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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.

Video editing and document writing

This week I've spent writing the prototype document and editing both my own and the teams video presentations. It took a lot more effort and time than I anticipated, but its mostly because I wanted it to look and feel professional so I spent extra time adding elements to improve the overall experience. I started with filming the parts that needed live footage from both the building and interacting with the prototype. I then made some animations in after effekts so illustrate what the narration was talking about. I think my video ended up being pretty good at least I'm quite happy with it.

Going forward

I've been thinking a lot about what kind of improvements I can add to my prototype after the presentation on Tuesday as I've concluded the basic intended interaction + added some additional features. As mentioned before I conducted a user testing which provided useful feedback. Not only for my prototype but also for the the concept in general. Several additional features was suggested and some could be relatively easy to add and will increase the user experience. What I think is the most important element to remember is to keep the concept user friendly.

I hope the presentation on Tuesday will go well and that my team and I will be able to write good appraisals relatively quick since there are a lot that will be happening going forward.

For this week I have been focused on creating the individual and team video in addition to writing the prototype document for delivery.

Studio

In Tuesday's session, we had our regular Stand-up. As with most weeks, there's not much to say about the stand-up. We talk about where we were at with our prototype, what we had recently achieved, last-minute tasks and concerns. I had in the previous week finalised my prototype and started to conduct user research. I've noticed that it's rather difficult to get testers these days as both Thomas and I combined have only been able to recruit a few. My guess is that people do have a lot going on these days. As for week 9, it was mostly going to be spent working on the submission itself and I didn't really have any concerns around the delivery.

After Studio

After the studio, we had a short team meeting to discuss who was going to work on what parts for the team-based sections of the assessment. Thomas and I were to create a script for the team-based video and for the interaction plan whereas Tuva was going to record a voice-over and draw the interaction plan. We decided that Marie could put the video together once all elements were in place.

Workshop

The workshop was rather uneventful. Few people showed up and it took a long time before we got started. Once started there didn't seem to be a plan of content other than the tutors being available if we needed help. Given that I did not need any help I kept on working with my deliverables.

After Workshop

On Thursday we had a short meeting to discuss the interaction paradigm of our concept and then went on to work more on the deliverables.

Rest of the Week

By Friday Thomas and I had filmed some footage to put in our team-based video and handed that off to Marie for her to put it in the video. For the rest of the week, I mostly worked on my individual prototype document and video. This week was pretty straight forward. The most confusing and difficult part was to analyse and understand what we actually were meant to have in the video and supporting document as descriptions were a bit vague and abstract, resulting in a lot of back and forth to get it right. As for my own video, I had to redo a couple of video clips as I found out I had filmed it in the wrong orientation and then later found out I had to few clips to fill out the movie. So, I decided to shoot some filler clips.

Lastly, I took Sunday off just to have a breather as I've been struggling with a severe lack of motivation lately.