

This weekend the ETC sent us on a cruise. Why? Well, for academic purposes, of course!!! A cruise is a great way of finding out different ways that technology is utilized on a cruise ship for entertainment purposes. And we get to be the recipients of all that technology and entertainment!

Now that rationalizing the cruise is out of the way, let me tell you how it went. We went with everybody else from our class who isn't on co-op, and we left at 5 AM in order to get to New York City and get on the boat. We all pretty much slept there on the way there so we'd be ready to party when we got on the boat. When we got on the boat, we hung out a lot. We watched the boat set sail from NYC and got to see some of the sights before setting off into the ocean. We also hung out at the casino for a little while. Rob won $25, and Evan won some cash and casino dice keychains!

And what night would be complete without karaoke? There's nothing better than getting up in front of an audience and singing to your heart's content. Especially when there's 30 of you.

The next day we arrived back at port and then we got to spend part of the day in New York City. We got to see the sites, especially the most important site of all: the Nintendo World Store! Yes, we're all nerds, can't you tell?

We reboarded the bus and then headed back home. We got back around 11 PM, and we were all exhausted. We had spent more time on a boat and on a bus than on land over the past two days, and it had shown. We're glad to be back but we don't even get any time to rest! We get back on a plane tomorrow! When will this whirlwind end?

GKTW Repairs

2007-10-04T09:03:00.000-07:00

We've heard back from GKTW on what exactly needs to be fixed. Apparently the Star Fairy has been fixed, so that's one less thing for us to worry about.

We've contacted Electric Owl Studios about the problems with the Project ER kiosk. They think it's a power supply issue so they've giving us a new one to take down. We're also going to touch up the paint since it got scratched in a few places.

The Big Surprise still needs to have its mist effects fixed, as well as a couple of other small fixes.

Rich, Brendan, & Evan are leaving Monday morning to go down and tackle these issues. We hope that they'll be able to fix the problems! Anuja, Karin, & Rob will follow Monday night in order to prepare for the SATE conference.

It's going to be really busy next week, but we're all ready to take on the challenge!

Story Time

2007-10-02T14:08:00.000-07:00

We wanted to create a back story our concepts. The current pillow machine seemed so out of place, that we felt that having a cohesive story would really help with the design process:

Concept: Pillow Tree V2

2007-10-01T14:24:00.000-07:00

Theme: The magic of organic creation

User Experience

You awake in your villa in the Give Kids the World Village, excited to start another fun-filled day. You walk downstairs to the living room, and on the table you see a scroll, tied with an ornate ribbon. Curious, you examine what has to be another gift from the gift fairy.

The scroll reads “Hear Ye! Hear ye! Be it hereby known to all in this humble yet noble village that the esteemed holder of this valuable parchment has a pure heart and a steady mind able to conjure a pillow from the pillow tree. Present this patch to Simon in the castle of miracles.” Attached is a fabric GKTW patch.

You make your way into the castle of miracles. Rusty greets you at the door; pass through the main hall, and round the corner into the garden. You see a wishing well in the center, Old Elmer to the left, and what appears to be a willow tree made out of thread to your right. There is a cobblestone path made of buttons leading from the wishing well to the willow. You follow the path over. There is a wooden sign outside the tree that reads “Pillow Tree.” You are in the right place!

Around the tree are seats made out of spindles of thread. Families are sitting down and watching a short animated film that has appeared out clouds in one of the castle’s windows. The film tells the story of the pillow tree’s creation.

The branches of the pillow tree are parted at the end of the path, making a small nook under the leaves. You walk under the leaves, and all of a sudden a light breeze begins to rustle the leaves, as they light up and shimmer with your presence. Now that you are close to the tree, you can tell that it is made up interwoven strands of thread. The leaves are patches of fabric, and there are buttons sewn on to the tree in random places. There are buds of pincushions growing out of the tree.

The trunk of the tree has a window built into it, and off to the side is a mailbox that reads “Simon the owl”. The leaves near his mailbox seem to shimmer, indicating that you can use it. You remember that your scroll told you to give the GKTW patch to Simon, and you put it into his mailbox. You close the lid, and the leaves around the mailbox start to glow, and looking into the window, you see a light turn on. You must have woken up Simon, and you hear him stumbling around in his house, asking where his glasses are. He walks up to the window, and says “Why hello there! I’m Simon, and I’m the caretaker of the pillow tree. I’ve sent out those patches out all over the world to boys and girls who have the heart and mind to help grow pillows on the tree here. The pillows from this tree are magic. They have the power to grant those that fall asleep on them sweet dreams. I can’t seem to find my glasses… you are of noble decent, so are you a knight, a princes, or a jester? Look below my window and press the patch with your symbol. As Simon says this, 3 cloth patches on the trunk of the tree light up, with a helm for the knights, tiara for the princesses, and a jester’s cap. Simon says, “While you make your choice, I am going to find my glasses”, as he wonders away from the window.

Flattered that Simon thinks so highly of you, you sit and ponder what to do for a moment. Being a boy, you push in the knight symbol. Simon comes back to his window. “Ahh! Of course you are a knight” Simon says. “Ahh yes, now I can see you. You look like a very brave knight.”

“Look around you, Simon says. “This tree has the potential to grow pillows, but it needs the help of a brave knight like you. Unlike a normal tree, that needs light and water to grow, this tree grows off of hope and happy thoughts. Once it gets enough happy thoughts, a pillow grows on the tallest branch, capturing all those happy memories. Can you help the tree grow a pillow?”

“Sure!” you exclaim, happy to be a part of this magic.

“Great!”, says Simon. “The first thing you have to do is get your happy thoughts into the tree. Do you see that large, heart shaped button next to my window? Grab on to it, and think of the people that you love. Love is the best way to fill up the pillow.”

You grab on to the button, and it immediately begins to glow. You think of your family and friends, and as you do, the button begins to vibrate and get warm. The color of the button starts to change, from a dull brown to a bright red. The leaves around the button get brighter and brighter, and you hear the wind blowing faster and faster. Woosh!

“You have done it!” Exclaims Simon. “You have added so much love to the tree that I think you have created a whole new pillow! Let me go and check”. With a flourish, Simon walks to the back of his house, and flies out his door, and up into the tallest branches of the tree, with the tag you gave him in his beak. It happens so fast that you can’t see him, but you hear the leaves rustling and shaking as he gets towards the top.

“Marvelous!” Simon says. “This is one lovely pillow. I am going to sew on the patch I sent you so you can always remember how you made the pillow.” Simon pauses for a moment and then continues. “If you shake that vine to your left, I’ll bet you can get it to fall down to you”

You grab a vine made out of twine to your side, and shake it a few times. A magical sound happens, and your pillow falls out of the branches into a thimble bucket by your side. Simon thanks you for adding more magic to the world as he flies back into his house. He says that his work is done, and turns off his light and goes back to sleep.

You leave the tree with your brand new pillow.

Alternative Owl Names

Cornelius
Hooty McOwl
Henry
Don
Jasper
Abe
Norm
Simon
Edmundo
Siegfried
Rupert

The Story of the Garden

Late one night, when all of the other residents of the Village were asleep, Mrs. Mary was very busy with her sewing basket.

“There are so many special friends at the Village,” said Mrs. Mary, “and each one deserves a special pillow of their own.” But with every pillow she sewed, pressed, and fluffed, she grew more and more tired. She tried to stay awake, but her bunny eyelids kept fluttering. “I have to finish,” she yawned, “everyone deserves a soft pillow to rest his or her head on”. But try as she might, she simply couldn’t stay awake. Her eyelids grew heavier and heavier, until she finally set down her basket, fell asleep.

That night, she dreamt that her sewing basket began to grow. Her yarn and thread began to sprout leaves and flowers made of fabric.

Mrs. Mary awoke the next morning, and exclaimed “What a wonderful dream!” She turned around to pick up her basket and finish the pillows, and marveled at what she saw. Where her sewing basked had been stood a marvelous tree made of yarn and thread. The leaves were fabric, and sprouting like apples were fresh and fluffy pillows.

