Author: Ashley Friedland

Partner: Tyler Roman

Project: Ainu Memory Game

What We Have:

We now have a working coded game. Cards flip when selected, matches are recognized, pop-ups work, matched cards stay face up, and the final pop-up also works. We have filled 12 of the 16 cards (6 of the 8 objects) with images. The backs of the cards are also designed. There is a small sound that plays to give positive feedback when a match is made.

Currently Working On:

We are working on putting the video and audio in the pop-ups. We are working on adding an urban effect to the background. It was also suggested that we make the pop-up boxes larger and have background music playing. We are working on implementing these. The overall aesthetic is also something that will be finalized soon and will be influenced by the other group’s website.

This is the version that is correctly coded:

This is the version that has most of the images:

We just need to incorporate the images in the correctly coded version.

Partner: Tyler Roman 

Project: Memory game in the web browser

We want to create a simple memory card game users can play to learn about the Sapporo Upopo Hozonkai singing and dancing culture. It will be made so that it can be attached to another group’s website, yet also stand alone. We want any textual information to be written both in English and Japanese.

We started with a minimal paper prototype. Here is where you can find a video of us using the paper prototype:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IP2sJ7eV_l-c6_7TNm5f6pia7Z8w4bda/view?usp=sharing

We then made a wireframe/mockup of what our memory game will look like. We used to Balsamiq to make that. We made different pages for different stages of our game. For example, we have a page where there is not a match, where there is a match, and the ending of the game. Here is where you can find the mockup: 

https://balsamiq.cloud/svrsvn2/paoepn9

We went through footage from Friday and found some images we would like to use for the cards. We still need to edit a few of the photos before using them in the final product.

Now we are starting on the coding of the game. We’ve found some good tutorials, and we both already have some background in coding. The coding is what will be our focus for this and next week.

During class, we brainstormed for different project ideas to make/propose to the Ainu. Sabrina and Tyler were part of my group. I was the blue marker, Sabrina was pink, and Tyler was green.

For my ideas, I came up with a few. I was focused on the embroidery they showed up during the conference call. One that I got some positive feedback on was a “map” of the embroidery on certain clothing items. A high-resolution photo would be taken of the particular garment, then the user could click on the different embroidered symbols. This would then zoom in on that symbol. Text would fade onto the screen to give background information on the symbol, thread, color, frequency of use, etc. One the user was satisfied, they could click a return button and the page would zoom out to the full photo of the garment again. Then the user could click on another one. 

I also thought about some form of online store. Ideas floated around about the Ainu selling embroidered items, or a user picking a symbol and getting it placed on a t-shirt. We thought this might bring them into a more modern setting, plus people could wear Ainu/Ainu-related clothing, therefore bringing more attention to them. We were worried, however, about commodifying them. That is not what we want and we don’t think that’s what they want.

Some ideas from Tyler and Sabrina included a video game and a personal narrative video. For these, we had to consider scope and interview availability.

Here are the photos of our paper:

Project Description:

For our project, we wanted to investigate the links between air pollution, the economy, and health awareness. We chose Xujiahui as our site due to its active changes in AQI, growing economic activities, and the lack of health awareness surrounding this area. We have photographs, videos, interviews, and AQI screenshots woven together in a three-part video as our final product. The first part is background information on AQI in Shanghai. The second part is an interview with a construction worker, and the third part is a subjective view based on our own observations of the site while filming. The juxtaposition between the construction worker’s knowledge about the current Shanghai construction industry and our observations was the main focal point of the project, and we wanted to highlight the (missing) link between the government and the general public. Our inspiration stems from the field trip we took to Xujiahui with our class. During that trip, we discovered numerous construction sites and noticed the amount of noise it created, as well as the high level of AQI in relation to these construction sites. In creating a narrative, we wanted to use the AQI monitors in the Xujiahui area (which documented the air quality) to serve as our ‘surveillance camera’ in viewing the Xujiahui area through statistics such as varying levels of PM2.5 and PM10. With our video, we hope to raise awareness for the urgent matter of climate change and for our audience to understand the impacts of ongoing economic activities in their homes. Therefore, our project aligns with the concept of geocinema as we portray it in a monitoring fashion through the AQI monitors located in Xujiahui, and connected it with the bigger picture of investigating China’s economic boom in relation to society.

I liked working on this project. I was able to look a bit more into an issue that’s affected me all three years of living in Shanghai.

First, we had settled on the site, but when I showed up to film for the first time, the construction site we planned on had already been finished. I walked around a small area of Xujiahui, documenting different areas I saw as potential for our new site. We found one to focus on, but also grabbed footage from the surrounding area. We were interested in the general public as part of our project, so we moved around the site a little. 

After we had gotten some more initial footage and gotten some feedback from our class, we realized we needed footage of a really badly polluted day. So we went on a day that was forecasted to reach 200(+).  We were able to get some good footage that day, too.

We uploaded all our footage to a Google Drive folder. A rough cut was made, a script and narration were written and recorded, and statistics were found. We slowly added these into the rough cut until it became our final cut. 

Here are some photos from the area: 

Here is the AQI site we used: http://aqicn.org/city/shanghai/xujiahui

Here is our final video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gl_gM-Ce3hXT8sMFiRyvZZtt8SseeuoL/view?usp=sharing

Bibliography

“Air Pollution in Shanghai.” Health and Safety In Shanghai, Health and Safety In Shanghai, 16 Jan. 2018, 02:46, www.healthandsafetyinshanghai.com/air-pollution-in-shanghai.html.

World Air Quality Index. “Xujiahui, Shanghai Air Pollution: Real-Time PM2.5 Air Quality Index (AQI).” Real-Time Air Quality Index For More Than 60 Countries in the World, The World Air Quality Project, 2019, aqicn.org/city/shanghai/xujiahui/.

For this project, I wanted to map out the Sea Pen data from MARCOS. I downloaded their data and took a few of the locations from it to put into my code. I based my code off of Leon’s workshop. I took the code he made with us, copied it into a new p5.js project, and typed in the new longitude and latitude. But for some reason, the Sea Pen data wasn’t showing up. I tweaked the code in different ways to see what was showing up. It would only show the first one, and sometimes first two, and then wouldn’t show the others. I’m thinking there is a small typo or incorrect calling in the code that I can’t find. I decided not to upload the whole JSON file to the project, because the sets of brackets and braces were so dense, I’m not sure I would’ve been able to correctly call the data I wanted. 

This is the code I currently have: https://editor.p5js.org/ashleyfriedland/sketches/fCuTAgYQt