My main concern this week was the feedback I received from last week’s demonstration. Many people said that my concept didn’t achieve what I said it would, namely that it doesn’t demonstrate fractions and proportionality. I was initially worried that I would have to change my concept entirely, but after speaking with Lorna, I’ve decided to simply change the scope so that it is explicitly teaching children about music and rhythm.

I haven’t made any more progress on implementing features on my prototype, because I was worried that any progress I made might have to be undone if my concept had to change. I still need to implement sound, as well as add more note block circuits and find a way to consistently register pressure, as it’s much more precise than I first realised.

Creating the video and prototype document has helped me further develop and understand my concept. In particular, I decided to have two states for the device, locked and unlocked. Because the concept focuses on using weight to understand fractions and proportionality, I thought it would be good to have a setting where users could only manipulate the weights, and the note blocks are locked in place. In the unlocked setting, users can change both note blocks and weights as they wish, to allow for more open-ended creation. I’m interested to see what feedback I get from this change, as I have only really thought of it this week, and haven’t had the time to really think about all the implications.

I’m a bit concerned that my demonstration video is quite short, however I felt that there wasn’t really anything else that needed to be added. I felt that a short, clear explanation and demonstration was better. It does make me a bit worried that my concept isn’t complex enough, if it can be explained in such a short time, and I’m concerned that it’s getting too late in the semester to make any significant changes. I will have to wait and see what feedback I get.

It was also interesting to properly see other peoples’ concepts for the first time. Some groups were almost intimidating in how much progress they had made, while others gave me more perspective on my own progress, and made me feel like I’m not as behind as I thought.

I was also able to speak to tutors in the Thursday workshop session about options for constructing the form. They assured me that a high-fidelity prototype was not necessary, and that consideration will be given to the difficulty accessing materials and tools this semester. That made me feel a lot more at ease about getting my prototype finished.

This week I worked on a system to detect which note block is placed. At first, I was advised by tutors to use a camera and make use of either Vuforia or a colour detecting program. After spending some time reading and researching various camera technologies, I was still very confused. I asked again at the workshop session, and this time I was recommended to use copper tape as a switch to create a circuit. This made much more sense to me, and I used copper tape on the bottom of the note block to create a connection between two jumper cables. I coded the connection like a button, so that it sends the note name to Serial, along with the pressure sensor reading, whenever the note block is placed.

I have since added a second button to function as the play button, so that the readings are only sent to Serial when this button is placed. I had some trouble getting all the buttons to work, particularly with getting the buttons to register being reset and ready to send the next reading. Again, I got help from tutors to use a state check, along with some tutorials online, and successfully got all buttons to work as intended.

While I have gotten the three main functions of my prototype working, they are all in their most basic form, and I still have to use the readings to actually play the correct sounds. This will have to be mocked for next week’s demonstration. I also haven’t given much thought yet to how I will create the form of the prototype, as I’m still very much focused on the functionality. I’m also a little worried about how I will actually create the form, as I don’t have a whole lot of access to materials.

I spent time this week, as well as previously during semester break, working on getting the pressure sensor working with the Arduino. I used tutorials online, and managed to get the pressure sensor to send readings to the Serial monitor. At this stage, it just prints readings every second, so I will need to work on getting it to send readings only when needed.

I have struggled a lot with motivation lately, and am still not fully adjusted to online learning. I’m worried that, given I have only just started working on my prototype, I won’t be able to finish it to a sufficient standard. Just the work I have done recently has revealed several smaller issues that need to be resolved, such as how precisely the pressure needs to be applied for it to be registered, and I’m only just coming to realise how much time it may take to properly implement all the features I planned. Combined with my motivation recently, I’m doubtful of my ability to complete my prototype to a standard I’m happy with.

The exhibit got off to a smooth start unexpectedly. We had time at the beginning to share amongst our team any thoughts we might have and the order in which we will present for a natural flow of presentations. This worked in our favour I believe because it shows multiple perspectives of creative learning domain.

Visitors to our exhibit were able to understand what we were talking about, and the domain within which we designed. It was also evident that though we had individual concepts, they were all guided by collective findings from cultural probes and literature reviews.

Individual Pitch

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During my individual presentations I find that it got easier to pitch my concept as the evening progressed. I sort of improved on the rehearsed dialogue of stating what the concept is about to a more open, relaxed, and concise description of the interactive colour mixing carpet. The feedback received commented on the collaborative aspects being a good implementation as well as the repetitive action of colour mixing to collect coins is a way of solidifying colour theory for young children. I realised I got more comfortable in presenting the concept by the third time pitching it and was also more readily open to hear what visitors think may improve on it.

