Pressure Project 2
Posted: October 15, 2024 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »When I started out this project, I was really excited to get into the storytelling and create a mystery. I went through a few different ideas including a treasure map, a secret agent entering a vault door, and turning the door into a magic mirror with an evil spirit. These were all really cool, but I was having a hard time fitting them into the required resources, so after a lot of brainstorming and trying to make things fit, I switched approaches. I looked at the resources I had and figured out the best ways to use them and then built a story around that.
The end story I ended up with was a story about an adventurer going on a journey to rescue something and the pressure project being the adventurer finally getting to where they are going and having the final boss fight.
With the makey-makey I decided to make my own controller to cast magic spells. I used the webcam to make the evil spirit more angry (symbols changing on screen more frantically) when there is more movement in front of the camera. I used a stuffed unicorn (his name is Craig) as the final treasure that you find behind the door. Since I have an interest and focus in storytelling and animation, I tried to find ways to incorporate more narrative into the built system. This resulted in three different scenes. The first scene is the ‘villains monologue’ where we are introduced to the task at hand. The second scene is where the battle and interaction mainly takes place. The third scene was the indicator of success and telling people they can now open the door and receive their prize.
I’ve come to the conclusion that I have no idea how long things take to complete. I started out this project with really grand ideas and a big vision of what I wanted and thought “This is completely reasonable and doable in a ten hour time frame!”. I was very wrong. That being said, when I realized just how long certain things were taking me, I was able to scale down my ideas considerably to get to something that was more manageable.
There are two different mindsets that I’ve had professors try to instill in me over the past two years. The first one is to work in slices. The whole thing doesn’t need to be complete, but at the deadline, that section of the thing needs to be a complete and working thing. The second mindset I’ve been referring to is to look at the software and figure out what I can do with what I have, rather than trying to fit what I have into something I want to do – working from inward as opposed to outward in. In terms of scale, I try to remind myself of these things on every project I work on. I’m more successful on some occasions than others.
Obviously, my first attempt at presenting this didn’t go as planned. Apparently, the last time I worked on my project, none of the progress I made saved, causing the initial break in the system. Then when I tried to fix it, my laptop decided it had had enough and gave out on working for the rest of the day. Over the weekend, I was able to figure out the issue with the saving, and make the changes necessary so that it should work fine when I attempt to present next.
Other than that, there was a lot of iterating in the process and trial and error in trying to get things to work. I had a vision of what I wanted to make, but I ended up exploring different nodes and trying to find realistic ways to make things. I started with a small task of making the butterflies move, and figured out how to be creative with the other spells.
I really liked getting to work with physical materials in this project. A lot of the work I do usually exists only on the computer screen, so I liked getting to play around with the makey-makey, and doing arts and crafts to make my controller. I think if I were to go back and do it again, I would focus more on finding better ways to make the experience more immersive and using my environment to my advantage.
Pressure Project 1
Posted: September 9, 2024 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »Pressure Project 1:
I want to start off by saying that this project had a few more complications than I was intending to run into. The biggest being the idea of spending an hour in a public place (and then sketching what was happening around me – especially when it involved people). I guess I didn’t really realize how few spaces actually exist in public where it isn’t weird or frowned upon to stand/sit there staring at people.
For example, I thought about looking at checkout lines at the grocery store, but couldn’t find a feasible way to explain why I was sitting there watching people pay for things without seeming sketchy. Then I thought about going to the library and looking at the book checkout system there, but thought I might get security called on me for being creepy for not reading or anything that I should have been doing in a library. It was too hot outside to feasibly sit outside and do this assignment, so I wanted to find a place indoors where it wouldn’t seem weird to spend long periods of time watching things and people.
That being said, for this pressure project, I chose to look at the laundry room and machines in the basement of my apartment building. These machines, while intended to be helpful, probably contain more flaws than working parts.
Each washer and dryer are different brands or models, which means that there are four different machine systems at any given time. Each washer and dryer has a handful of different options that you can choose from when wanting to clean your clothes. After washing my laundry myself and watching others in my building do so, I determined that the settings don’t really mean anything.
For example,
- Setting the dryer to low/medium heat, really means that there will be no heat applied at all and they will just tumble around in the dryer.
- Setting the timer option of the dryer also doesn’t work and actually calculates any time you set it at as three times longer than intended.
- The washing machines attempt to weigh the clothes and will run the cycle of cleaning them based on that weight. This, however, is a problem because none of the machines have time remaining on them. So it’s really a mystery when clothes will be finished.
I have watched half a dozen people come into the laundry room expecting their clothes to be finished only for the cycle to still be happening. Or the cycle will be complete but their clothes won’t be clean or will still be sopping wet. Or in retaliation against the machines taking an unknown amount of time, will leave their clothes in for hours after they are finished.
I watched people throw clothes onto the ground and place them in different places around the dark dingy basement. I also noted that there were clothes in a washer already finished being clean when I arrived. No one came to pick them up in the hour that I sat in the basement. The clothes were also still there in the machine when I came down later in the evening to get reference photos for my diagrams. I haven’t been back down there since this experience, so it is entirely possible that the clothes remain there to this day.
When doing my own laundry, I’d also like to note that the knob on the dryer I was using was possibly broken. It was connected to the machine, but it sort of seemed like the wrong knob was added onto the machine because it didn’t fit or turn right. After using another machine that required you to pull out the knob and press it in to start it, I repeated those steps on this machine and accidentally took off the knob. I don’t think it was supposed to do that. I put it back on but it didn’t really align right. I take no responsibility for what has happened here.
It should also be noted that I have only drawn the inhabited side of this creepy unfinished basement. The other half of the room doesn’t get any light to it and looks like something straight out of a horror film.
To me, the solutions to these problems seem easy. There are clear things that could be addressed to making the clothes cleaning process easier. But to be honest, addressing these things doesn’t sound fun in the slightest. I’m choosing to assume that since the landlords haven’t fixed these things, that there is a reason. I’m not a professional laundry room manager afterall; there must be a reason things are designed this way. So… in the name of understanding and empathy toward my landlords, I have chosen chaos.
- The first thing that obviously has to happen is some sort of pay system. Right now, it is free to use the machines. Clearly, that was an oversight on their part and needs to be remedied immediately.
- But why stop there? MICROTRANSACTION GAMIFICATION of the washing machines! It could be a pay to win system with loot boxes where you have to pay in order to spin a wheel, and whatever you land on gives you things like:
- Wash time?
- Water temperature?
- How many clothes are you allowed to put in?
- How clean are the clothes going to come out?
- Obviously, you have to keep spinning in order to get the options that you want and clearly, each spin will cost you additional money.
- But why stop there? MICROTRANSACTION GAMIFICATION of the washing machines! It could be a pay to win system with loot boxes where you have to pay in order to spin a wheel, and whatever you land on gives you things like:
- In order to counteract all of the broken knobs and buttons on the machines, I propose that we make the system fully digital in the basement with no wifi or reception.
