The End of the Semester

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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