The portfolio website seemed to have been informative and clearly presented to visitors. This is based on the positive feedback received about the concept as a result of reading about it on the website. The website itself had a few spelling errors, and required changes to make it even more informative. I will go in and edit this prior to its final submission.

Personally, I am pleased with how the portfolio website turned out. I tried to reflect a bit of the overall domain and that is to be creative and imaginative in learning. I included timed animations, some features were a first for me to implement. The final portfolio will benefit from further editing in the Reflection section as well as going over any spelling errors and additional information in the Background section as well.

I’ve also receive positive feedback from the video on the website and was pleased to know it clearly communicated the concept as well.

I was able to briefly move around and visit one other group while the exhibit was still going on. It was interesting having a physical exhibit online. It didn’t have as much interaction as it would if visitors were participating in person but it was well enough to adequately demonstrate each prototype and detail its intended purpose. The online interaction was a weird sort of exciting. In the middle of pitching/ presenting and someone pops in to our group. It all made for an interesting interaction and very meaningful professional composure.

For future exhibits I can see the online group setting being replaced with a physical booth. Maybe the use of refreshments to attract visitors to stop by. Use brochures/ flyers to give a synopsis of the concept, and a business card attached (in the event a visitor to the exhibit will want to work together in the future).

Overall this was a meaningful experience and took a lot of preparation in the form of prototype development to get there. “Labor omnia vincit” Hard work overcomes all difficulties!

Video Editing

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* Blender Editing

* Phone Recordings

Over the weekend I had a little visitor come by. One of the participants of my field work visited me to test the final prototype along with her mom and sister. The participant is aged 4 (within the intended age range of users this concept is being designed for) and her sister is age 8. I already had the Interactive Colour Mixing Carpet out and ready to go for when they arrived. When participant and her family came in she expressed excitement and jumped on the carpet. I briefly explained the instructions for using the carpet:

1. The character wants to collect coins
2. He needs your help to change his colour so that he can collect the coins
3. Use the paintballs or gloves provided to change his colour.

I then played the role of teacher/ instructor guiding the activity. She would tell me which coin she wants to collect and I will move the character accordingly. Then she proceeds to colour in. Her actions and flow of using the carpet says that the interaction is pretty intuitive even for this young target audience. She noticed the coin counter going up each time she collected a coin. Surprisingly afterwards she initiated conversation with her older sister as she explained the colours she had mixed to get another and therefore able to collect coins. This is surprising as this is specifically one of the measures outlined in the prototype document to indicate the success of this project. To see whether the child opens up a conversation about colour theory, mixing colours, and being able to predict the colour outcome of mixing two colours.

Playful Interaction

There are other features of the game that she interacted with as well. The birds were flying in the background and she played with them by trying to catch them, jump behind them as moved, and ran from them.

This engaged the child with even more physical movement while using the concept. Again, physical movement is one of the key factors identified in literature reviews to boost creativity and innovation. Physical Movement along with Interaction with Colours are the main components of this concept to encourage creativity in children ages 4-6 years old.

Open CV

I implemented Open CV hand detection using the following resources: https://github.com/NydanTheReal/OFW . It was a bit choppy in its implementation to be honest and did not interact fluently with game objects such as the birds. Also to use this feature the child had to stand infant of my laptop and not over the actual mat. I could observe that this feature (or maybe how it was implemented) does not readily appeal to my target audience. This is because instead of standing infront my laptop and cautiously moving her hand, the participant kept running over to to carpet, jumping on it and trying to interact with game objects there instead of standing up and moving her hands infront of my laptop.

Forms of Physical Interaction

The choice of keeping the glove interaction proved two this also. That is, it did encourage collaboration as the participant and her sister worked together in one round of testing. This was all up to them, without adult suggestion or input, as they decided to work together to collect coins. It made for a fascinating interaction I must say.

The interactions and testing were recorded and edited for the final prototype demonstration that will be on the Portfolio website for this concept.

Annotated Portfolio (Website)

* Interactive Website HTML, CSS, JavaScript

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4o2ZU7gO8U

Faced with a number of challenges here as files are just disappearing from my projects and also from my website. After days of troubleshooting with Ben’s help we eventually realized the files are being uploaded to iCloud in the middle of my work and each time it did this, I had to download the file and try working on it. Even though we figured out the problem it didn’t follow with a solution. Each time I really had to work on my unity project as though I hadn’t completed before. The same for editing prototype video and working on my website. The temporary fix was to edit it online, incredibly tricky I might add.

Either way, I was able to get things running temporarily and most importantly for the exhibit to come. I have tested OBS with my phone as an additional camera and that works perfectly. Still nervous for the exhibit, especially with my devices but I am hoping for the best, I’m really excited, and I think it will be okay.

