Author Archives: Ivan

Class notes 12/17 Final Day

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Today was the final day of class. We spent the class doing presentations.

Group order
1) Board Game Group
2) Video Game Group
3) Student Success Group
4) App Group
5) CIA Group

1) The board game is designed for children to get their interest in electrical engineering
They developed and passed the game around
Played a video
lack of electrical engineers and potential effect that would have is their rational
2 manuals, the game and question/fun fact cards are their deliverables

2) The video game group creating game and manual
first person horror game, set in the mid 19th century
research done into architecture and game mechanics
The game will involve stealth, light puzzle solving, encounters with dangerous creatures with no combat system, as well as exploration
the goal was to provide entertainment for the audience and challenge them

3)Student success group was not satisfied with graduation rate and transfer rate
created a survey to figure out the problem
create a series of strategic questions that will ultimately show some sort of correlation that will assess these areas.
as ethnicity, income, age, possible dependents, family matters, and  5 point scale questions that will ask about the satisfaction of education, facilities, and school services such as job placement help, tutoring, etc
each question will also give the survey taker a chance to comment about the survey
got results after the survey mostly expected results

4) APP group
not happy with city tech website
everything is hard to get to
app combines the information of the website with the ease of using an app
do a survey to see what students want most in an app
has an agreement to sign to protect themselves
will run only on iOS
aimed towards new and current students

5) CIA group
goal is to educate people about the city tech technology club (promotion and support of the City Tech computer club.)
the most students who join the club the more students and club will benefit
the club is for all majors but only some CST know about it
created a survey and and memo

Ivan, Enrique, Iurii, Rene Minutes

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Meeting minutes 12/01/2014
12:30 PM – 1:13 PM

Attendees (Skype)
Ivan Kelemen, Enrique Bisono, Iurii Druchuk, Rene Alcon
Scribe
Ivan Kelemen
Agenda
● Discuss Rules / Manual combo layout (both teacher and student edition)
● Readjust the design of the game to fit new materials
● Research into question cards for the kids
● Talk about the write up we will need to do
● We discussed the layout of the new manuals. They will be different between the kids version and the teachers edition. We also are beginning to organize the research we have better and categorize it for what we will need. (ie. some research will be used for the manuals but won’t be used for the write up that we will need)
● After doing research into plastic materials we found some that work for us. We had to change the design around to meet the size restrictions of the material that we have now. Rene will begin
working on the new design while Ivan decides on a better name for the game and a logo.
● We have all collected the research to begin writing the cards. We talked about the style we will make them. There will be a variety used, some of them will be funny and taken from fantasy and other will be very realistic and based strictly from the real world. We think a good balance of these is very important.
● Lastly we talked about the grueling write up we will have to. we are deciding how we will split the work up and who will handle what. we currently only decided how to approach it and nothing more as of yet. Next time we can talk, we will write an outline after we find out more info from the professor.
Adjournment

The meeting ended at 1:13 PM

Ivan, Rene, Enrique, Iurii Agenda#4

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Ivan, Rene, Enrique, Iurii
Agenda#4
Prof. Belli
12/01/2014
Agenda for the meeting on 12/01/2014:
● Discuss rules and manuals for both audiences, teacher and student editions;
● Design and layout of both manuals;
● Talk about the possible design issues and make adjustments to resolve them;
● Discuss game’s construction and some material use;
● Do research for flashcards;
● Come up with more ideas about the flashcards and their use(teachers edition);
● Talk about the write up we will need to do.
Some thoughts for the next meetings:
● Meet with Prof. Belli;
● Labor division;
● Adjusting our deliverables(manuals/rules) considering suggestions.

Ivan, Iurii, Rene, Enrique Progress Report#4

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Ivan, Iurii, Rene, Enrique
Progress Report#4
Prof. Belli
12/2/2014
Because the previous week our group has worked mostly on the board game itself, the
week of 11/25/2014­12/2/2014 we have dedicated most of our efforts into the planning of
writeups and deliverables, which are two manuals/instructions and rules.
● While meeting on Monday, we have all discussed and shared ideas about the layout of
the manuals and rules, as well as instructions, which are still to come;
● We have as well made some enhancements to the game itself, which improved overall
look and playing experience of the game;
● Ivan has given Rene more interesting materials, such as plastic glass, which Rene is
making fit into the game. In general, we have decided to make the game insides
visible to kids, so that they will have more interest of it, and eventually of electrical
engineering.
● Enrique as well has made research about the field itself, and about some of the best
practices of the electrical engineering, which we are going to use in both game
building and as an information to educate our target audience;
● We have been working with the gathered researches. Iurii has started to work on
questions and more facts to put on flash cards;
● We have decided that for now our questions and answers are going to be about the
field of electrical engineering itself and as well about adjacent disciplines like physics
and science. This will be done to demonstrate the prototype of our board game;
●  We are still going to research some sources about the how to best ask questions and
educate children in this form;
● Ivan actively gathers and brainstorms about the best layouts to use for our manuals
and rules.
Overall, our group this week is mostly working on the deliverables. Because most of
the board game is done, we just have minor design and game layout enhancements to make. Now our efforts are focused on the deliverables and final write ups, as we are approaching to the final stretch. Manuals and the big write up that the professor will tell us more about