“Where did this come from,” asked Mrs. Marry. She found no one around, only a note reading, “With Love, Hope, and Kindness in every seam; we hope this tree’s harvest will bring you sweet dreams.”

Mrs. Mary didn’t know who had made her dream come true, but she knew it was a gift she would share with the whole village. She would share the gift of sweet dreams.

Location Treatment

The Pillow Tree will be located in the corner of the Castle of Miracles where the current Pillow Machine is located. The tree and its canopy will take up the majority of the space. The trail of buttons will be removable foam pieces attached to the floor. The spindle seats and other items will be removable furniture pieces. The tree will have a faux wall created along side of it that will section off a storage area for the mechanics, computing, and pillow storage.

The tree itself can be made of any material (wood or metal suggested). This will be covered in a mesh of heavy netting to support the aesthetic final cloth and fabric layers. This layer will act much like a shower curtain over a frame, and will be removable for cleaning, and replaceable for various seasons/events.

The owl’s house is a screen set into the tree. His mailbox is small mechanical device, akin to a dollar bill reader in a candy machine. Behind the reader is an optical sensor to detect the cloth patch. This triggers the owl show to start.

The gender buttons on the tree are standard spring, cloth-covered buttons. The large heart button will be custom made to house a shaker and a heater. It will rest on a pneumatic base that can be depressed into the tree’s body.

The leaves in the tree will be coated in fiber optics to make the shimmering effect. There will be ambient lighting in the tree’s nook whose brightness and color can be changed. There will be a number of speakers, two centered behind the owl’s screen, and a few more leading up the tree to create his motion. There will also be shakers in branches.

The pillow machine’s operation is based on a dual corkscrew design going up the trunk of the tree, one for each gender. Pulling on the vine triggers the release of the pillow.

The area around the pillow tree can be themed accordingly. An animation depicting the tree’s story can be made to play on a faux window display in the castle, in the clouds.

The estimated cost to create this treatment can be broken up as followed:

Estimated cost of computer with video/5.1 audio card and monitor, graphics card, controls entire show ($700)
Estimated cost of 5.1 audio speakers for monitor, as well as hidden in branches above ($100)
Estimated cost of fiber optics around tree ($200)
Estimated cost of lighting (~$2.5K)
Estimated cost of voltage (capacitive/resistant) sensor ($20)/shaker ($100)/heater (induction coil) (4 at $15) (DMX) for heart button ($400 for DMX)
Estimated cost of back-lit lights for buttons (EL wire) ($15), DC power ($100), can switch with DMX ($400 for DMX)
Estimated cost of linear actuators in branches (4 at $60 each) + ($400 for DMX)
Estimated cost of light sensor for reading tags ($10)
Estimated cost of 3 touch sensors for buttons (knight/princess/jester) ($15 each)
Estimated cost of motion sensor for vine ($45)
Estimated cost of phidget I/O board ($80)
Estimated cost of conveyer belts and motors (~$1K) + ($400 for DMX)
Estimated cost of 6 dimmer packs (~$150 each)

Estimated cost of construction materials (~$10K)

Total Estimate: $17,715

Game Design

The game play for the Pillow Tree is largely experiential. We feel that given the unique audience and theme of GKTW, this will work as well as a more action-driven game.

Once the tag is inserted into the mailbox, there are no points at which a player can loose the game. Every step that requires interaction will time out after a certain time, and complete itself, advancing the story. The only interactions required of the player are choosing a gender, holding onto an object, and pulling a rope, all of which are quite simple.

The experience relies on an immersive sensory experience to convey the theme and emotion rather than constructive action.

Concept: Rusty's Machine V2

2007-10-01T14:20:00.000-07:00

- Themes: Dichotomy of hard and soft; mechanics of dreams

User Experience

As you travel through the Castle of Miracles, every now and then you hear a loud clanging sound. It’s not annoying, and the sound is almost melodic in a way, like a xylophone made out of garbage cans. Curious, you try to find its source.

Rounding a corner, you find yourself at the castle forge. There is a colorful mess of wood, metal, and rope, and it looks as if Rusty has been hard at work in creating tiaras and necklaces for the princesses, and suits of armor for the knights of the castle. In the center of it all, there is an enormous machine that looks like its right out of Leonardo DaVinci’s Notebook. The machine looks like half of it is a big wooden loom, and the other half of it belongs in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate factory.

Looking to your left, you see a sign that Rusty has made. Rusty explains that he has been trying to build a machine that makes pillows! Rusty also apologizes for all the noise that he’s making, but explains that as a man who spends his days in hard metal, he desperately longs to create soft, comforting things. He’s decided to make pillows, and can use your help. He’s left helpful notes around the machine to let you know what to do at each station.

Intrigued you, walk up the machine, and are greeted with the “Happiness Collector 5000”. It looks like a crystal heart connected to a large series vacuum tubes and lights. Rusty has left you a note reading, “All pillows need a little bit of happiness to make sure your dreams stay happy too”. The “Happiness Collector 5000” also has instructions printed on it that say, “Just grab hold and think of something happy and fun. We’ll do the rest”. You grab hold of the heart. It slowly begins to glow, vibrate and warm up. The tubes connected to it begin to light up and bubble. The liquid inside them changes color too! After a few seconds a bell goes off. You have collected enough happiness.

The now filled liquids empty into a second transport tube. You follow the flow of the happiness to a Flintstone-like conveyer belt you can see through a window in the machine. You see something inside, and hurry over to it. It’s an un-inflated bag attached to a bellow. The sign over the window says that this station is to convert the happiness into pillow fluff. There is a wheel of commands, much like you would find on the bridge of a ship. The arrow on it turns to point to “push”. Looking at the inputs in front of you, you spy a large accordion bellows. As you push in on the bellows, you see the pillow filling up with the happiness you collected. It looks like a cotton candy machine in motion. Now, the ship’s wheel says, “spin”. As you spin the comically large wheel, you see the pillow inflate even further as a hose connects to it, adding in the extra softness.

You now have the basics of a pillow in front of you. The machine asks you to put your tag in the tag into a slot. You go to put in your tag when the machine automatically sucks it up! In the window you can see an arm grab your tag, and place it on top of the pillow. All of a sudden, the pillow begins to glow, and in a flash of light, the tag disappears, but the pillow stays slightly glowing.

The last step is to choose the type of pillow that you will receive. Below the window are three giant buttons that say ‘knight’ ‘princess’ and ‘jester’.

The final commands appear on the wheel. Pull has you pulling a chain; spin has you spin as many knobs as you can; and slide has you adjusting all the levels. As you do this, pipes full of different color start spraying your pillow. They make such a mess that the window of the furnace gets covers up in paint. Eventually the chaos stops, and the window opens up, some steam seeps out, and inside is your pillow!

The chaos stops, and a small wiper cleans away the color, and inside you see your pillow. It is now nicely decorated! It slides out of frame, to a big metal door. You run over to it, and open it up. You now have a pillow. Thanks Rusty!

Location Treatment

Rusty’s Machine is comprised of 2 major components; the “power plant” section, the “Conveyor Belt” section. All of these components of the machine are free standing.

The architecture of the system is based off of 1 computer. This computer acts as system control and manages communication, and the exhibit’s audio and lighting via DMX. The computer handles the input and feedback of the Happiness Intake and all the input devices via a Phidget board. The computer also runs the screen/window on the conveyor belt section of the exhibit.

The window is actually a large monitor / flat TV that is mounted to the wall, and framed to look like a window. It is connected to a computer housed in the base of the machine. This monitor is built into a hinged window system that will open up, to reveal the tangible pillow behind it. The on-screen pillow and environment will be modeled to look exactly like that inside the machine.

The Happiness Intake is a conductive metal surface that is themed. It simply tells the main computer whether or not it is being touched. While it is touched, the computer ramps up lights in and around the input device, along with audio effects, shakers, and heat. The bubble tubes are enclosed containers with air jets inside of them that are activated by the computer.

The Tag Suction component is built just like the Clown Suction outside the Ginger Bread House. There will be a basket at the bottom of the machine to hold the tags for easy retrieval.

The conveyor belt section is a “window”, which is a monitor. The graphics on this monitor are activated by the main system. Each input device operates on a phidget connected to the final computer. The final station, with the multiple inputs, is simply keyed lighting by the final computer. When the final hatch opens up, two water misters create a smoke simulation.