This week I also completed my section (summary) for the team report. Collectively we shared our approach to the problem space and possible contributions made. It would actually be really cool to see all four parts of our concept come together to form one big project. That would be interesting. Overall Reflection is that I am proud of the work we did to get us to this point in the course and to see the journey of developing our concepts.

Physical form of interaction:

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* Gloves to colour in the carpet

* Decide on a change of interaction

* Connect colours to keyboard

I needed to decide firmly on a physical interaction except gloves that would mimic the act of finger painting but without the need to remove the gloves when colour mixing. Essentially, the project is now at a stage where it is established that, the glove form of interacting can be a point of frustration for the young target audience. This is because each glove only represents one colour. There are three primary colours in total that will be used in colour mixing. As there are three colours to mix but the child/ participant can only actively use two gloves at a time (because they only have two hands) therefore this poses a problem to the use of the concept and may negatively impact the overall experience of participants. With the gloves they can use two at a time but may need to constantly switch between three gloves to facilitate colour mixing depending on the colour outcome they are trying to achieve.

I first looked at using cubes to represent the colours and to be used as colour in device in the concept however, this definitely didn’t not give a similar effect as painting with hands. Then I decided on claws, like Mr. Crabs from the cartoon Spongebob but this also showed that only two can be worn at a time. To alleviate the frustration that can come from wearing and switching between colour coded gloves/ claws, the object used to colour in should simply not be wearable but instead a simple pick up and put down to easily interchange colour choices.

With this new development in mind I have decided to represent the colour in objects using styrofoam ball. Each ball will be painted to identify they colour it represents. Then by pressing down on the ball on the character on the carpet, the child will be able to colour it in. The paintball interaction will be implemented as well as I will keep the initial glove interaction. Why? Because the game is intended to also encourage collaboration amongst peers. With a collaborative approach in mind, wearing only two gloves is sufficient where a third colour is required the participants can work together to colour in the character.

Arduino Leonardo as a keyboard

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I have already connected the colours to the keyboard. To facilitate an interaction that incorporates physical movement on the carpet, I have extended keyboard input using the Arduino Leonardo. This also made it easy for me to incorporate other modes of interaction because It was just a matter of adding pins to keyboard each time. With that said each keyboard key representing a colour (this was coded in the coin pick up C# script) was extended to a pin on the Arduino Leonardo. This was repeated for each colour input used in the game. The pictures below shows the setup using Arduino Uno however, it was replaced with the Arduino Leonardo for better keyboard functionalities.

!

Physical Position Detection

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* Install Kinect drivers on Window

* Upload a web Based Version on Concept to drive

* Access prototype on PC

* Connect Kinect

* Program Kinect position react to animation on carpet (big concern at the moment)

At this point I am wondering the significance of physical position detection in this concept. Initially, it was intended to enhance physical movement required to play the game. However, after implementing the main functionalities, the carpet does seem to be doing pretty good in terms of reaching the goals originally identified in the prototype documentation. I will spend sometime over the weekend to download the Kinect Drivers on my PC. The tutorials for this aspect are mainly on three dimensional spaces and this could be a problem as well. As a back-up plan I will also look into the option of implementing Open CV using my laptop’s webcam instead of the Kinect.

Implementing this phase was a big concern coming into this week but provided the actual functionality required of the concept is already integrated into the final delivery, I will approach this step of physical position detection cautiously.

Interactive Colour Mixing Carpet

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A carpet that facilitates a playful interaction with colour-mixing for children ages 4-6 years old.

* Define the character animation

* Character moves to the nearest coin (C#script)

* Character stays at coin for 20 seconds to be coloured in (C#script)

* Character idle animation at coin is jumping (C#script)

In terms of these tasks listed last week, this week I did the fine tuning of the character development. I first created the individual sprites for the character and this will be changed during game play as the participant uses gloves/ other forms of interaction provided to colour in the character. By now I thought “lets give the character a name”, but I guess not. Leaving it open for the children to decide each time they play seems fun.

I have had to deal with some storage issues that causes the application not to work properly as well as assets within the game would just disappear. I’m not certain why this is happening with this concept and my other Unity3D project at the moment but I have backups uploaded to Google Drive as a result.

I have gone ahead and define the scripts for character game interaction. The images below represent this work done.

I adjusted the coin collection script because I added tags to to the coin and tags the sprites in Unity3D. This way the coin collection script detects that both character tag and coin tag are the same to facilitate a successful coin pick up. I have implemented the character control and the colour in feature with C# Script. This allows the participant to move the character in the game scene. This function is however meant to be for the teacher, instructor, or parent who is directing or guiding the learning process. This is supported by the literature review conducted earlier on in this project.

The initial intention was to have the character roam about the game scene freely but stopping at the nearest coin awaiting user interaction where the child would colour it in so that the character can collect the coin. This required no interaction from the person guiding the activity. Instead, I have incorporated as another collaborative aspect that allows the guidance of a teacher (or person in similar position) to actively engage in the process.