Meeting Minutes #3 Ivan, Iurii, Enrique, Rene

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Meeting minutes        11/21/2014

8:30 PM – 9:17 PM

Attendees (Skype)

Ivan Kelemen, Rene Alcon, Iurii Druchuk

Scribe

Ivan Kelemen

Agenda

  • Discuss Rules / Manual combo
  • Discuss the “teacher edition” manual
  • Plan out putting the prototype together
  • Talk about the PowerPoint
  • We first went over what we talked about with Prof. Belli. We decided that the rules we planned to do for the students will turn in a manual. First and foremost, we will list an intro to the game. Next, we will have the game rules. Following that, we will put a list of the materials and explain how the game (from a technical sense) works. This should be more entertaining for the kids and it will give us a chance to deliver a better… deliverable.
  • The second thing talked about was the “teacher edition” manual. This will be like the kids manual, but much more in depth. Ivan and Rene suggested to take lots of pictures of the board-game being put together and to include these in the manual. We all discussed what kind of research we will need to do to supplement this manual. Along with our rational, we will include research to back up why this game will help kids and different ways the teacher can utilize the game to help them.
  • Enrique mentioned the materials we will need to put the prototype together. The full game will be 3 player and for the prototype we will put together one side of the game. Just enough to show our concept.
  • The last thing on the agenda is the PowerPoint. We decided that Ivan will go first and handle the introductions, rational…etc. Rene will go next and talk about the design and putting the game together and how it will benefit the kids. Then Enrique will go and talk about materials and why we chose them and how the game will work. Last but not least will be Iurii. He will talk more about the research we are doing into board-games and how kids learn. Then he will go over the question cards we will have and give a few examples.

Adjournment

As the class ended at 9:17pm. Created a GoogleDrive document for the PowerPoint presentation and got started on that

Agenda#3 Ivan, Rene, Enrique, Iurii

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Agenda for the meeting on 11/21/2014:

 

  • Discuss Rules / Manual combo
  • Discuss the “teacher edition” manual
  • Plan out putting the prototype together
  • Talk about the PowerPoint: decide on order and parts.
  • Set deadlines for presentation deliverables
  • Virtually meet to work on slides content in google documents
  • Find ways to make research facts interesting for kids, but also accurate

Progress Report#3 Ivan, Rene, Enrique, Iurii

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The week of 11/18/2014-11/25/2014 has been a very significant, because as we had much more time Following things were done during and between our class on 11/19/2014 and as well our meeting, which was on Friday virtually. Some of the most significant progresses are:

  • the research implementation. As a suggestion of Prof. Belli, we have decided to include facts in the game flashcards. Some of the facts may be paraphrased in order to make them more fun for children, for instance:”The word engineer comes from a Latin word meaning ‘cleverness’. ” and more in this manner. So Iurii Has been doing the research part, and has gathered facts, some of which will be presented in presentation;
  • We have  as well, as it was planned, started to build a prototype of the game. As it was decided earlier in the class, Enrique has gotten all of the parts and supplies needed in order to assemble the backbone of the game and present it to the class. It will be able to illustrate how the electric part will operate in the game;
  • We have as well started on planning of our deliverables, which will have two main components. As we have decided it will be for kids and separate for teachers. We already started on doing it, this week, starting with our research and it’s relation to the game.
  • This week, we also have took pictures of the process of assembly, so that we will create a better readable manual for teachers. Pictures were taken by Enrique and Rene, as they have most of the process done.
  • As well Ivan, has been doing design of the deliverables and rules. He also had ideas about the presentation, so he has created the file and layout, while Rene, Enrique and Iurii had written in the content each for their own part and Ivan for his.


