Introduction
Hello everyone! We are team COLORIZE. We are a group of students from the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University. In the following 14 weeks, we will be collaborating with faculty and students at West Liberty University to design and build a creative, educational and fun activity kit that will help students from kindergarten through lower elementary explore the art and science of color.
Settling In
The project kicked off on January 18, 2022 with the first meeting with our faculty advisor, Ricardo Washington. After a brief introduction and discussion on the logistics, many questions popped into our minds regarding the details of our client and our client’s needs. We finally had a vague idea of what the deliverable would look like: a prototype of a portable creative kit, either virtual or physical. It is also important to take accessibility and engagement into consideration when designing this creative kit.
We spent the next day establishing the roles of each team member and set out core hours as a team. Then we started our first brainstorming session followed by individual research.
Game Design
First and foremost in our minds when it came to design was our client’s needs for the project. We started with a short brainstorming session to compile questions for our first meeting with the client later in the week.
(Details of the questions and meeting with the client are further explained in the next section.)
We then started our first brainstorming session by having each individual write some ideas down. At this stage, brainstorming was very open and the ideas were whatever popped into our minds. After this initial brainstorming session we decided to move on to research. Each team member further researched a topic relevant to the project. The topics include:
- Activity boxes (Bob)
- Learning aptitudes for ages 5 till 8. How do you keep them engaged? (Wizard)
- Color theory. (Caitlyn)
- Other applications that teach about color theory (Max)
- Prototype an activity box (tinkercad), specifically one that could be augmented with AR
- Information on our client (Xiao)
We then had our second brainstorming session after our client meeting later in the week. We used the “50 ideas” method to brainstorm: every team member wrote down as many ideas as we could on a whiteboard until together we reached 50 ideas. Each team member then voted on 7 ideas they were interested in the most. We then categorized these ideas and found what themes they had in common.
Client
Preparation
Knowing our client and building a healthy relationship with our client are crucial parts of the process. Prior to the meeting, we had the chance to meet Jacob Li from a team that has previously worked with our client. We got some really good advice and were excited to meet our client. Our first meeting with the client, Lou Karas, was scheduled for 3pm on Friday via Zoom. Here are some questions that the team prepared for the meeting:
Regarding client’s needs
- What are the top 3 concepts that you want the student to understand?
- Is there a reference or a project that you would like to mention to us that might be relevant? Such as recommended readings
- Why would tech be important for this project? Why not just play with paint? What could be done that can’t be usually done
Details about this activity
- How many activities throughout the lesson plan? (sessions)
- How guided is this activity? [How much tell and how much discover]
- Is this a synchronous activity in the classroom? (how many students at once)
- How long will this activity be ideally?
- Is this preferable to be an individual activity or group activity?
- Is an activity based on only software acceptable?
Subject matter
- Is this going to be light color or paint color?
- Is this activity more towards STEM or more towards art?
- What is taught at the center and think we should iterate?
Resources
- What Technology is already available in the classroom (tablets, chrome books, phones)
- What is the budget for a hardware approach?
- What is the average size of class in the testing elementary schools?
Meeting the client
Along with Lou Karas, graduate student Lisa McGee and our faculty advisor Ricardo Washington also attended the meeting. After the team introduced itself, Ms. Karas gave us an overview of the Center for Arts and Education at West Liberty University. Then, the team and the client had a long discussion regarding the direction of this project. The client is very supportive and is open to our suggestions. She is also willing to coordinate playtesting with us in the future.
Production
Together we came up with our team name — COLORIZE. We established our roles in the team. We set up some weekly meetings with our faculty advisor and our client. To be more organized, we also set up a Trello board to manage our tasks.
Looking into Next Week
- Make a composition box
- Narrow down and solidify our ideas
- Think about our client’s needs and have a vision of the final product