The main computer manages the final exit of a tangible pillow and its retrieval.

The estimated cost to create this treatment can be broken up as followed:

Estimated cost of computer with video/5.1 audio card and monitor, controls entire show ($700)
Estimated cost of 5.1 audio speakers for monitor, as well as hidden in branches above ($100)
Estimated cost of fiber optics ($200)
Estimated cost of lighting (~$2.5K)
Estimated cost of voltage (capacitive/resistant) sensor ($20)/shaker ($100)/heater (induction coil) (4 at $15) (DMX) for heart button ($400)
Estimated cost of back-lit lights for buttons (EL wire) ($15), DC power ($100), can switch with DMX ($400)
Estimated cost of 3 touch sensors for buttons (knight/princess/jester) ($15 each)
Estimated cost of crazy input devices (~$200)
Estimated cost of circuit switch ($10) & voltage sensor for bellows (~$40)
Estimated cost of phidget I/O board ($100)
Estimated cost of water mister (~$25)
Estimated cost of DMX water valve (~$30) + ($400)
Estimated cost of electric motor (DMX) (~$100) + ($400)
Estimated cost of 6 dimmer packs (~$150 each)
Estimated cost of physical input devices ($500)
Estimated cost of construction materials (~$10K)

Total Estimate: 17,345

Game Design

The goal of Rusty’s machine is present the guests with a fun, yet simple and always winnable game experience. The aim is for everyone to win a pillow while having fun, not necessarily to have a reward-through-challenge experience.

A key function for all of these activities is that they all must complete themselves on their own, after a time delay, if no interaction happens. This will account for worst-case guests that cannot play the games, but will value the experience.

First and foremost, the entire machine must be appealing, and draw guests to it. Its large, whimsical construction will be a focal point of the room. This visual draw, coupled with the “metallic xylophone” sounds that it makes should be enough impetus to draw guests to it.

The second consideration is flow. The experience is comprised of discrete action stations (each taking no longer than 30 seconds to complete). It is important for the entire experience to exude a sense of flow from one end of the other to encourage guests to quickly traverse the experience. Between each station, there will be a thematic flow element such as internal lights or music that leads them on. For example, from the Happiness Intake to the conveyor belt, will be piping in which colored liquid will flow from the user to the next station.

The first interaction is simply a ‘touch the object’ station. When that object is touched for a length of time (5 seconds or so), the guest is presented with a series of visual and audio feedback cues, both in the object, and the environment.

The next series of interactions are very tactile. The user has to use their hands to move various objects to simulate filling the pillow. They will push on the handle of the bellows, turn the handle of the wheel, and pull on various levers made of ropes or ropes. There is also a hole that suctions in objects; in this instance, the tag the child receives when arriving at the village.

Once this is done, they are presented with graphical feedback of their pillow being made. The child will watch their pillow being converted from a white pillow to a colorful pillow, and then they will open up a hatch that will reveal the pillow inside of a box.

Brainstorm V2.0

2007-10-01T11:45:00.000-07:00

We brainstormed this morning and refined our Pillow Machine and Rusty's Machine concepts. We're still struggling on finding a good way to combine the two, but we're going to try our hardest! We'll list our two new concepts later on today.

Team Dinner with Rich's Family

2007-09-30T19:42:00.000-07:00

Today Rich invited the team over to his parents' house in Moon Township. We were still a bit exhausted from our trip to Florida so we were more than happy to have a home cooked meal.

Rich's parents are really nice and so thoughtful. They cooked us hot dogs and hamburgers and even made sure to have plenty of vegetarian stuff for Karin & Anuja. Everything was delicious, and dessert was incredible. We had ice cream with a sauce that had strawberries, peaches, and other fruits mixed in. Rich's mom is an excellent chef and we must know the recipes. His dad is great at the grill too. Their dog was so adorable too!

We really thank Mr. & Mrs. Marmura for having us over. We enjoyed it so much and hope to see them again soon!

Disney World!

2007-09-29T23:13:00.000-07:00

Today we had the chance to go to Disney World. Tracy, Rich & Rob's friend from Walt Disney Imagineering over the summer, was able to get the team into the Magic Kingdom for free. Brendan & Anuja had never gone so it was a great opportunity to finally get them introduced to the wonders of Disney in Florida. We went on just about every major attraction (expect Splash Mountain because we didn't want to be soaking wet on our way back home). We had tons of fun!

And as a side story, as we were walking back to our rental car that day, we couldn't tell which one was ours. We pressed the unlock button a few times and then saw a minivan's lights flash so we went over and got it. However, we soon realized this didn't exactly look like our car, and we saw a family staring at us. We quickly hopped out and apologized! I swear we're not car thiefs! Honest!

We're all back in Pittsburgh now and ready to relax. Well, at least for a week, anyway. We're all over the place nowadays!

GKTW Visit!

2007-09-28T23:08:00.000-07:00

Today we went to Give Kids the World Village. We were given a tour by Kathy Aubruner, who is my main contact person for GKTW. We had breakfast and then were given a tour of the village.

We were all amazed at all the things they have there. It has its own miniature golf course with dinosaurs that spit water at you, it has its own train set with different areas you can light up, it has a clown that eats paper, an all-you-can-eat ice cream parlor, and much more!

We were shown some of the old ETC projects for GKTW as well. We saw The Big Surprise, a 4d animated movie created by ETC students that is shown in their movie theater. Some of the effects weren't working, and Evan & Brendan fixed a couple of them while we were there. Hopefully we can fix the rest of them as well.

We also went to the Castle of Miracles. Here they have an Animateering kiosk (similar to the one at the Children's Museum in Pittsburgh, it lets kids puppet 3D models), as well as a Project ER kiosk (which has children paint and then animate pictures, among other activites), and the Star Fairy project, which takes wish child's stars and helps store their pictures and location of their star on the ceiling electronically. The Project ER kiosk unfortunately was not operating, and the Star Fairy kiosk seemed to have some issues with registering the stars. Hopefully we can help fix these bugs.

We also finally got to see the current pillow machine in person. We found it to be exactly as it was explained to us: big, bright, loud, and scary. It doesn't even make much sense. How does doing the chicken dance with Elmo help make your pillow? We're hoping to make a much better job so this machine can have a nice retirement.

We then presented our five concepts to the representatives of GKTW. They seemed to like all of them, but when pressed, they were split between our Pillow Tree and Rusty's Machine concepts. They seemed to like the aesthetics of the tree and a lot of the interactions for Rusty's Machine. We're going to go back and refine these ideas, as well as try to find a way to combine the two.

We also learned that each pillow is now going to have a GKTW tag sewn onto them in a random spot, and that the child will deposit this tag at the beginning of the experience. We need to now incorporate this into our plans. It's a really novel concept and makes the child believe more that he or she created the pillow.

We hung out at Downtown Disney at night. We had a team dinner at the House of Blues. It was a nice way of relaxing after visiting GKTW and a way of talking to each other about our plan.

In general, we had a great time visiting GKTW. At the same time, we also know that now we have to do a great job. All the people down there are so nice and so willing to take time out of their schedule to help us and to help the children. Kathy is so much like a mom to us, except she keeps wanting us to eat ice cream. We don't want to let anyone down with this project.

On another note, we're actually going to be down in Florida again in under two weeks. We'll be representing the ETC at the SATE Conference, which was created by the Themed Entertainment Association. SATE stands for Story, Architecture, Technology, and Experience. This conference concludes with a trip to GKTW, which the ETC is sponsoring and we're going to help guide. We're also going to be going on a cruise the weekend before (which the ETC is also sponsoring), so this month is going to be pretty hectic!

About to go to Florida and meet GKTW

2007-09-26T21:01:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow we're heading down to Orlando to meet with Give Kids the World. We've printed out all of our concept art and our treatments, and hopefully they'll give us some good feedback. We're going to put it on poster boards when we get down there. We're pretty excited, but pretty nervous too. We also might be going to Walt Disney World too! Brendan & Anuja have never been there, so hopefully they'll get an opportunity to experience it. Oh well, time to go! Wish us luck!