To wrap it all, most of the work of this week, we have dedicated to the physical parts, assembly and design of the game to start working on the fully functional prototype. As well for the documentation parts gathering all of the necessary info. and components like images and illustration for our audience. Finally, we together have worked on the presentation, through the google documents, which was synchronous.  

Ivan, Rene, Iurii, Enrique minutes of meeting 1

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11/16/2014 6:07 PM – 6:45 PM

Attendees (skype)

Ivan Kelemen, Rene Alcon, Iurii Druchuk, Enrique Bisono

Scribe

Ivan Kelemen

Agenda

  • Look over sketches
  • Discuss game rules
  • Talk about materials
  • Safety
  • Rene had some sketches drawn up of the design we will use for our project. Agreed on the sized based on a few things we discovered in our research, but then changed it with what felt the most comfortable. It took a while to get the right dimensions for it because we will be doing laser cutting to put the whole board together.
  • We decided to go with a very simple set of rules for the game. there will only be a few steps because we plan the game to be played by young kids. We had trouble deciding how the player sequence would be decided. Enrique suggested they roll and die and decide who goes based on the roll. However, Iurii commented that this would mean we had to include an extra thing inside the package and keep track of it. So in the end we decided to let the teacher choose or the kids figure out a way to choose themselves. We will also need to decided the final winning conditions. We have something that we think works well, but will need to be tested by others to see if there is a consensus.
  • Next talked about materials we will need. We started off by wanted to use a wood or a cardboard to make the shell of the game itself. The on top of the board we would paste an image of a circuit board. Ivan suggested we use a clear plastic, if possible, because it will let the kids see the inside of the board. We then agreed that this would be a lot more interesting than just an image. They would get to see how the actual game was put together.
  • Before we ended, we talked about some safety concerns that our classmates had. They were worried that because there was electricity that the kids who are played with the game could end up being victims of the game. We have already addressed these issues with the design of our game, but we over it again to make sure we were all okay with it. We will make an enclosed clear case for the game so they they can see all the components, but won’t be able to touch them. Other than touching the switch / button / whatever we decide for it to be they won’t be able to get to the other components. They will also have supervision from the teacher while playing.

Adjournment

We ended the meeting promptly at 6:45. Next time we meet we will talk about the game manual that will be directed at the teacher. The other things we will discuss will depend on what happens throughout the week.

Ivan, Rene, Enrique, Iurii Agenda – 11/18/2014

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Ivan, Rene, Enrique, Iurii

Agenda#1

Prof. Belli

11/18/2014

The agenda for the meeting on week of 11/12/2014-11/19/2014

 

  1. Immediate discussions during the meeting:
  • Sketches
  • Talk about materials and tools;
  • Decide on dimensions of the game, overall look and design;
  • Safety issues;
  • Documentate everything in minutes and progress report;
  1. Needed discussions and actions for the next work:
  • Discuss game rules, instructions and deliverables;
  • Devise the topics of further research, for the next week;
  • Start the basic assembly process in the class to adjust all of the parts;
  • Brainstorm on future possible problems with assembly process, generate ideas to deal with the problems;

Ivan, Rene, Enrique, Iurii progress report – 11/18/2014

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Ivan, Rene, Enrique, Iurii

Progress Report#2

Prof. Belli

11/18/2014

 

As we discussed it in class on 11/12/2014, this week, our group members have met to decide on the material and the design of the game. Moreover, we have brought our ideas and brainstormed on the rules of the game. Ivan and Rene, sketched and designed the layout of the game. Enrique gathered and prepared the heart of our game, which are electric parts. We will work on how to put it together at a later time. Iurii has been coordinating the writing of the progress reports and agenda. As we have agreed during the class session we have got several very important things done during the week of 11/12-11/19/2014:

  • We got pretty close to knowing of how our game will look like in final results, as Rene and Ivan had made sketches and plans of the game;
  • Design and materials are in the stage of preparation to the actual assembly and will be ready shortly. As Enrique finds all proper electrical parts and Rene prepares the outer materials;
  • Set of rules is clearly stated, but need slight revision as we move along the process. They will also need to be laid out properly;
  • Rules are part of our deliverables along with the manual. we are moving along nicely and are already working on the deliverables parts.
  • As well, during the group discussion, we dealt with security concerns, which our classmates had. Security will be implemented through the design and construction of the board game. Moreover, we decided to include extra security instructions in the manual for teachers along with how they will put together the game if they wish to make more.

 

Basically, we are ALMOST ready to start physically building our game, and are looking forward to meeting again and bringing all of the materials and parts together to make a whole object. We still need to do some further research and then testing but we are making good progress.