Our Project
Colorize was comprised of six ETC students: Max Cameron as producer and fabricator, Ebrahim Karam (Bob) as programmer and fabricator, Wizard Hsu as programmer and fabricator, Caitlyn Lenhoff as programmer and Experience Designer, Xiao Han as producer and artist, and Qin Zhang as an artist. Our Faculty advisor was Ricardo Washington. Our client was Lou Karas from the Center of Arts and Education at West Liberty University.
Colorize’s goal was to create hardware prototypes and documentation for activities that will foster engagement in colored light and light color mixing in elementary school students, kindergarten through second grade.
To do this, we delivered four activities based on additive color theory, as well as documentation. The four activities are the LED Lightstrip activity, the Whiteboard activity, the Shadow puppet Activity, and the Color Wheel Activity.
The LED light strip’s goal was to experiment with additive color mixing. By pressing a combination of either one, two, or three lights signifying RGB, the children would fill a light strip with red, green, blue, or the colors they mix to make: cyan, magenta, yellow, and white. Once the strip was fully lit, a small light show would take place and music notes would play back to the user. Each color is a different note. This way students can create their own songs while experimenting with additive color mixing.
The whiteboard activity’s goal was to provide autonomous play while experimenting with reflection and refraction. Students would draw on the whiteboard and then experiment with how the drawings would appear, disappear, or darker using the lighting controlled by combinations of one, two, or three colors of light via latching buttons controlling a DMX LED light.
The Shadow puppet activity’s goal was to experiment with the effect of shadows on colored light and colored light mixing. Students are able to play with shadow puppets in front of three colored (RGB) floodlights aimed at a white surface. By doing so, students are able to experiment with the colors of the shadows and create their own stories and narratives for their own puppet show.
The Color Wheel activity’s goal was to experiment with tertiary additive color mixing and the additive color wheel. The students would turn a knob to switch between red, green, and blue on an LED button, and click on the button for the desired RGB color. By clicking the button, they would fill a light strip of 4 LEDs above the button. These colors will mix together and be added to the color wheel. Depending on the ratio of colors added to the LED strip, students can make primary, secondary, or tertiary colors. Fill the color wheel to get a light show and reset the game. Press and hold on the capacitive button on the back to switch from the puzzle mode to a creative mode where students can explore and fill in the wheel with whatever colors they choose, without having to follow the exact color wheel.
Successes
What Went Well
We believe that we were successful because we playtested early and often, and in these playtests we were able to playtest with kids, particularly ones in our demographic. Since we were playtesting with kids while developing the activities, we were having a bunch of fun along the way. We also had clear goals and good rapport with the client and within the team. We were given guidelines but plenty of room to explore all possibilities. We also believe that being able to see what we built in the physical space helped aid our success. To add to what went well for the team was that we were not afraid to pivot to find the best versions of the activities possible. We were not stuck in our ways and stubborn about change, instead we embraced change whenever it was needed.
Success by Activity
LED Lightstrip
We believe this activity was a success because it is a good headfake activity. The students think they are making music, while in reality, they are learning to additively mix colors. We also believe that the reward of notation and sound led to higher engagement and collaboration as well as increasing replayability. Finally, we believe that the LED Lightstrip activity was a success because though it had guidelines and restrictions on what could be done, the kids were still able to be creative and create their own songs or patterns.
Whiteboard
We believe that this activity was a success because the kids can see physical lights mixing to create new colors. They were able to see the red and green channels in the DMX light, but also see that the color shining on the whiteboard was yellow. The activity itself was very open-ended with lots of room for creativity and experimentation, which is another reason we were successful at obtaining engagement from the kids. Finally, we also believe that the Whiteboard activity was successful because the kids were showing curiosity about why the lights changed their drawings and were asking questions about what was happening, which shows that they were engaged with the activities.
Shadow Puppets
We believe that the Shadow Puppet activity was a success because the equipment was easy to purchase and set up, making it easier for our client to use and pass on to other teachers. We also saw that the kids would become engaged with the storytelling potential that the activity offered. Finally, we saw that the students were excited and curious about the lights mixing in the physical space to make colored shadows and would ask questions about why the shadows were the colors that they were appearing in.