Physical Carpet

1. Plane white display
2. Projection

I have acquired the above items in Week 6 and therefore already procured for the remainder of prototype development through to exhibition.

First things first, I have downloaded, installed, and tested out OBS for Discord Exhibition. Testing wasn’t successful at this time because it requires that the phone I am using for secondary camera to have an IP camera app. There was a challenge to source and download an application that supports that on my phone. I got that done but still, OBS is not detecting the IP camera that is on the same network so I will have a look at that again.

A second problem that is persisting at the moment regarding the exhibit is my inability to successfully share screens during testing sessions with my team mates. I will also need to revisit this.

Following testing the set up for exhibit, I have outlined a plan for the completion of the prototype and course as well. It is much more detail/ specific than previous plans, reminds me of my initial plan in the teams proposal document where I outlined how I intended to carry out the project. The image below shows the first plan I made in the project proposal.

The plan below however I think definitely reflects a more informed approach to the completion. By this time I had carried out more fieldwork, conducted more literature reviews, accessed technical development resources such as Arduino, Unity3D, Kinect, and tutorials to guide the development. Below is the “Guide to completion” as I call it. How I intend to finish the race called PhysComp 2020!

Plan to complete PhysComp

• Professional Journal Entries (until Jun 22, 2020 23:00)

* Upload Weeks 10 and 11 Entires (May 22, 2020 23:00)

* Upload Week 12 entries (May 29, 2020 23:00)

* Upload Week 12 entries (June 5, 2020 23:00)

* Upload Week 12 entries (Jun 12, 2020 23:00)

* Upload Week 12 entries (Jun 19, 2020 23:00)

• Final Delivery - Individual (12 Jun 20 17:00 )

* Define the character animation

* Character moves to the nearest coin (C#script)

* Character stays at coin for 20 seconds to be coloured in (C#script)

* Character idle animation at coin is jumping (C#script)

* Speak with Lorna about deploying the web version for exhibit participants participation

* Physical Carpet

* Plane white display

* Projection

* Gloves to colour in the carpet

* Decide on a change of interaction

* Connect colours to keyboard

* Grounded glove

* Arduino Leonardo as a keyboard

* Physical Position Detection

* Install Kinect drivers on Window

* Upload a web Based Version on Concept to drive

* Access prototype on PC

* Connect Kinect

* Program Kinect position react to animation on carpet (big concern at the moment)

* Video Editing

* Blender Editing

* Phone Recordings

* Annotated Portfolio (Website)

* Interactive Website HTML, CSS, JavaScript

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4o2ZU7gO8U

• Final Delivery Report - Team (12 Jun 20 17:00 )
• Critical Reflection - Individual (22 Jun 20 17:00 )

Literally as I look over the above outline, it has made the work ahead very clear for me. I have a clear idea of what is to be done and the order in which to do them to optimise efficiency.

Recap

Interactive Colour Mixing Carpet (ICMC)

One sentence: An animated interactive carpet that introduces colour mixing to PreK children.

Whew! Okay I can feel the adrenaline and anxiety for getting this done but it shouldn’t be too difficult, I suppose.

ICMC is intended to be a colour mixing carpet that introduces colour theory to Year 1 students. It will do so by having an animated character going around the scene collecting coins. The motivation for the little ones to engage in colour mixing is that they cannot collect the coins until they make the character match the coin they want to collect. How will they make the character match the coin? By using interactive gloves (still being revised), cubes (also being revised) that tare colour coded to colour in the character. By using just one colour (primary colour), they can colour in the character with said colour. However, if they need to collect a coin that has a secondary colour then they will need to combine colours to colour in the character. It sounds complicated at the moment but it is actually really simple.

For the next few weeks I have the following tasks on my list to improve the prototype.

1. Reserve more time for video editing
2. Soldering and Kinect Connection this Friday
3. Spend time first getting things done I need help with (like connecting and coding Arduino)

Worked on multiplayer feature using Photon Networking

On a side note use the same feature for a VR project I am working on as well

Will try adopting player to move independently of each other

I reached out to Finland Education Experts and invited them to the exhibit that will happen on June 14. It was quite interesting and nerve racking for some reason but, I actually had the experience of pitching the concept professionally. I don’t know how to describe this experience really except it was productive, effective, and meaningful. It reminds me of the marketplace of a Makerspace environment. Really cool stuff. I am looking forward to the exhibit and excited about my family being able to see some of the work I have done as well as industry professionals.

At this point I am curious about how the exhibit will be online like, will we be able to record it, how will we showcase/ demonstrate our work? Also, will it be individual or simultaneously presented? I guess I am just concerned about the the natural flow of things, how the group will be presented, how will visitors participate in the exhibit. I guess I have a lot of questions surrounding this but it will be up to our team to iron this out together. I am confident that we will.

