Reflect of this week

This week is the first week of online courses. There is a difference between online courses and on-campus courses, and it is difficult to adjust for a while. On the one hand, the time spent on the road is saved. But on the other hand, the class in zoom lacks interaction, especially among classmates. Of course, this may also be caused by the pitch content of this week. But this format did make me felt more tired.

Back to the pitch of our group, our group had planned to work together on a single project. We thought it was an interesting concept without thinking deeply. It did overlap with some existing products including games using Kinect and Leap Motion. We haven’t explored more possibilities for using the body to control some other things. Feedback from Alison and Clay mentions that we may be able to use some unusual control methods or get rid of gesture control, or even bring sign language and make controlling meaningful. Lorna ’s feedback mentions we might move away from the screen and couch, and we think it is very instructive. But I have to admit that we still feel very bottlenecked. We have two other group meetings this week after class. But in fact, the progress is not very smooth. Everyone suffered some blows after pitch and wanted to turn to personal directions. In a way, this will make our job easier for the rest of the semester. But in fact, most of us have not found a clear direction to go on, which kind of worries us.

What could have been done better

In fact, at this stage, each of us is still confused about what we are doing next. Ideation is the most difficult part of every project when I started my every semester. When we just formed the team, we all seemed a little too taken for granted, thinking that the idea of the gesture plane game we came up with was interesting. Perhaps we are too limited by such an idea that I want to make a game, so I have not explored existing products and papers. This led us to frustration and lost direction during the pitch phase. So, maybe, every time before presenting the idea to others, we should first get opinions from some potential users or experts, and not just addicted to our ideas may make us do better.

Work to do

Next week we want to confirm the feasibility of the direction we are currently proposing. Because after the course structure changed, we are not sure if this meets the requirements. Of course, we will start our proposal writing. We see the umbrella mode mentioned in the announcement email might be most suitable for our group, but we don't know how to integrate this model into the proposal because it asks us to talk about details of the project, such as integrated experience and how to engage users.

Inspired

One idea that I particularly like in pitch is Hasaki, an idea that uses sound to guide the player’s movement. This makes us rethink the output of our project and does not necessarily need to use the screen as a result. For example, the sound is a direction worth exploring, of course, it may be more than that. We are now considering providing users with a healthier and more dynamic control way that keep them from using screens too much.