Also, Anuja's back from Japan! We're a family again!

1/4 Presentations and Walkarounds

2007-09-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

We have our 1/4 presentations and walkarounds today. We think it went off pretty well. The faculty and students seemed to understand what we were doing and provided some very good feedback. Something mentioned that we found very important was remembering to concentrate on what this experience means to the child. The pillow means a lot to them and thus the experience needs to be focused on making sure that they believe that they made the pillows themselves.

We wish to thank all of those who gave us feedback and we hope that you continue to do so! We really appreciate it!

For those who couldn't catch the presentation, you can watch the stream at:

http://tinyurl.com/yuv29l

Or, you can download it at:

http://tinyurl.com/2xn89k

Thank you once again and we hope to keep up the good work!

Randy Pausch: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

2007-09-18T20:59:00.000-07:00

Today we attended a lecture by Randy Pausch entitled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams". Randy was one of the co-creators of the Entertainment Technology Center. Unfortunately, he has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and only has a few months left to live. This was part of Carnegie Mellon's "last lecture" series, in which a professor is given one last lecture to reflect back on their experiences.

Randy has done a lot in his lifetime. He talked about all of his lifelong dreams and he achieved quite a few of them. He got to go up in the air with NASA, he was an Imagineer with Disney, and he established the ETC with Don Marinelli, among many other things. He has done so many great things with the short time that he has had.

He brought up a very valuable lesson too:

"It’s not about how to achieve your dreams. It’s about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you."

Unfortunately none of us were taught by Randy while he was at the ETC, but he has inspired us in so many ways. We are grateful for all the work that he has done for the ETC (and for the world in general), and we will miss him.

1/4 Presentations Coming Soon

2007-09-17T08:58:00.000-07:00

We have our 1/4 presentation on Wednesday at 2:30 PM ET. We'll be the 4th group going. Be sure to check it out! The link is at:

mms://broadwave.etc.cmu.edu/live

Anuja is going to miss our presentation because she is going to the Tokyo Game Show in Japan. We hope she has a great time there and we hope she gets back safe and sound!

PGH Children's Museum

2007-09-14T18:43:00.000-07:00

Today we took a field trip to the Children's Museum in Pittsburgh. We thought that it would be a good idea to get a feel of what current installations exist that cater to children and how they are designed. It was also a great way of finding out how children react to these exhibits so we know how we should design ours.

There were a lot of neat exhibits there, including a whole area dedicated to Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, which was filmed right here in Pittsburgh. They had all the memorable parts from the show including all of his puppets, the trolley, even an area where you could try on his sweaters and shoes!

They also had a display with a weird sort of xylophone. To use it, you place wooden balls on different colored dots. A different color represented a different note, and each row represented a different time. So you could place all of these balls down and then turn a crank and create your own song. It was a nice little interaction that kids had fun with (and we did too!).

They had many other interactive displays too, including pepper's ghost effects, magnetic spinning fields, balancing letters on your shadow, connecting tubes to make water flow through, crazy contraptions that involve pulling a ball up on a pulley system and then watching ti go down different tubes, creating your own paper out of goo, and many more exhibits that are too many to list! They also had an Animateering kiosk that was created by one of the past ETC groups.

In general we had a blast. We're all children at heart, and it was amazing to go and see what kind of fun you can have by just having simple displays that can stimulate your mind. It's also important to note that some of these exhibits did not require a lot of interactivity, and sometimes just doing something simple and seeing its effect can go a long way. For example, balancing words on your shadow is not hard, but it's fun to see the different things that you can do with it.

In the same respect, we also know that we always need to look at this from a child's perspective. For example, they had artwork at a child's height so that they can appreciate it. It's important to know these subtle differences and take them into account for our project.

Concept: Pillow Tree

2007-09-07T14:03:00.000-07:00

Theme: A Seuss-style fantasyland

User Experience

In the distance, you see an enormous tree in the corner, surrounded by a beautiful flower garden. There seems to be an aura of happiness around the tree, and the garden is full of colorful flowers, lush foliage, and full of perpetual sunlight. The tree looks different than any tree you have ever seen. There are strange colorful shapes hanging from the branches and there seems to be a magical glow around the tree. As you walk closer, you start to hear music reminiscent of lullabies. It sounds soft and soothing like chimes tinkling in wind.

Around the tree are benches where you can sit and enjoy the sights and sounds of the peaceful garden. Near some of the benches are kiosks surrounded by flowers that tell you stories of the garden. One of the flowers is currently telling the story of Miss Merry and the Garden. There are also fun activities like garden tic tac toe. In the corner is a tool shed full of clothes and garden equipment, where you can dress up and help tend the garden.

When you arrive at the tree, you see that those strange colorful shapes you saw before are actually pillows! It is a pillow tree! The tree physically starts out at the corner, and goes all the way up to the ceiling. The branches stretch outwards, and pillows hang abundantly in between the plush fronds. A small pathway leads up to the opening at the bottom of the tree. The whole tree is made out of different fabric materials. The trunk is a patchwork quilt sewn up in hues of reds and browns, while the leaves are different swatches of cloth in shades of green. Vines wind around the tree like a wiry mesh, and once in a while between those vines, you can see magical creatures pop in and out.

You decide to follow the path into the tree. Suddenly, what seems like an opening turns out to be a screen in the tree. A tiny fairy in the tree tells you, “Welcome to the Pillow Tree. Pillows that come from this tree always bring you good dreams! The first thing you need is some magical thread that was spun using the moonlight. Do you have some?”

You remember that you happened to receive some this morning! You place the magic thread in one of the tree openings, and you see it unraveling in the place where the creature was. Looking a little closer, you see that the thread is unraveling in a tiny fairy world. They are using different objects like thimbles to sit on and the grass is taller than them!

The fairy you then asks for your help in growing the pillow. She says, “You need to first sew up the pillow with the thread you gave me. Use the magic wand to sew up the edges”. You pick up the wand, use it to start drawing on the pillow in a sewing motion.

When your pillow is sewn together, the fairy then tells you, “Next you need use the cloud catcher to gather clouds to fill your pillow.” You use your stylus wand to circle the clouds on the screen like a lasso to fill your pillow. You can see your pillow getting fluffier.

The fairy then says, “You’re almost done! You just have to make your pillow grow by watering it with the droplets of morning dew.” You use the stylus wand to now to search through the grass for these water droplets. The watering can in the corner of the screen fills up with water. When it fills up, you water the plants, and the pillow grows to human size.

When you are done, the fairy tells you, “Great job! You just grew your very own pillow of sweet dreams!” The pillow tumbles out of bottom of the tree trunk. You collect it and walk away happy.

The Story of the Garden

A long time ago, Miss Merry wanted to plant a garden for all the children of Give Kids the World Village to enjoy. For two whole months, Miss Merry worked and worked, but for some reason nothing seemed to grow. Though the garden stayed barren, Miss Merry did not give up. Then one day, the Star Fairy fluttered over. She saw that Miss Merry had been working so hard, so she said, “Miss Merry, you’ve been working so hard all day! Use my magical pillow to take a break for a few minutes. It’s so comfortable.” Miss Merry thought a few minutes couldn’t hurt, so laid her head down on the pillow, and immediately fell asleep. At night, while Miss Merry slept, the Star Fairy and her friends came and sprinkled magical dust all over the garden, bringing all the inanimate objects to life. The pillow Miss Merry was sleeping on sunk into the ground, and sprouted a huge pillow tree. The needle, thread, and bobbin from Miss Merry’s sewing kit danced through the dirt, and out came a patchwork garden. The next morning when Miss Merry work up, the garden was full of vibrant and colorful flowers and behind her was the large pillow tree. Surprised, Miss Merry asked the Star Fairy what had happened. The Star Fairy told her, “You’ve been working so hard on the garden, so we fairies wanted to help! The tree you see here is special. It’s the pillow tree of sweet dreams. It’s watered by the morning dew, is sewn up with the threads from the moonshine, fills its pillows with stuffing from the clouds, and grows with love from you and all of the children here at the village.” Ecstatic, Miss Merry cried out, “Thank you!” Her garden was now complete, and she couldn’t wait for the children at the village to visit her garden. To this day, in the very same spot you are standing now, the pillow tree still stands in the Castle of Miracles, making pillows full of sweet dreams for children everywhere.