In terms of how I will setup for the online exhibit, I already have a layout in mind of how the concept will be projected, and presented. I would like to enhance the presentation a little and I am going with the suggestion of one of our tutors, Clay, to use OBS for video transition and dual camera display. I will set this up next week and see how it works.

I have a great appreciate the support we get pretty much around the clock regarding course content. Last week I spent most of the time working on Seminar presentation for thesis project. After this week I will be able to focus more on PhysComp submissions, and more specifically identify the prototype deadlines. Essentially, assess where the prototype is and where it needs to be for the upcoming exhibit.

Remember to site all sources: audio, code, inspiration, sources for video, literature contribution. I had to make a note of this because this has been a big project. A lot of tutorials have informed how I’ve coded some aspects of the ICMC and this will be pretty big to put together. It’s not necessarily difficult but it has been quite a lot resources used to inform the concept so I will organize how I document this information.

Neopixels to be included: changing lights in the box/cubes

https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-neopixel-uberguide/the-magic-of-neopixels

Format, singles powered by Arduino

At this stage the major concern for the project is the form of the physical interaction. That is, what physical objects will be used to interact with the carpet interface. This has posed a problem as a result of the feedback received from the video prototype appraisals. The challenge pointed out was that the glove form of interaction can be a point of frustration for the young target audience. As a result of pointing this out I am revising the form at this stage of the project.

There is a justification attached to the form of interaction being gloves. An activity common with being creative for children ages 3-5 is that they enjoy finger painting activities. They enjoy using their hands, getting their hands messy while playing with paint. It presents multiple dimensions of this activity and its contribution to the direction of the Interactive Colour-Mixing Carpet(ICMC). Finger painting not only uses hands for interaction but it also introduces playful interaction with colours and colour mixing.

The whole interaction and concept of finger painting informed the decision to use gloves as a form of interaction for the ICMC. However, based on feedback received I am revising this form. The major challenge here is to revise the form of interaction while maintaining the “essence” of finger painting interaction. That is, the use of hands to playfully interact with colours and colour mixing.

In an effort to maintain this playfulness I started by investigating colour coded cubes instead of the gloves for interacting with the carpet. I adapted this more of interaction from one of the concepts inspiring the ICMC and that is called “Connecting Train Block”. The interaction is depicted in the video below.

The new intention here is, I will use blocks representing its colour with neo-pixel lights (in a sense the light will be in the box and therefore a light box/ light cube).

Going over the appraisals and further comments received there are two main considerations going forward to improve the concept as well as the overall user experience with Interactive Colour-Mixing Carpet (ICMC). The first to consider is the primary colour code standard being used by this concept and secondly, the nature and impact of the glove interaction.

The concept is being developed with Unity3D and Arduino. I have adopted the standard additive primary colours of using light red, green blue, (more frequently referred to as RGB). Initially this would be an easier way of implementing the prototype of ICMC because the Virtual Colour Mixer component that is apart of the Arduino IDE package uses this standard. Also, it was much easier to find tutorials that uses RGB averaging to mix colours in Unity3D. However I feel this was a major oversight on my part. I started focusing on what resources a re available to develop the prototype when instead I should have maintained considerations for the users and the findings from initial research.

Some of the initial findings indicated that children felt more creative and engaged their imagination when playing with colours more specifically, colouring and painting. This was informed from the initial round of cultural probes to inform the collective group effort and approach to creative learning. The individual direction of ICMC is introducing colour theory to Year 1 students (or children ages 4-6) in a playful an open-ended interaction sort of way. It pulls from the finger painting activity that is popular among that age group.

That said, let me bring this mistake I made full circle. The RGB are standard additive colour of light. It is still colour-mixing but really, as informed by interviews, observations, literature reviews and cultural probes responses, this standard of colour mixing does not appeal to this young target audience. Parents mentioned in the interviews their children like interacting with bright colours, and that they like painting. The primary colours I should be focusing on are Red, Yellow, and Blue. As determined by the image below.

https://sciencing.com/color-theory-kids-terms-5366742.html

The feedback in appraisals of the ICMC concept pointed this out thankfully. It was pretty easy I guess to have started focusing on the build of the prototype. That shift my focus on what resources were available but this significantly impacted the concept achieving its goal of introducing colour theory to Year 1 students. Now, however, I am able to refocus on my target audience in a meaningful and effective way. Had this aspect of determining which standard of primary colours to use gone unnoticed, I can see the possibilities of significantly impacting the learning outcomes of the ICMC in a negative way.

