Week 6

It was nice to have a bit of a rest from this subject for a week and have time to focus on other subjects. Today in the class we started work on our next project. To start thinking about possibilities and opportunities with the topic of news we did 3 concept bombs as a class. I feel this was a good way to get us thinking and engaged with the project. We had all been doing research tot help with the project, but I know a lot of us hadn't really started thinking about concepts to explore throughout the rest of the semester. 

It was kind of nice to do concept bombs again like in first year. I know we did some last semester as well  I think they are a very useful exercise. The requirement for quick thinking and ideas in response to a brief, I think builds skills that we wouldn't have had otherwise. 

CONCEPT BOMB 1.

The first concept bomb I found surprisingly un-stressful. I got an idea straight away and was able to work with. I had a bit of a panic during the twenty minutes though, when Yasu was talking. He was telling the class about these devices they attached to bicycles. Which is what my concept was based upon. Thankfully the purposes of the two ideas were quite different. Phewwfff! In the one Yasu was talking about, the cyclists rode around and the device would measure air pollution and quality of the area. My concept was a handlebar attachment which included a motion sensor. The sensor would gather information about traffic. As the cyclists were riding around, the sensor would pick up any movement from cars driving past. However if there was heavy traffic in the morning and the cars were at a standstill, nothing would trigger the sensor, indicating the heavy traffic. The data could then be sent elsewhere. 

CONCEPT BOMB 2. 

This one was a storyboard format and was more focused on a scenario or experience rather than an actual physical product. We were asked to think about how we could keep in touch with someone who wasn't in the same space, but in a way as if they were. The concept I explored was considering the relationship of  a young child and a parent, but when a parent is far away and not able to be there with the baby. My particular scenario was a father who had to go for a business trip and leave his family for a while. The father gives the child a bangle. He also has an armband which he wears to stay connected to his child. The babies bangle is fixed with an accelerometer. The device monitors the child's movements and delivers them to the father. Different degrees of vibration signify babies movement ie. playing, emotion and activeness. When the fathers band is still, this means the baby is sleeping, calm or quiet. This device allows the father to still feel a bond with the baby from a long distance.

CONCEPT BOMB 3. 

This brief was definitely the most difficult out of the three. This one was quite particular. It makes it quite tricky not being able to rely on screens, but i guess this does make you think more outside the box. My concept was, a large picture of a world map to be displayed on the wall. There are tiny bulbs all over the map. These bulbs light up a particular colour based on what category of news they are displaying. For example if all the bulbs are blue, they are making indications about the weather, if they are purple, they are showing particular design notices around the world. A hand clap by the user will switch news topics. The bulb's light vary in intensity. The brighter the bulb, the bigger the story, if it is only a dull/dim glow, then the story in this place is quite small. A very bright light that is flashing signifies a breaking world story. A press of the particular light bulb enables an email to be sent straight to the user with details of the story.

Going around and marking off selected concepts for each of our class mates was a great way to see a whole range of all creative, innovative and feasible concepts. I found a lot of the students' third concept bombs were the most interesting and valuable concepts. Which is interesting, as I think this is the one most people struggeld with the most. It took a lot of people a while to think of a concept to work with. But i think this shows the rewards of exploring a difficult topic and thinkining more deeply into he possibilities. I also think that a lot of the students individual markings were based a little bit on the presentation. I found this personally, that the most poorly presented concept got the least number of ticks. This is just something to keep in mind when looking at final concept selection.



SELECTING A FINAL CONCEPT FOR THE GROUP

As a group we decided to go with one of Georgina's concepts which was quite interesting and try to combine the ideas with my third concept (above). 

 As a group we discussed some of the elements and main points that we wanted to utilise for our final project. 

• Communicating friends/family etc all around the world
• Creating an intimate experience for people separated by a long distance
• Using the  individuality of handwriting to create a personal and special way of communication 
• The ability to see hands and the touching of a surface from another country
• Using sensors and lights to indicate the closeness of a person
• Mapping to keep track of friends 

I think the class has been quite successful and the group has made a good productive start to the project.