Location Treatment

Much of this exhibit is technologically simple. The main attraction of the exhibit is the pillow tree. There are several video screens and one touch screen with stylus (similar to the Nintendo DS but larger) located in between the branches connected to a central processing unit located on the back half of the base of the tree. Inside the tree is also a small pillow vending machine located in the front half of the tree. The pillow is released at the base of the front half of the tree. The CPU or the vending machine to refill the pillows can be accessed from the back of the tree. The game is started when the player inserts the spool of thread into a box inside the tree. The spool has an RFID tag, and the box has an RFID reader connected to the CPU. Both strobe lights and floor lights are used to accent the flowers and the trees. Two small kiosks with a video screen, cpu, and a button are located in the garden. When the button on the kiosk is pressed, a story about the Pillow Tree or the garden is told. Speakers are strategically placed around the garden to create appropriate directional sounds and background garden ambience.

Game Design

The Pillow Tree mini-games are centered around the idea of pollination. The child has to go through three steps – sewing the pillow, filling the pillow, and growing the pillow to receive a pillow of their own. Although these experiences are given the name “games”, every child “wins” a pillow every single time. The main platform of these mini-games is a touch screen with a stylus disguised as a wand. The design of the mini-games are similar to Wario-Ware – extremely short and simple interactions.

Mini-Game 1: Sewing the Pillow

The first interaction of the game is to sew the pillow together. The player must use the stylus to follow lines on the pillow. These lines signify seams, and as the player draws on the line, an animation showing the sewing of the pillow will occur.

Mini-Game 2: Filling the Pillow

The second interaction in the game is to fill the pillow with clouds. The player must collect clouds by circling them with a “lasso”. They must catch three moving clouds to fill the pillow, and then they must drag it back to the pillow. The pillow will get bigger as they fill it. If they are unable to do so after 30 seconds, the computer will subtly help them by allowing the player to simply touch the cloud to fill the pillow and the player will progressively need to collect less clouds to complete the game.

Mini-Game 3: Growing the Pillow

The third interaction is to grow the pillow. This game is similar to a hide and seek game. The player must search for water droplets located on the screen and click on them to fill a watering can placed on the right hand side of the screen. The can will fill after the player has found 5 water droplets, and a small animation will play to show the watering can watering the pillow. Another animation will follow showing the pillow growing to life size. Similar to mini-game 2, the longer the player takes to find the water droplets, the easier it will become to fill the watering can (i.e. the player will only need to find 3 instead of 5 droplets).

Concept: Rusty's Machine

2007-09-07T13:54:00.000-07:00

- Themes: Dichotomy of hard and soft; mechanics of dreams

User Experience

The last step is to choose the type of pillow that you will receive. Below the window are three giant buttons that say ‘knight’ ‘princess’ and ‘jester’.

Location Treatment

Rusty’s Machine is comprised of 2 major components; the “power plant” section, the “Conveyor Belt” section. All of these components of the machine are free standing.

The Tag Suction component is built just like the Clown Suction outside the Ginger Bread House. There will be a basket at the bottom of the machine to hold the tags for easy retrieval.

The main computer manages the final exit of a tangible pillow and its retrieval.

The estimated cost to create this treatment can be broken up as followed:

Estimated cost of computer with video/5.1 audio card and monitor, controls entire show ($700)
Estimated cost of 5.1 audio speakers for monitor, as well as hidden in branches above ($100)
Estimated cost of fiber optics ($200)
Estimated cost of lighting (~$2.5K)
Estimated cost of voltage (capacitive/resistant) sensor ($20)/shaker ($100)/heater (induction coil) (4 at $15) (DMX) for heart button ($400)
Estimated cost of back-lit lights for buttons (EL wire) ($15), DC power ($100), can switch with DMX ($400)
Estimated cost of 3 touch sensors for buttons (knight/princess/jester) ($15 each)
Estimated cost of crazy input devices (~$200)
Estimated cost of circuit switch ($10) & voltage sensor for bellows (~$40)
Estimated cost of phidget I/O board ($100)
Estimated cost of water mister (~$25)
Estimated cost of DMX water valve (~$30) + ($400)
Estimated cost of electric motor (DMX) (~$100) + ($400)
Estimated cost of 6 dimmer packs (~$150 each)
Estimated cost of physical input devices ($500)
Estimated cost of construction materials (~$10K)

Total Estimate: 17,345

Game Design

Concept: Washing Machine

2007-09-07T13:44:00.000-07:00

User Experience:

When you first check into the Give Kids the World Village, you’re given a bar of soap (or scrub brush). You are told that this bar of soap is very important in helping out the Washing Machine. You are told to hold onto it, and help out the Washing Machine in the Castle of Miracles when you have time.

You enter the Castle, and next to the Wishing Well, find a giant Washing Machine! You walk up to the Washing Machine, and the Soap Suds appear through the glass on the inside of the Washing Machine. They greet you and say:

“Hello (child’s name)! We run this Washing Machine and Dryer. We get freshly created pillows which are nice and fluffy. However, they have the capacity to hold both dreams and nightmares in them. We take these pillows and scrub them clean of the nightmares so that everyone can have a pleasant night’s sleep. We’ve been working extra hard.. but we can always use some more help. Can you help us out? We see that you have a bar of soap! If you scrub it up against the pillows, it will help us get rid of the nightmares, and then everyone can have sweet dreams! Please help us!”

“OK”! you answer. The Soap Suds let you know that they are going to start sending pillows into the machine. They ask you to scrub the pillows that float by through the glass window of the Washing Machine. The Soap Suds move out of the way, and pillows begin to float by. Taking your bar of soap, you press it to the glass, and begin to scrub. As you scrub each pillow, its colors become more vibrant and brighter, and the pillows become covered in Soap Suds. Once you scrub each pillow enough, it begins to simmer and glow. When you have cleaned all the pillows in the machine, the Soap Suds appear on the screen again and say:

“Thank you so much! Oh dear, the pillows seem to be filled with bubbles now, and this water is filled with soap. We don’t want people’s heads getting filled with bubbles! We want them filled with dreams! Use the water hoses on the side to help us clean off the pillows with water. We need those pillows rinsed out! Please help us!”

You then pick up one of the water hoses on the side of the Washing Machine. You aim it at the pillows on the screen and fire. You see a stream of water spray into the Washing Machine in front of your hose. As you spray off each pillow, the bubbles around it come off, and the pillow begins to float to the top of the machine. Once all the pillows are at the top of the machines, the Soap Suds appear on the screen again and say:

“Oh thank you so much! But, now the pillows are all wet! We can’t have people sleeping on wet pillows! Their dreams might become too soggy! We’ll place them in the Dryer. Can you please pull the lever to let the sun’s rays in, and then turn the wheel to make sure that our Dryer absorbs the nice warm rays that the sun is shining down?”

Before your eyes, you see all the water drain out of the Washing Machine, and the pillows fall to the bottom of the machine. At the same time, you see the water and the pillows pass through a clear tube into the Dryer. You walk over to the Dryer and you pull the lever. The sun appears up above. You turn the wheel and the Dryer starts to rumble, as the rays shine down onto the Dryer, drying all the pillows. You hear a “ding” and the Dryer stops rumbling. You hear the voices of the Soap Suds one last time as they say:

“Oh thank you so much for helping us out! The pillows are now all clean and filled with nothing but sweet dreams. Because you helped us out, we have a little present for you. Here is one of the pillows you helped us clean, and it will give you nothing but sweet dreams. It is in the Dryer. Please open the door and take it. We hope that you like it!”

You go over to the side of the Dryer and open the door. You look inside and find a clean pillow. You take the pillow out and close the door. You are then free to take the pillow back with you. The soap (or brush) is a gift as well.