This week I got to see the feedback which people gave to my project by looking at my video, and reading my document. They had many good suggestions and ideas regarding my prototype. I already thought so many other possibilities once I read their comments.

So the biggest concern regarding my project was the competition among the children and how it can make them sort of cheat and make them throw the garbage in the wrong side of the bins (non-recyclable waste in the recyclable ones) in order to gain more advantage over other classrooms. To tackle this I had to come up with another method of taking their input. I decided I didn't want any competition among the children, and wanted this to be a collaborative effort to bring a change to the environment. This is because after all the main motive is to make the build a good habit, and due to this distracting competition, the product might loose its actual objective.

Some comments also suggested me to make a camera system which would detect if a garbage was recyclable or not. I think would a very complex system to make, and would probably require a big team to work towards it, but as my team was working on individual solutions to the problem space.

I thought I would talk to my tutors about this. They suggested a possibility of making a system which would detect the colour of the object, and later I can simulate it to show that it is detecting different items. I think this could work with the current system I have. But of course, I have to work with sound as an output as well before I can move any forward.

Ofcourse during this time, I just feel working towards a common solution would have been a lot less stressful as this is a 4 unit course. I think we as a team could have achieved a lot more by this point if we were to work together. But even after I had asked my teammates to work together earlier, they suggested that we worked on individual solution, which in my perspective wasn't the best way for this course. I think we as a team also lacked proper leadership. Leadership not in a sense where a leader has divide work or anything like that, but someone who would make sure that the team works together and come up with a solution to any problem no matter what. I would have taken this role during the starting, but as I am already doing 10 units this semester, I was already overflowing with work (and the stress which comes with it).

Anyhow the team still managed to keep contact from time to time.

You can also see the 'globe' i ended up making due to the lack of time.

Reflection (my submission):

After I completed making my first prototype, I recorded the different parts of the video using my phone. I asked my flatmate to be a part of it and do the actual demonstration. I thought that would be a better way to represent rather than me using my own product for demo. I also asked a few questions to the user regarding my product.

Overall I think the video was of a very good quality with both goof audio and video.

During the studio, we were meant to give detailed critique to a 3 other assigned teams. We decided to watch the videos one by one per team and read each document and give critique before moving onto the next person's video and document. I think this was a good and quick method. As we all waited for each other to complete writing our critiques, we were getting more detailed ideas and improvements for the projects we were looking at. What I had from previous courses as well was that the best way to give feedback was if I pointed at something that I didn't found the best, I suggest a better or a different way. This way, the person would be able to think about other ideas as well.

After we went through all of them, We thought it'd be best if we divided all the individual project's critiques that we all wrote and basically summarised the points. In the end, we all got to summarise 3 to 4 appraisals. This didn't take too much time as we all had written good, valid points for the appraisals.

Conclusion

In this last week's work, I mainly focused on the final appearance of the product and dedicated to the completion of the web page.

appearance Problems

In order to make the appearance of the bracelet and base station more like finished products, I adopted different strategies to transform the appearance of the bracelet and base station.

The appearance modification of the bracelet:

For the appearance of the bracelet, I used a streamlined method, that is, removing the extra wires as much as possible, but the problem I encountered in the actual operation was that the jumper I purchased was made of fixed leads and connections Composition, which makes it impossible for me to adjust the length of the lead at will. Moreover, because the pins on both ends of the lead are too long, I can’t keep this kind of pin in the final product. This is because too long a pin will make the final The height of the product is too high.

Finally, in order to make the final product image of the bracelet more beautiful, I can only give up the use of pins. After cutting the wire after removing the pin to a suitable length, strip the end of the wire and use it directly. This operation cost me a lot of Time, this is because in the process of directly installing wires without using pins, I found it difficult to fix the wires without pins on the breadboard itself.I can only use glue guns and electric welding to fix the leads.

In the final product, I used a paper box to wrap the outside of the bracelet, so that I could cover the traces of the glue gun and the tin tint, so as to make the final product more beautiful.

Main functions from web info

For the appearance modification of the base station:

For the base station, I don’t think it needs a compact space, so I put the base station into a square box by design. In this case, a slightly larger box design can allow the base station to occupy more Desktop space, so that the base station can immediately attract the user's attention when the alarm is triggered. On the other hand, in order to try to add a user reward mechanism for the base station, I plan to transform the top of the base station into a display screen to show the recorded user success The number of "stand up".

The reward mechanism is removed:

Due to the large amount of time spent locking webpages and designs, the user reward mechanism of my original plan was ultimately unachievable. In my original plan, I planned to use a simple 8-digital display as a point system to record users’ use of this The number of products. As an alternative, I use the method of manual counting on the front of the base station to simulate the user reward system.

Done what?

1. Ongoing revision and preparation of the website design
2. send videos and explanatory messages of the test prototype to surrounding friends and others in the field to get detailed feedback
3. made a bomb game, reset feature and buzz music feature.

