Monthly Archives: February 2018

Group 2 - Rene / Ummi

Week 5: Feedback

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From the in-class presentation last week, these are takeaways for us to work further and improve:

  1. We realised that our core message of the concept actually focused on the mixing and growth of the students within NTU — which explains why we wanted to work on the idea of the magnet repelling the spherical metal balls (visually represented by students of NTU) to allow the balls to move as a cluster around the map.
  2. That being said,  to further simplify our idea, we will represent the students and buildings of NTU into 3-dimensional shapes: spherical metal balls and rectangular solid respectively.
  3. With the chosen materials to be magnets, we will have to research on the different types of magnets. Neodymium magnets? Will it be raw or skinned?
  4. What are the mechanics of our project? How does it work?

With regards to #4, we were thinking of using solar panel to power the entire project.Input: Button of the different name of areas of the school

Output: Circuit is closed with the user’s touch –> magnets activated and repel the metal balls to move in all direction towards the chosen building that was selected.

5. What are the ways to attract to get the students to come and interact with the project? Look into how museum curators place the projects etc.

 

Group 2 - Rene / Ummi

Week 5: Further refinement

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From the previous week, we have received numerous feedback to further refine our concept.

Firstly, we have decided to focus on the concept of students being the seeds of NTU.

From the feedback of the architectural model in NTU admin building, we thought of including lights to the buildings. The light will lit up indicating the different school/building, and revealing its location within NTU.

NTU Architectural Model in Nanyang Admin Building
Source: http://ecocampus.ntu.edu.sg/SiteAssets/Pages/Ecocampus-Tour/Image_020.jpg
An example of how we thought the buildings can light up within the NTU map
Source: http://www.modelmakers-uk.co.uk/content/images/enlargeimags/interactive-cardiff-model.jpg

 

Next, we looked at the different ways of interactivity, as well as it being informative as a whole installation.  Taking into consideration that the game installation should be idiot-proof and break-proof.

We started of with a basic source of inspiration and ideation with known games.
After certain elimination of concepts, we came up with new methods of interactivity.
Which narrows down to what we have refined so far..

 

Basically, the idea: An interactive map that uses magnet repulsion resulting in the seeds moving as a cluster around the map.

  • Making the buildings into magnets
  • Seeds made of metal
  • Names of the areas of the school around the map (outer ring/boundary)
  • When user touch that particular name of the area, the building lights up to show the location hence it works like a regular map
  • Someone touches the piece, it completes the open circuit and magnets are activated
  • Magnets repel the seeds causing the seeds to move in all directions

What we’re planning to work on further: to have a test piece of the concept that we have refined, to see the proof of concept.

Group 2 - Rene / Ummi

Week 3: Concept Development

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After Week 2, we re-looked at the concept and thought we would want to have a concept that worked around a recreation space in NTU.

We had 2 ideas at this point:

  1. Inspired by mushrooms as they grow in clusters, similar to how we had the impression of the students in NTU from Week 2: bond and having circle of friends.

This idea we were looking at was a health and fitness area + recreational space.  We had the thought of a glow-in-the-dark during night time.

 

2. A gathering point, inspired by petai beans to bring together students/staffs.

After receiving feedbacks, we realised that we were missing out the story behind the concept.

Group 2 - Rene / Ummi

Week 2: Cardboard exercise

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Working with only cardboard & words

First word: Rain

With the word ‘rain’, I thought of muddy grass patch — the darker tone being the depressed mud aka footprint versus the lighter tone around it.

 

Second word: Angry Wind

What does angry wind do? How does it look like? The layers are on the verge of being completely detached/torn of from the entire cardboard piece (like patience level running out), and those layers are crumpled.

 

Narrative: Pinocchio flying out of a whale’s spout

(if I remember correctly, that was the narrative that was given….)

I decided to just focus on the action of the water coming out of the whale’s spout.