Color Wheel
We believe that the Color Wheel activity was a success because we saw kids engaged in the activity and collaborating to solve the puzzle together. The two modes allow for both problem solving and creativity in the same activity. Finally, we believe that incorporating the color wheel as the form factor made for easy creation of lesson plans for teachers.
Challenges
What We Wish We Had Done Better
Overall, we were pretty successful during the semester. Our team would argue that there are not really any challenges we faced or problems that occurred that we wish we had done better with. There were problems and challenges, but the team collectively believes that we took the best actions that we could in order to create solutions that worked.
One main challenge we ran into during our process was the slider activity. When we tried to shift the activity from the software form into the hardware form, we discovered that six sliders and multiple LED lightstrips were just not feasible. The amount of hardware and wiring led to power supply issues, this not only created issues for us but also for people in the future potentially trying to recreate the activity. In the end, we made the decision to cut the activity, which we believe was the right choice, as it opened time to focus on the more engaging activities. The color wheel in particular would not be what it is today if we had not cut it. However, we wish we had dropped the LED slider activity sooner so we could have had more time to dedicate to the color wheel and would not have had a tight crunch time at the end of the semester. We also wish that we had dropped the firework form factor for the color wheel sooner, as it would have led us to decide on the color wheel form factor earlier on. The last thing that we wish we could have changed was having better facilities to work on fabrication as we often found ourselves lacking materials and areas to fabricate that met all of our needs. Having more hardware earlier on would also have allowed us to experiment more.
Challenges by Activity
LED Lightstrip
The major challenge that we had with this activity was finding a way to increase the replayability of the LED light strip. We were not sure if a better form factor or some additional sounds would increase the replayability. We ended up overcoming this challenge by shortening the light strip, so it was faster to play, and adding musical notation for each color to encourage students to make music with the colors.
Whiteboard
Some of the challenges we faced with the whiteboard activity included light placement, pigment discoloration, and getting kids to experiment with the lights. The placement of the light was tricky as we believed that having it elevated above the board was the best option, but which height was the best was an issue to figure out. There were also challenges with figuring out where the placement of the light should be in relation to the sides of the board. If it was placed at the top of the board, it would shine in the children’s eyes while drawing and if placed at the sides of the board, anyone standing on the opposite side would end up with light in their eyes. We ended up designing a stand for the light to sit on to elevate it to the point where a good portion of the board is covered by light, but not so far away that the light intensity decreases. We also made it so that the light could swivel up and down and left and right on the stand so that it could be repositioned for optimal usage. On top of this, the stand is movable so that it can be placed at the top or the side of the board, depending on the current needs.
The other issue of pigment discoloration stemmed from the impossibility of finding exact matches for the colors that the LED light produced to make the drawings almost completely disappear. We tested numerous markers and eventually settled on three that we felt were the best for coloration, however, this is still an ongoing challenge as matching the color of the LED colors is nearly impossible to do with the marker colors that we have available.
To try to solve the problem of getting kids to experiment with light, we designed several sample pages with images to test under the light. It is so that teachers can show kids how to use the board without having to go through a drawing tutorial. Instead, they can just set the paper example on the board and press the buttons for the lights. In this way, we hope to push the students to play with the light combinations the same way that they would see their teachers doing.
Shadow Puppets
Shadow puppets were the least technically difficult of the three activities, however, there were still a few minor challenges that we had to contend with. One such challenge was getting students to safely engage with the lights and turn them on and off to see the effects of the shadows. We introduced a power strip that had individual on/off switches for each outlet, but the kids still did not choose to engage with the lights. To overcome this, we changed the placement of the powerstrip and labeled each of the switches with their corresponding color. In this way we promote engagement with the powerstrip by making it inviting, eyecatching easier to use effectively.