Reflection.

The end result still removes the reset feature and buzz music. There are several reasons for this.

While resetting features can be better for creating a comfortable environment to use, the project itself is designed to inhibit this from happening. For example, is it possible for a user to pretend to be in a meeting if there is no meeting to pause the feature 3 times per day Opportunity. This will still perpetuate the user's laziness and lack of exercise. In addition, the program itself is forced to require the user to achieve an act of 'getting up' and is wearing a ' The 'bothering' element. Finally, many interviewees mentioned increased effectiveness by removing the reset feature, and increased comfort by not removing it.

buzz Music, this was one of the easier but most tedious points for us to produce. Half of the comments said we should have the buzz, but the other half said we need to prioritize 'workplace'. friendly'. Ultimately, after discussing this with Zebing, it was concluded that while the work environment also influences and drives other people, it is ultimately an Office space. We will always keep this feature and it depends on the situation. This means that the buzz feature may be used in different locations, by different people or in different ways.

idea video

YouTube - Need the video id from the URL - the bit after watch?v=

Actual video

YouTube - Need the video id from the URL - the bit after watch?v=

My website link is here

Extra Work & Insipration

Report Back

What have you achieved in the last week towards your prototype goals?

My theme is digital sensation and creative learning and my goal is to create a product which teaches its target audience a good habit. The good habit being disposing of any waste and garbage properly. My target audience are children going to school of age between 6 - 16 years. Since last week, I went to the workshop and clay helped me get a new Arduino as there was some problem last week with my Arduino. Once I got my new Arduino, I worked on connecting a NEOpixel ring. Once I connected it and it started working, I next connected the 2 ultrasonic sensors and made sure that those were detecting things properly.

What are the last-minute tasks you need to complete before prototype submission next Monday?

Before submission of my prototype, I need to make sure that the ultrasonic sensors and the lights work together. Basically I need the light to change whenever either one of the ultrasonic sensors are used.

To be specific, I need the colour of the neopixel ring to turn into red when the non-recyclable waste ultrasonic sensor is interacted and turn green when the recyclable waste ultrasonic sensor interacted. As I have already made sure that the colour change is slow and is done in a smooth motion, it should be easy to connect the 2 devices properly.

What are your concerns/needs in regard to getting those done?

What could be a greater concern than both the devices that I talked about in the previous question not working together? That being my greatest concern, I just have to assemble the prototype itself as well, which shouldn't take much time as I a box and a plank which I will be using to make the 'Globalzoo', the bin itself.

Prototype Development:

Other than the functionality, I have to figure a way out to show the globe itself. I can either make use of a translucent paper and cut into a circle and draw the earth itself on it or I can but a spherical glass lamp of some kind. I am not entirely sure if the cardboard box will be able to hold the weight of the lamp. But the amount of time I have left, I think for this prototype, I will just go with the first option of using the translucent paper.

Implement of hardware and functions

In this week's work, I mainly focused on the complete the product in hardware and functions. In this week's work, I mainly added the snooze function to the product and replaced the pressure sensor on the bracelet with the button.

At the same time, I started trying to make a webpage that shows products for exhibition week.

The addition of Button

In this week's work, I replaced the pressure sensor with a button. At the same time, in order to achieve the snooze function, I added an additional button to specifically control the snooze function. In the original plan, the "start timing" function and the "snooze" function is integrated into the same button. Under this scenario, when the bracelet is not in the counting state, pressing the button will start the counting. When the bracelet is in the alarm state, pressing the same button will trigger the snooze state. However, in the actual implementation process, I found that this function is difficult to achieve at the code level. The main reason is that the bracelet and the base station are in a cycle of continuous transmission and reception of signals, In this case, there is no effective way to determine whether the user will trigger the "start timer" function or the "snooze" function when the button is pressed. Therefore, I can only use two different buttons to control the "start timer" And "snooze" separately.

The addition of Snooze function

In the previous test, I also received some feedback that the buzzer sound from the base station is too noisy, and expect to reduce some of the volumes. This gave me the inspiration to add the snooze function. Snooze is a function that allows users to delay the alarm from the base station. When the base station starts alarming, if the user has urgent work to be completed, or the user is in another situation which the user cannot leave the desk, the user can choose to use the snooze function. After pressing the snooze button, the current alarm state of the base station will be temporarily cancelled, then entering a waiting state, the waiting time is set to about 5 minutes, users can use this period of time to complete unfinished work and leave the desktop when the alarm sounds again.

