Group: Shuffling Vegtables

Members: David Alvarado & Alexis Shuffler

For our project, we decided to make a game called “Deadly Winds”. “Deadly Winds” is a tower-defense like game in which you must protect houses from incoming natural disasters such as rouge waves and high-speed winds while maintaining and defending your homes.

The social aspect of this game was to make light of the Hurricane Sandy disaster and to sort of lessen the blow with something fun. An even more social aspect of this game would’ve been multiplayer in which several people each govern a house within the same level and share resources to survive. This would have been on a computer mostly likely or even a phone maybe. This was a game meant for anyone.

The interface of the game would be a top-down view of an entire neighborhood and the screen would have lists regarding the condition of the houses as well as available resources for the homes. Most of the lists would be located in a rectangular menu located on the bottom right hand side of the screen. This rectangular menu would serve as a drag-and-drop type interface for interacting with the game.

Special materials used for this game would be a Java IDE, any would do and they’re all mostly free. No money was spent during this project, just lots of time. Any graphics that appear in game were all done in Photoshop; this game was mostly done with code.

If this game were to go further, a way we would collect feedback would probably be through forums. We wouldn’t create our own but rather spread it out and collect people’s opinions. Required feedback would probably be something like gameplay mechanics and how we could tweak or fix them. If this project had time to reach its full potential, I think it’d be quite a success.

http://youtu.be/8Hz7kDZmc0E

(Sorry the video came out so crappy)

Members:

David Alvarado

Alexis Shuffler

The idea:

So for this project with the theme of hurricane sandy in mind, we decided to come up with a video game based on the event.

The Game:

If you’ve ever played the computer game: “Oregon Trail”, this will seem very similar. You play as the father of a family of two kids. The hurricane has hit and there wont be any help for about a month. The goal of the game is to make it to the end of the month with everyone alive and well. To do this, you start off with a set amount of money to buy supplies for preparation, then the hurricane hits. You need to make your supplies last while dealing with the natural conditions. This can include the cold and lack of food. As you survive, you’ll have neighbors as well that you can choose  to help or not. Helping them isn’t required but it can give you very good bonuses in the future, such as extra supplies. A score system will be implemented to tally how well you do at the end. Low scores result from poor care of your family while high score are a result of the opposite. One social aspect of the game we are hoping to include is cooperative play between two people.

Flowchart:

Wireframes:

These three images are supposed to represent the UI for the game. The little window on the lower right will switch menus for the status of your supplies, family and the neighborhood itself.

Members:

David Alvarado

Johnathan Alicea

Alexis Shuffler

Justin Seda

Bluestar

So for our game idea, we had decided to make a sort of puzzle game. It does not have a name at the moment. So the idea is that you’re a player in an underground abandoned facility and the motivation for progressing is that you have a device strapped to you that determines whether you live or die. To progress, you move up floors. Within these floors are rooms, each has a puzzle. You must solve puzzles to progress to the exit. There are multiple exits but each one is harder to reach as the next. Depending on the exit you take, the puzzles for the next floor becomes less or more difficult. We also took pictures so those will be linked shortly once this is posted.

We had taken answers from two of our classmates : Justin, Ahmad and the CLT Wilmer.

Here’s the questions:

1. Does it work?

2. Is the function clear ad understandable?

3. How would you use this device?

4.Is it helpful?

5. Would this be helpful when using solar power?

6. Is it easy to use?

7. Where would you use this?

8. What didn’t you like about it?

9. What would you add to it?

10. Who would you recommend this device to?

Some of their answers can be applied to more than one question so I’ll be listing it that way.

Justin said:

1. Yes

2. Confused at first but more understandable after playing with it

3. Use it as a nightlight. With the battery installed, would use it for charging devices

4&5. 8/10

6. 10/10 super easy

7. In a garden, near a window

8. Nothing

9. More bulbs for output

10. Scientists, gardeners, and neighbors

Wilmer said:

1. Yes

2. Yes

3. portable charger

4&5. 7/10

6. Yes

7. Next to a window

8. No problems

9. Battery light indicator for when external backup is charged, waterproof, indestructable

10. Everybody

Ahmad said:

1. Yes

2. Obviously, labels needed

3. Gardening, positioning solar panels, a way to tell if his light bulbs at home are close to dying

4&5. Helpful in its own scale, moderately helpful

6&7. Very easy

8. did not like the LEDs as indicators

9. Would prefer a screen with a progress bar instead

10. Eco-people, Hobbyists. When battery is installed: Everyone.

We also have some video:

http://youtu.be/_Dys58D9WqI

http://youtu.be/RkmageW3_X0

Memebers: David Alvarado & Alexis Shuffler

             We have a running code now that is working of an Arduino UNO that is successfully sensing light. Our next step is to set in more LEDs to begin more precise readings. When I cover the LED with my hand, the LED acting as output shuts off to indicate a lack of light.

http://youtu.be/DkWC-9aLk_o

Testing with the TinkerKit

Today I finished reading another excerpt from John Maeda’s book; this chapter focused on Time and how we view it. He wrote about how people have this constant worry of time and trying their best to reduce the time spent in activities. This is tied to time management, and the anxiety of having to wait for something. Since no one likes to waiting for anything, there have been methods created for specifically to shorten the time spent waiting. For example, the “status bar” on a computer gives the user the illusion that time is moving faster or at a normal pace when in reality, it isn’t. Another example is when you are on hold and an automated voice tells you how much longer until you can speak to a another person on the phone.