Location Treatment:

The location will be themed similar to a laundry room. There will be a “Washing Machine” that is designed to look as if it were from the future, but still a Washing Machine from the outside. Inside will be a computer with speakers and a large touch screen monitor in which only a circular portion of the screen can be seen, while the rest is covered by the Washing Machine’s facade. There will also be two water hoses attached to the front of the Washing Machine for the rinsing game. These water hoses should have emitters that can be detected by the touch screen, as well as accelerometers in order to indicate the direction of the water hose. There will be flashing lights and dials on the Washing Machine as well to indicate that the child is performing these actions correctly.

To the right of the Washing Machine is a Dryer. The front will be a solid chamber with two flashing lights when it is “operating”. There is also a lever and a wheel on the front. On the top there will be four triangular panels that protrude, along with a cylinder to represent the sun ray absorber. These should be able to rise up mechanically based on lever operation. There will be a door to the Dryer on the side that will dispense the pillow when the game is complete. Inside the Dryer is a mechanism for dispensing the pillows so that only one is shown at a time. Once the door closes, another pillow should drop into place. There should also be a “trap door” in order to refill the pillows after each day, without being visible to a guest.

There will also be a round dome above that contains the “sun”. In reality this should only be a color changing light trapped around a refracting dome that will enclose it and make it seem larger than it actually is. There will also be a box around this that will “hide” the sun when someone is not operating the Dryer, as well as keep the light from being seen. The lever makes this box slide apart, as well as turn on the light for the sun. The wheel activates the rumbling portion of the Dryer, which will be blasted out of speakers inside the Dryer, and possibly make use of shakers inside the machine. It should also undo the lock to the door on the side of the Dryer.

The soap will have an RFID tag inside of it. The computer should also have an RFID reader that will make the touch screen activate when the child is close enough.

The entire structure is able to be moved easily, as it essentially three different, separate structures. It can also be moved outside with the dome area removed in order to use the real sun instead of the artificial one.

Game Design:

Part 1: Scrubbing

There is a circular touch screen on the Washing Machine. Displayed on this touch screen there will be pillows floating around. Each of these pillows will be filled with both dreams and nightmares. The objective is to “clean” the pillows of nightmares. To do this, kids will have to use their bar of soap to “scrub” the pillows. The pillows will initially be a rather dirty and drab color with art showing that the pillow is filled with both types. When a child rubs the bar of soap over a pillow, a scrubbing sound should be played as well as suds appearing over the pillow. It is important that the bar of soap is physically against the screen so the touch screen registers. The pillow should become brighter and you should see “nightmares” being released form the pillows into the wash where they moan and disappear. It should take the soap rubbing up against the pillow 3 times in order to make it clean.

Part 2: Rinsing

The pillows will be all covered in suds. Guests must take a water hose and aim it at the pillows. Each time they fire the water at a pillow, there is a splash sound and a water graphic splashes over the pillows and a little bit of the suds will come off. Children will continue to do this until the pillows are completely free of suds.

Part 3: Drying

In the Dryer guests must first pull the lever for the sun dome to open. Once this occurs the sun’s rays will shine. The children must then use the wheels to help guide the rays into the Dryer. Once the rays are aimed at a pillow it will begin drying (rumbling) until it is completely dry.

Each of these games will have a sound and/or visual clue to notify a child when a pillow is done being scrubbed, rinsed, or dried, in order to make the child know when he or she is done and can move onto the next pillow or game. The number of pillows in both the scrubbing and rinsing stages will also be the same. Each game will take around a minute to complete

If a child is unable to complete a part of the game, the “Soap Suds” will finish the task themselves and tell the child that without their help they couldn’t have done the job. In no way will not completing one part of the game prevent a child from receiving a pillow.

Concept: Wizard's Tower

2007-09-07T13:32:00.000-07:00

User Experience

You are walking through the castle, when you start to hear some strange incantations and music in the distance. A few seconds later, you hear a thunderous explosion, followed by lots of giggling. Now curious, you walk towards the sounds, and when you turn the corner, you find that you are in a wizard’s lab! There are shelves full of strange bottles and tubes, wardrobes full of magical items, alchemy tables, and manner of strange things. There are some bottles full of brightly colored liquids of all kinds, some bubbling, while other bottles have objects in them, such as toads, cotton candy, marbles, etc. In the center of the room is a large, ornate box. It is decorated as if it were part of a traveling show, and its stacked on top of a series of shipping crates. It must have just arrived. As you make your way to the center of the room, you see a closet full of wizard robes and hats. You decide to put one on before walking the rest of the way to the box.

As you go to look inside, you hear a tiny voice from behind you. You turn around and you see a mouse hole. Out of it comes a small mouse dressed in wizard robes. He tells you, “Hi! I’m Kip, Pip’s cousin! I’m a wizard and I’m trying to make a potion to create a dream pillow, to guarantee everyone who uses it sweet dreams! I can’t do it alone though. Will you help me?”

Intrigued, you say, “Of course!” Kip replies, “Oh, thank you! Let’s get started. First you’ll have to identify yourself. Are you a knight or a princess? If you are a knight, place your hand on the blue sword. If you are a princess, place your hands on the pink tiara.” You (being a girl), answer princess, and touch the lighted tiara next to the box. Kip responds, “Excellent. Lovely to meet you princess!

“The best way to conjure up a sweet dream is to combine Love, Happiness, Hope, Dreams. Around my tower, there are different objects that you can use to capture these feelings. I’ll light up each one I need you to go to…” Kip says. And with that, Kip, runs back into his mouse hole. You turn around and see the wardrobe light up behind you, and you run on over.

Reaching the wardrobe, you see Kip crawl out of another mouse hole on a shelf. He tells you that the largest vial here, shaped like a heart, represents love. Kip tells you to place your hands on it, and think of someone you love. Doing this, the bottle starts to glow and pulse, like heat beat. The heart beat sound fills the room. It fills up, and Kip lets you know that you have added love to the spell, and to follow him as he runs to another part of the room.

You follow him to another station, and repeat the process, adding Happiness, Hope, or Dreams. At each station, you add another element to the mix, and as you do this, the sound from that object adds its own sound component to the musical mix of the room. Once this is done, you are then asked to visit the last part of the room, featuring a giant mirror. Kip asks you to look into it, and think of one final wish you want to add to it, for your self. As you do this, before your eyes you see your image in the mirror start to grow and glow!

“That’s it!” exclaims Kip. “All the elements of the spell have been added. Meet me back at the magic box, and I’ll try to summon your pillow.” You race back to the magic box.

Kip reappears out of his magic hole by the box. The lights dim, the music rises, and Kip begins to cast the spell. The music reaches a climax, and Poof! In a puff of smoke, a pillow appears in the box! Kip cheers, and thanks you for your help making the pillow. He tells you to take it, and to have sweet dreams.

Location Treatment

The location is themed like a wizard’s lab, and all of the props are completely movable and removable from the space. There is a stack of boxes in the middle of the space. The inside of the box is a small stage that performs with light and music. The interior of the box, and stack of crates it rests upon, houses the pillow delivery system, and a dark box to perform a Pepper’s Ghost illusion.

Around the room are furniture items and decorations with different objects that light up. These objects are themed to be relevant to the area of the room they are in (bottle, book, etc). They are filled with water and metallic-colored confetti. Each object, when touched, triggers an on-screen animation of Kip, and the appropriate sound played in the room. All of the touchable objects and the magic box are connected to a centralized computer that also plays the music. Each location also contains a screen in which to display Kip running in and out of his mouse holes around the exhibit.

Game Design

In this multi-sensory experience, the player will be guided through three activities, of a possible 5. The player must go through each of the three activities to receive the pillow. The activities are randomly chosen to create a replay value between families. In each activity, the player will be asked to make a wish about love, happiness, hope, dreams, and themselves – all ingredients to make a pillow of good dreams. In addition to the themes of each activity, they are also designed to evoke strong sensory emotions through touch, sound, and vision. The entire experience should take about 2-3 minutes.