In order to achieve the snooze function, I use a counting function similar to the trigger alarm function. However, unlike the alarm state, which is achieved by the signal exchange between the bracelet and the base station, the timing state of the Snooze function is completely on the bracelet Realized. By turning on the snooze state, the bracelet sends a "normal working" signal to the base station, and at the same time, cancels the vibration of the bracelet itself and resets the LED light status. After the snooze time is over, the base station sends the "time out" again to trigger the alarm, the base station triggers the alarm after receiving the signal, and responds to the bracelet "time out" signal, then the bracelet starts to vibrate, and the LED light enters the alarm state.

Web page creation and problems

In order to better display my products, I think that using a good color scheme is the beginning of designing a webpage. After consultation with other members of the group, we unanimously decided to use gray and black as the main colors of our webpage, and Choose one other color as the characteristic color to distinguish each of us.

It has been a great semester and I want to say thank you to Lorna and all the tutors who helped carry this course even during all this Corona virus shenanigan. Thanks you all and see you next semester.

Exhibition:

This week was our exhibition week and we have completed our prototype and we are ready to present during the exhibition, here is a demo video for our prototype that I showed on my profile and my annotated portfolio,

in my opinion the exhibition went very well. initially I thought having only three visitors for our exhibition was because our prototype wasn't good enough, however after further investigation and talking to the teachers I realised that that was about the number everyone else got. since this whole exhibition was all online there weren't as many visitors as previous years. Here is our setup for the exhibition.

Anotated portfolio:

Alongside our final exhibition we also had to complete our annotated portfolio. For the development of the portfolio I used bootstrap to create my website with some basic JavaScript plugins such as smooth scrolling. Here are some photos of some of the section of what my portfolio looks like and here is the link

https://ixd-2020.uqcloud.net/rashid

Improvements based on feedback

In the prototype demonstration of Week 11, I got a lot of feedback, this feedback pointed out the current problems of my product. Based on these feedbacks, I plan to make the next improvement plan for my product.

Hardware change plan:

According to the feedback and my testing, the pressure sensor does not perform its function well. Therefore, I decided to replace the pressure sensor with a more convenient and intuitive button. Combined with the previous test, the main disadvantage of the pressure sensor is that it is too sensitive, It is easily affected by other factors and greatly changes the reading value. Since the pressure sensor in the Arduino kit provided by the course is not working, I can only buy the pressure sensor myself. Compared with the pressure sensor provided by the school, the pressure sensor purchased by myself is different. The point is that it has an additional integrated circuit board. This means that this pressure sensor will be much heavier than the other. According to my tests, this extra weight is likely to be the main reason for the pressure sensor’s insensitivity.

According to the data obtained by my test, when the user tilts the bracelet quickly, there is a high possibility that the reading data on the pressure sensor suddenly rises. I have been very careful during the test to ensure that the pressure sensor itself and his connection line are not in contact with other components. Under normal situation, the reading data on the pressure sensor floats around 100 ~ 300, but when the bracelet is suddenly tilted, the floating range of the reading may reach -50 ~ 450. Under such value fluctuations, It is very difficult to continue to use the pressure sensor. In the early experiments and calibration, I used a simple function to ensure that the final output reading of the pressure sensor became stable. However, considering that the user's final wearing experience, It will inevitably appear that the bracelet is quickly tilted. In this case, if I continue to use the pressure sensor, it may lead to unpredictable some bugs such as early start or termination of timing.

As a result, I finally decided to replace the pressure sensor with a simpler and more stable button. The pressure sensor's operating mechanism looks more cool. and compared with the small button, the pressure sensor has a larger interaction area. But the pressure sensor is too sensitive. The physical position of its location is very sensitive to changes. I think if I will have the opportunity to continue to use the pressure sensor in the future. I may install it on the fixed base station.

Reward mechanism plan:

Another important feedback I received was that as a product, I should think more about how to let users keep using my product for a long time. So far, all the functions of my product have been designed around the theme of "making annoying", this means that my product currently has no "direct benefit" to the user at all. It is foreseeable that there will be a great possibility that the user will no longer use my product in order to be "annoying" blindly. For this problem, I decided to add a certain reward mechanism to my product.

Since my product is currently on the theme of "instant punishment", that is, when the user sits for a long time, the user gets a noisy buzzer, whether the user chooses to use the snooze function or directly away, the impact from the buzzer is short. In contrast, I plan to use a "long-term reward mechanism" to increase the user's dependence on the product.

As a "long-term reward mechanism", it should include a recording system, and every time the user successfully leaves the signal range and waits for 5 minutes, it will be recorded as a successful "stand up". When the successful "stand up" is reached a certain number of times, users will be rewarded.

Appearance plan:

In addition to the function and hardware updates, I also noticed that there are many jumpers and wires on the current Prototype, which makes the entire product look like "unfinished". Therefore, in the future improvement, I should also consider adopting certain Design to make the final product not look like a prototype.