The due date for the project proposal report is this Thursday and the majority of work this week was focused around completing it. Team Twisted had our usual Tuesday meeting where we brought up and queries or issues we were experiencing and discussed them with the team. A small issue I found when writing my individual report was the ordering of the structure. I found that through firstly explaining my change in focus, I had to bring up the reasons why these changes were made. When I then wrote my response to feedback section, I felt I was repeating large portions of the previous section. This was again the same with the discovery and project constraints. I discussed this with Lorna in the Wednesday studio and she approved using phrases such as "as discussed in the previous section" so that I would not have to reiterate certain sections.

In the studio we did a report back where I explained my finalised concept and talked further with my team afterwards. During the studio we worked on two activities. Firstly, we explored new way to conduct observations with the aim of observing passengers on commuter trains. This exercise prompted me to think about novel ways of conducting research and testing in the midst of a pandemic. Methods I highlighted included, using footage on social media, role plays, news footage, live streams, or body camera videos. All of these methods are very effective in place of normal methods and I will consider using them in my own project.

We also completed a mind map for our projects from a team perspective that got us to think about various elements of our concept:

Afterwards, we predominantly worked on finishing our report and preparing it for submission. The most helpful section of the report for me was doing the project plan for completion as it has aided me in planning my progress and required resources for the rest of the project.

Reflection:

Due to the report taking up most of my time this week, I didn’t get too far with my prototype. I did, however, do some investigation into the screen I could use to represent my "interactive wall". I have an iPad at home which would be perfect so I will aim to use that. I did some research into apps that allow users to draw such as Procreate, Sketch and Affinity and drew some inspiration from the methods and techniques that users can employ to create art. https://procreate.art/

On a conceptual level, the studio activities really helped me to flesh out my concepts and consider the various aspects that make up Twisted. When writing on our graph, each member listed information specific to their own concept. This was really interesting as it allowed me to see our different interpretations of the same overarching team domain, and even gain ideas from my fellow team mates.

The other studio exercise was also very useful and topical and allowed me to explore various forms of research to enable a successful background survey, even in a global pandemic. I will definitely be using some of the techniques later in the project when I have to complete user testing.

I am still unsure as to how I could then connect this to Unity to allow users to colour it in through using the Arduino buttons - I'll ask one of the tutors once classes resume after the midsem break.

Over the break I am going to start making buttons for the interactive mat and experiment to see what materials will best work for the buttons. I have previously used copper tape which worked well so hopefully I am able to buy some of that.