For example purposes, the following descriptions place the 5 touchable objects as bottles, but they can be made into other things, and located around the room further

Part One: Love
Around the cauldron are five pillars with five bottles on it. The first is bottle lights up and glows pink. You see small shiny hearts flying around inside the bottle. This (and all the other bottles) look similar to a snow globe. Pip comes out of his mouse hole and tells you, “The first thing that is in any magical pillow is love. Put your hands on this bottle, close your eyes, and silently make a wish for someone you love. The player closes their eyes, touches the bottle. The bottle feels fuzzy and soft, and music full of love starts to play. It’s a rich violin that slowly and melodically plays. They also hear drums that sound like a heartbeat. When the music starts, and the player has made their wish, they’ll see that there is pink water spewing in the cauldron in the shape of a heart. A few seconds later, the bottle stops glowing and feels cool to the touch, and the second bottle lights up.

Part Two: Happiness
The second bottle is happiness. This bottle glows green and sparkles swirls around inside. The green symbolizes peace, calmness, and comfort. For happiness, Kip tells you, “Good dreams are full of happiness. Put your hands on the bottle, and make a wish about something that makes you happy.” When you place your hands on the bottle, the bottle feels a little bumpy. Then it starts to shake a little, and the tickling sensation makes you laugh. A flute plays cheerful and fast-paced music in the background. Simultaneously in the cauldron, the liquid starts to bubble furiously, and is now green. A few seconds later, the bottle stops moving and glowing, and the third bottle lights up.

Part Three: Dreams
This third bottle is dreams. The bottle glows a dark blue, and silvery streamers blow inside the bottle. The blue is symbolic of the night time, and the silver of the moonlight. Kip lets you know, “This bottle is all about dreams. Put your hands on the bottle, close your eyes, and think about a dream you’d love to have.” A xylophone plays a slow lullaby in the background, and you hear the tinkling of wind chimes. The cauldron is now calm, and it sounds a bit like ocean waves. There liquid in the cauldron swirls in different patterns in tune with the music. The bottle feels smooth and slowly spins in a circular motion.

Part Four: Hope
The forth bottle is hope. This bottle lights up in yellow, because it is like sunlight, and symbolizes warmth and energy. Kip says, “Hope is one of the most important ingredients to good dreams. Make a wish about something you hope will happen in the future.” You place your hands on the bottle, and the bottle feels warm. As you start to make your wish, you notice that the bottle feels like it’s starting to get bigger. Kip tells you, “Wow! Great job! Your pillow has a lot of hope!” The guitar music in the background goes from slow to fast, and makes you feel very excited. The caldron has a fountain inside that seems to be getting higher and more intense as the bottle gets bigger.

Part Five: You!
The last bottle is about the player. This bottle shines purple, a gender neutral color that is a mix of pink and blue. Purple also symbolizes creativity, imagination, and magic, and surveys found almost 75 percent of pre-adolescent children prefer purple to all other colors.* When the last bottle starts to glow, Kip tells the player, “This last wish is all about you. Silently make a wish about whatever you want!” You place your hands on the bottle, and it feels squishy, a little like play-doh. The fountain leaps and jumps in different patterns in tune with the joyful and light-hearted piano music.

Why Music

“Quoted in a 2001 article in USA Today, Suzanne Hasner, chairwoman of the music therapy department at Berklee College of Music in Boston, says even those with dementia or head injuries retain musical ability.

The article reported results of an experiment in which researchers from the Mind-Body Wellness Center in Meadville, Pa., tracked 111 cancer patients who played drums for 30 minutes a day. They found strengthened immune systems and increased levels of cancer-fighting cells in many of the patients.

"Deep in our long-term memory is this rehearsed music,” Hasner says. “It is processed in the emotional part of the brain, the amygdala. Here’s where you remember the music played at your wedding, the music of your first love, that first dance. Such things can still be remembered even in people with progressive diseases. It can be a window, a way to reach them…"

The American Music Therapy Organization claims music therapy may allow for "emotional intimacy with families and caregivers, relaxation for the entire family, and meaningful time spent together in a positive, creative way".”

[Paragraph copied from: How Does Music Impact Our Emotions, Site: http://www.chordpiano.com/articles-chord-piano/music-emotions-4.htm]

Sources:
*Color Meanings
http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-mean

Concept: Castle Library

2007-09-07T13:19:00.000-07:00

User Experience

You enter the Castle of Miracles, excited to see the newly-opened Castle Library. There are a series of signs leading towards the newly opened castle library. You follow them to the library where you are immediately immersed in the stacks of books, filled with stories and tales of the castle’s rich history. Exploring the ancient tomes and richly decorated wood décor, you then notice a sign posted: “Welcome to the Castle Library! Feel free to explore and learn about tales from places all over the world!

Our newest addition, the ‘Secret of Sweet Dreams’, is located in the center of the library. However, this book has had a spell cast upon it, and we’ve been unable to unlock it. It has been foretold that only those who have a vast knowledge of the stories in this library can open the book. Only uttering the three magical phrases can unlock this book. When unlocked, this book will reveal to you the secret of sweet dreams. Please take a look around and see if you can locate the magical phrases to open the book. ”

You make your way to “The Secret of Sweet Dreams”, located in the middle of the library on a pyramid-like structure. Reaching the book, you try to open it but it just won’t budge. Looking around, you notice three large open books at the base of the library stacks, with symbols above each one. You walk over to one of the books and look inside. You read the title of the book and turn the page. The next page displays the following: “Welcome to the story of (story name). In order to read this book, you must help (main character complete his or her objective). If you are able to do so, you will be rewarded!” You turn to the next page and begin to read the story. You help the character move and perform certain tasks in the story. (See the ‘Example of an Interactive Story’ section for a possible story.) At the end, it reveals to you a symbol. This symbol could be one of the following:

• An on-screen symbol that represents a word that is told to you in both audio and textual form.
• A small physical object that is given to you in the shape of the symbol representing the story.
• Before the experience the child is given a “Castle Library Card” embedded with an RFID tag. When a story is completed, the system saves their actions to the child’s card.
Excited, you wander over to another book and read its story. At the end you get another symbol. You wander over to the last book and read its story. After finishing, you receive the final symbol. Thinking that you have figured out the magical phrase, you rush back over to”The Secret of Sweet Dreams”. In order to break the spell you do one of the following:
• Shout out the phrase based on the three on-screen symbols that you were shown
• Insert the physical objects into a slot either in the book or in the pyramid structure underneath

• A RFID sensor detects the child’s library card and begins the spell breaking when the child is near the book.

After the spell has been broken, the book starts to rumble. You start to inch closer to it. The rumbling stops and you hear a “click”. You open up the book and inside is a pillow! You take it out and close the book, knowing that you have earned the secret to sweet dreams, and have broken the magical spell.
Example of an Interactive Story

Here’s an example of a possible interactive story: Mayor Clayton Goes to the Dentist “Welcome to the story of Mayor Clayton Goes to the Dentist. In order to finish this story, please help Mayor Clayton get his teeth cleaned.” *The page turns.* “Mayor Clayton was looking in the mirror one day and noticed there was
something on one of his teeth.” *The page shows Mayor Clayton’s reflection in the mirror. If you touch the tooth, Mayor Clayton moves his arm up and rubs a finger up against it. The page turns.* “Mayor Clayton decided to go to the dentist to have it checked out.” *The page shows Mayor Clayton on a road to the dentist’s office. If you drag Mayor Clayton over to the dentist’s office, he goes inside. The page turns.* “The dentist said, ‘Oh my, Mayor Clayton, it looks like you don’t brush your teeth often enough. I’ll clean your teeth for you.’” *The page shows Mayor Clayton’s face with his teeth showing and a toothbrush off to the side, if you move the toothbrush over his teeth, the toothbrush moves up and down and the spot magically disappears. The page turns.* “Mayor Clayton said, ‘Thank you, I’ll remember to brush everyday!’ As a gift, the dentist gave Mayor Clayton a lollipop to remind him of the sweet things in life. The End” *The page shows a lollipop and the word ‘sweet’. If using a physical object, a lollipop prop gets dispensed.*