What we can take from this is that people feel more comfortable waiting when they know how long they have to wait; this is also stated in the reading. A few ideas we could implement to shrink time when a user interacts with an interface would be: having a short mini-game the user could play while an interface is loading for the user or a short tiny movie that could draw the users attention and distract them from any frustration that had dealt with previously.

During the reading, Maeda also spoke of another way of reducing time spent waiting, an autonomous object that made decisions for you. The example he used was the Ipod Shuffle, a device that has no screen and only some buttons for moving back and forth between songs and a play/pause button. This version of the ipod doesn’t let you choose a song, rather instead it chooses for you so the short couple of minutes you spending choosing a song are cut out. So this raises the question: should be allow machines to make choices for us? Personally, I wouldn’t mind as long as I had the choice of allowing the machine to do so. As long as it isn’t making choices without my consent, it would be entirely fine with me.

We all have ways of saving time, as for myself, I tend to multi-task alot when I feel like I’m not getting what I want done fast enough or if I’m late. For example: I’ll make myself breakfast in the morning but I won’t sit down to eat it right away. Instead, I wrap it up and eat it on the train thus eliminating at least 10 minutes spent eating.

I have here a theoritical design for our photometer:

This prototype would be using the arduino lily pad to function off of. I have another design to post but it is in Alexis’s hands so this will be updated.

Captain’s Log:

In Edward R. Tufte’s “Graphical Excellence”, he writes about how graphical presentations such as maps or charts can convey more information and statistics than a simple report. He presents several examples with most of them being examples of maps.

The one example that really caught my interest would be the map of the U.S. that showed data for people in different parts of the country affected with certain types of cancer. The map clearly shows sections of the U.S. that are most affected and the least affected or unaffected. However, the map shows each county in the U.S., a little unnecessary since the map seems really cluttered to be honest. If they sticked to just showing the states affected, I think the same data would’ve been conveyed. A missing piece of information I noticed also would be that the chart only shows white people that are affected which seems to imply that the U.S. consists only of white people(kinda racist…..jkjk). That aside, it’s a good map and representation of cancer victims afflicted in the U.S.

As for designs that make me pay more attention to the aesthetics rather than the information, I’m sure there has been some that I’ve seen however I can’t remember any; maybe the MTA bus schedule.

Team Members:

David Alvarado

Alexis  Shuffler

For our project, we decided  to make a photometer using arduino.  Here’s the design document:

1. Device that measures how much light a plant needs and alerts user when perfect amount of light is reached.

This device is perfect for anyone trying to grow and maintain plants. This is good for people who are forgetful of taking care of their plants and for aid in taking care of the plants. This is a device that will be place next to or on the plants for the most specific readings and can be placed on any plant making it completely portable.

2. The idea behind how it would work would be that it would measure how       much light is needed for the plant and have a signal or some sort of alert for the user to know that plant is a perfect light levels or overstepping suitable light conditions. An interface would most likely be a light bulb that blinks in certain patterns to shows how much light is being received and how close it is to overstepping that limit. A sort of panel would be used for absorbing said light to retrieve data

And here’s our flowchart:

I got around to reading John Maeda’s thoughts on Emotion and how it affects people today and I have to say I found it very interesting how little designs can have huge effects on people’s minds. He spoke about how his mother dislikes greatly any objects that have a plain design to them. I believe that she said it makes them look “cheap”. Although there are some objects with plain designs on them such as the iPhone, I would hardly call something like that “cheap”. However, Maeda points out that we as humans design things in order to give them a more personal touch or a sense of style; something that makes them stand out from the rest. Designing things with emotion in mind can have a hugely positive effect on people. For example, the creation of a beautiful statue can insight many emotions in a person. A better example would be the construction of the Freedom towers. There are many lingering feeling after the tragedy of 9/11 and the creation of these new towers can make people feel like their hope and security is returned or it can serve as a memorial to the people who lost their lives. Something like this can cause people to relate and be attached to said objects in many ways. An object I’m attached to would be my very first and only basketball I received when I was 4. I was so happy when my dad got it for me since he knew I liked to emulate Micheal Jordan back when was still a player in the NBA. Although it was too big for me to really play with at that time, I grew up with it and I still have it with me to this day. When I look at it now, I can still remember all the times I played with it as a child quite vividly. Especially the times when my dad has beaten me on one on one’s.