Another issue we ran into was getting the students to understand how the color shadows are created. For this, we created example explanations that the teachers could use to walk students through what was happening. For example, discussing the cyan-colored shadow and then turning off the red light so the entire area is cyan, to show why the cyan was showing up in the first place: the red light was blocked by the puppet from that angle, making green and blue show up to make cyan.
Color Wheel
One of the main challenges we had with this activity was creating a form factor that allowed for depth, drive, exploration, creativity, and engagement with tertiary colors, all while lending to easy usage in lesson planning for teachers. We had to redesign the form factor for the activity several times in order to create an activity that we believed would be on par with the other three activities that we developed. Eventually, through multiple iterations, playtests, and consultant meetings, we were able to come up with the Color Wheel form factor which hit most of the marks.
The next challenge was with the UI. We had three buttons like the LED Lightstrip and the Whiteboard, but we found that this UI led students to hit two buttons at the same time, which was not our intention. So we ended up having to switch out the buttons for a single button and rotary knob.
The final challenge that we faced with this activity was creating an activity that could be easily applied to lesson plans. The firework form factor we had applied before the color wheel was exciting and had the color mixing concepts incorporated into it, but one of the many issues with that form was that it was not easily translated into a lesson plan. By scrapping that form factor and bringing in the color wheel, we were able to bring in color theory basics and make lesson planning much easier for this activity.
Takeaways
Lessons Learned
One of the lessons we learned during the semester was that the fanciest tech did not entail the best engagement, as seen by the levels of engagement with the shadow puppets. We also learned that kids were willing to try and fail multiple times and were not afraid to ask questions. Kids were really willing to explore the activities and try new things when their initial plans would not work. Another lesson learned was that assumptions in hardware do not necessarily translate into hardware, as we saw with the color wheel activity. When testing the three-button setup in unity we were restrained to a single mouse click, so we could only hit one button at a time, but when translating that into hardware, we found that this was no longer the case.
Overall Takeaways
A takeaway that we came to from exploring during this project was that the initial transition that we made at the beginning of the semester to cut the activity cube form factor and limit ourselves to additive mixing as our scope was what set us up for success. Without the change, our project would not have been so successful. Another takeaway was that we found that there was sometimes a difference between what our client desired and what game design savvy people such as faculty would suggest to us, so learning how to balance the differing viewpoints was also a key necessity during the development of the project.
Takeaways by Activity
LED Lightstrip
The main takeaway for the LED Strip was that it is addictive and highly replayable. We saw that it was confined by the limitations of the three buttons, but that allowed for exploration of goals and individual rule setting by the students. The addition of music was a good reward target for kids to aim for, and due to this added target, there was an extra level of depth we were able to add.
Whiteboard
Our takeaway for the whiteboard activity was that it was the activity with the most freedom, creativity, and autonomy for the students, as the experience is open for them to draw whatever they want and use the color of the light however they please. The activity opens the way for high-level or challenging questions about absorption and reflection.
Shadow Puppets
One of our main takeaways for shadow puppets was that it was better to make it easy for setup and use by our client, rather than making fancy technology that is difficult to replicate. We also learned that the activity was the best one for onboarding students, as it had a low entry level for understanding. It is best suited for the kids on the younger end of our demographic. The activity itself did a good job at allowing freedom with small amounts of control for teachers.
Color Wheel
One of the main takeaways from the color wheel is that the ability to compare the colors that are beside each other is vastly important to the experience, as several of the colors made look quite similar to each other and the difference is only truly noticed when they are beside each other. The locality of the colors also gives the kids a way to figure out what colors are needed to mix a color situated between two primary colors. This activity is less on creativity and more on problem-solving. We saw that understanding this activity was highly dependent on what was experienced and understood from the other activities.
We noted that the experience is incredibly dependent on the form factor, as it took us approximately four different form factor iterations to end on the color wheel. Along with this, we also observed that UI design is necessary to design for the proper experience, as students kept attempting to play the activity incorrectly when the button UI matched the other activities but the functionality of the UI did not.
This was also the activity that we looked for the right technology to make the activity, rather than letting the hardware technology define how we made the activity, as we did with the LED lightstrip.