Location Treatment

There will be signs mounted on the walls of the Castle of Miracles pointing towards the library. Inside the library section will be “stacks” of books, standing out like huge pillars. These pillars should be quite tall and employ perspective tricks to create the illusion of a huge, encompassing library. They should be unevenly stacked and placed around the location. Around the stacks will be three stations, allowing multiple children to play each game at the same time. This allows for greater throughput and a longer experience. Each side contains a sign indicating a certain story and a part of the phrase that the children will need to reveal. Towards the bottom there is a touch screen placed inside the model of a book. There will be speakers embedded in each station. The touch screen and speakers will be connected to one computer which would regulate the display and receive input from the touch screens. At the center of the Library will be the Secret of Sweet Dreams tome. This big book will be on a pyramid-like structure. In actuality this book will be the physical device that dispenses and stores the pillows. The book will be capable of rumbling and emitting sound effects as well. The book will have one of the following:

• Voice sensor so that when a certain phrase is mentioned the book “opens”

• An object detector that can read in the physical symbols deposited, possibly via RFID tags

Underneath the book in the pyramid section, will be the mechanism for pushing pillows up into the book. The pyramid should also have a door for easily refilling the pillows, and should have enough of a capacity such that it should only need to be restocked once per day.
The castle library utilizes a number of off-the shelf technical solutions readily available today. Each book station uses simple touch screens linked into one computer running an animation style game. The touch screens are hidden within a large model book creating an interactive page. Upon the completion of the game, the child receives the symbol representing the story, dispensed in the form of a physical object, a key phrase, or linking a pre-existing object with an RFID tag (such as a “Castle Library Card”) to the completion of the story. Once the child collects all three symbols, the large book in the center can be opened. The symbols may contain RFID tags that will trigger the book’s opening sequence. By placing the symbols into the lock on top of the book, the motors underneath as well as subwoofers activate to create a rumbling effect. The book then uses simple motors to open up and reveal a pillow for the child to take. An additional option would be for a customized certificate to be printed for the wish child shortly before receiving the pillow. The customizing can happen while the child plays the interactive games at the stations.

The charm of the castle library design is in its modular nature. Every part of the design can be updated depending on the needs of the village. The stories on the touch screens can be changed to fit multiple themes throughout the year. Also, the reward mechanics for each game can be updated easily as well. Originally the system can start with a physical prop as a reward, but it can be updated to voice recognition or RFID systems. The central device that dispenses the pillows is fairly robust and shouldn’t require too much work to upgrade. The theming of the library can be easily upgraded and re-themed. The books in the stacks can be interchanged for cosmetic books or even real children’s books and function much like a real library. Simple changes in lighting or additions to the book shelves can make the library adapt to seasonal themes.
With its modular nature as well as the ability to serve multiple children at the same time, the Castle Library can bring sweet dreams to hundreds of children in the village.

Game Design

The basic game design for the each book station is to read stories in order to acquire knowledge and receive a clue at the end. There will be three different stories for each station. The objective is to guide a character through the story and accomplish the task. The pages of the book will contain an animated drawing. There will then be text explaining the story and a narrator to speak these words aloud. The objective is to move these characters along in the story to complete it. This can involve a variety of things, including:

• Dragging a character to a physical place on the screen
• Clicking on or dragging certain objects in order to make them complete certain tasks
• Dragging the environment to change the scene

If you are having a hard time completing the task, the screen will show you what to do using semi-transparent action arrows. If you take too long, or are having a tough time, the game will advance along so that you don’t need to worry about not knowing how to complete a certain task. This also makes sure that children aren’t waiting too long to use a certain station. Once you complete the task mentioned, there will be a small animation showing the story and it will advance onward. The page will then automatically turn to the next couple of pages and you’ll have to perform the next task. Once the game is over, you will be given a symbol which you must then use to break the spell. Each task should take about a minute and will include 3-4 interactions.

First 5 Concepts!

2007-09-07T11:20:00.000-07:00

Today we finalized our first five concepts. The Pillow Tree, The Castle Library, Rusty's Machine, The Washing Machine, and The Wizard's Tower. We're going to be going down to Give Kids the World later in the month to present these concepts to them. Hopefully we can get them to pick one, but it'll probably be a mixture of them. We'll describe each of these a little later on today.

Also, Brendan got in earlier this week! We're finally a team!

Brainstorming!

2007-08-31T19:24:00.000-07:00

Today was our first brainstorm session. We stayed all day and we came up with quite a few ideas. Here they are:

Idea 1: (Pillow Tree) Deku Tree: Garden of the Castle
Tree grows out and branches out. It physically starts out in the corner and goes up to the ceiling. There may be special lights (like LED in gobo leaf pattern, soft lights). Child goes up, and using the touch screen and magic, you pull the pieces together and the pillow would be lowered down at the end. This is not Elmer, but a different tree.
Story: Similar to the star fairy. Someone planted a pillow, and a pillow tree grew out of the ground
Art Style: Tree is in layers- trunk grows almost vine like, so you can hide screens between its vines. Can have a quilted / Dr. Seuss-like look – is patched together. Leaves are different swatches of cloth.
Like Build-a Bear, you build your pillow with good wishes.
Directional Sound

RFID Tag
You start by putting in a plush pillow in the shape of an:
Acorn
Magic Sparkle Bag
Vibrating Orb
Bag of Magic Beans
Miracle Grow Tablet

Mini-Game
Pollination – you are watering and helping to take care of the tree so that it grows- and it will give you a pillow in return.
Actions:
Fluff of the clouds (pillow is stuffed with clouds)
Sewn together with light from the moon.
Water it with the morning dew

Idea 2: Rube Goldberg/Seuss/Crazy Effects
-Metal Person makes soft things, can be soft things- this theme more serious
Kangaroo inventor guy- is quirky and bad at it, but in a comical way, so you have to help him out on it. (pouring different things, etc…)

Idea 3: Bake Pillow
- cupcake land

Idea 4: Space Ship
- alien lands in the castle

Idea 5: Library
- improbable stacks of books, one of them open up
-fill their heads with things to dream about, and we’ll give you a pillow
-there are different screens (like Ben Franklin), or scrolls with different stories of characters from give kids.
Stacks are books are also pillars.
Toadstool seats
There are different stations with activities.
There is a giant book (Stories of Sweet Dreams)- glows and makes noises. When you open it, there is a pillow.
Scavenger hunt. Look up different books, get a password. Use the password to open the book (is a pictorial password)
You tell someone a bedtime story- Mad-libs style/ you make sweet dreams
Book portal- you send someone a dream, they send you back a pillow
Book takes you to slumber-land

Idea 6: Wizards
Technology:
-Magic Mirror
-Crystal Ball
-Mouse Wizard/or small virtual character
Put things into the cauldron and you work together to make the best dream There are different crystal balls or magical shapes around the cauldron that glow, sparkle, vibrate, make noises. Each represents a different theme – hope, dreams, favorite bed time story, etc. You go to each and make a wish for each one (silently). For example, the wizard might say at the hope ball, “make a wish about one person you love”. After a few seconds, the hope ball would glow pink, and the cauldron would also glow pink. After all the balls are activated, the potion is done. You look in the cauldron, and inside is a pillow!

Idea 7: Crazy Ass Machine / Rusty
Is like an engine/ powering a train. Shovel cotton into machine. Different levers and stuff. Pillow comes out. This machine was designed by the Suit of Armor, Rusty. He’s so hard and strong, that he wanted to rest on something soft and comforting. Help rusty make his dream come true.

Idea 8: Nighttime Washing Machine
There are pillows everywhere full of bad dreams. The kids will have to “cleanse” the pillows and out will come a new pillow just for them full of good dreams.

We're going to try to develop all of these ideas by creating treatments that will include artwork, a narrative, game play, and any technology that will be required. We'll then bring these treatments down to Give Kids the World to see what they have to say about them. The next couple of weeks are going to be rough!

First Day of Classes

2007-08-27T08:52:00.000-07:00

Today is the first day of classes! We're all excited and ready to go this semester. All of our team is here, except for Brendan, who unfortunately has been delayed due to airline issues. We all hope he has safe travel and can make it here soon!

Our plan right now is to try and visit Give Kids the World in September and present them with some concept ideas for our pillow tree. We're going to brainstorm later this week and try to get some basic concepts and then flesh them out. Our hope is that when we meet with them they'll give us some good feedback on our ideas and we can have one to do from there.

We'll try to keep this regularly updated and let you know how our project is going.