The title is a little more deep and needs some explanation:
you are a ball and the game you are playing sounds like Mario and looks almost like Mario, but it is not Mario you are then confused. However, the name is up to interpretation so another could be that the Ball that is confused is our planet. I did not want to just name in “Hey you are a ball jump, be active in not destroying our planet/ people.”
Anyways, I understood that much of the interaction that users were going to have would be pressing on the pressure sensors to move their character and focusing on how to get all the triangles. Using foam to cover the pressure sensors was one thing, but I also ended up decorating the foam to function as telling the user what each sensor was responsible for what direction. I also made them look like feet so it was it did not just become a cover-up for the sensors, but to look like tentacles so the user felt like they were stepping on corruptions feet. I also extremely unnecessary details like the box and the feet had triangles all without the body of the box and within/ around the tentacles. Andy also helped me out by allowing to use a giant plank of wood as our base. This help keeps the pressure sensor in place. There really was no need for any type of 3D printing; however, once I realized we could have used a laser cut box it was too late. A week beforehand I wanted to make sure we had something laser cut something, but the trouble with that is you can not see into the future to see what we needed. I printed a box with instructions, but we ended up putting instructions on the processing screen so my little box became useless. I just wish I realized we needed what I made in cardboard but as a neater laser cut monster.
In the beginning, we tried to use vibration sensors to sense when a person stomped or jumped. However, it was quickly clear that the vibration sensors were not sensitive enough. Eric then recommended that we used pressure sensors, but when I asked at the borrowing place if they had pressure sensors they said they did not. Nick then suggested we could make our own by using two layers of metal and one layer of foam with a hole in the middle so when the two metals touch the output is just like a pressure sensor. Again, we learned that making your own pressure sensor was difficult. The next day Olivia asked the borrowing people and they said they did have pressure sensors, so Olivia borrowed three. One was smaller so the outputs were not matching with the other pressure sensors so we exchanged the less sensitive pressure sensor with a bigger one so the outputs would be the same. During the User Testing, the sensors worked great and they never gave us any real trouble. The only thing was that people wanted the triangles to move and that the ball/ and gravity move faster or smoother. Also, Nick suggested putting labels on the sensors. We took all these suggestions and did them. And they were pretty successful since during the final presentation I did not have to explain why and what people were trying to catch and also I did not have to tell them what direction each sensor was. Also, I think the big change from the darker Mario background I edited to the original happy background was a good transition from the game to the end screen. Also, The links I added to the end of the game were not just educational, but were links to websites you could either donate or volunteer.
The goal was to get young adults to be more active in change. The ‘game’ was to stimulate through physically going after the bad guys of the world and the end page was where they can explore options in actually being active. My definition of interaction is that there are all different types no matter how big or small. Such as multivariable interaction like conversations versus someone trying to see the light go off in the refrigerator both stimulate a person brain somehow. This type of interaction takes the inputs and the determination of whoever is controlling the ellipse responding with it moving on the screen. Oaudiencecne reaction was pretty good to the playing of the ‘game’, but when the end came to the title screen I wish they would have spent more time on the websites they clicked or played again to click on a different website. If my abilities or time could not restrict me then I would have tried out making each level for one issue in the world and that you can not move on until you are educated on a subject or maybe even donate (but I am not trying for force people to pay money). I got to research a lot about things like Flint Michigan, or child labor in India, the current politics surrounding the rainforest, etc. Some that I had to understand was what I first envisioned to be my final project could not be a reality because of my lack of experience. However, that did not stop me to learn how to make my own classes in processing and how to code collision detection. Olivia and I tried our best, so the end product was still very fulfilling because we did something out of our comfort zones and it actually worked! Before this class, I would have never thought I could make something even close to this so thank you Young for teaching us I really appreciate it. The rubric says I need to do a final say “Why should anybody care?”
Mine is: our planet is dying and so are the people on it. Most of those people have no control over it especially things like war and global warming. So I hope that people as privileged as us can decide to help those less fortunate than us because we were born with it [privladge] to help.