'And now, the end is near'

Finally, all the pieces of the puzzle are falling together. The prototype has just reached the final stage (completion) and only that remains now are the digital deliverables. Still a lot of work but the hard work and complete dedication over the last couple of days is paying off.

'The record shows I took the blows - And did it my way!'

Panorama

While we were stranded on one of the Princess Islands, we tried to make the best of it. There was this bar (?) with a great view, which prompted the creation of this panorama image. Enjoy :)

[Ballmer] Production, Production, Production! [/Ballmer]

Finally, the fun part has started. Seeing your ideas and concepts come to live, and somewhat fail as you notice that it all looked better in your head. Luckily, with the educational baggage you're able to turn it into something better than you had even imagined. This of course intertwined with some very useful feedback from the Tutors ;)

And who says going out doesn't pay off? One of my Turkish friends of the bar hopping sessions decided to help me out as I still am 3 man short. Someone who knows the language when purchasing items and tools is a great asset in preventing getting ripped off. And of course, a fresh pair of eyes is quite valuable when revisiting certain decisions.

As the title suggests, today was primarily a production process. And as we don't have a lot of time left, certain decisions are made on the go. It is only to be seen if the right ones were chosen, but so far I (we) have a good feeling about it. Again, the focus of the concept has shifted a bit, taking more of the 'Solar System' working title and dropping a bit of the 'Ottoman Caligraphy'.

The concept is still largely the same, moving statues that unlock an event when aligned into a certain template. On the left you can see the scaled prototype, and an image of a dude to decide how big the statues would be in real life. The moving mechanism of the statues is almost finished I reckon, but it needs some finetuning to better provoke the user to actively participate in the spectacle. Thanks Corné! I've also cut the 'glass' walls/slates, which was a fun process to do as you can see on the bottom right. It made quite a mess though, hopefully the cleaners won't get too pissed :).

So now for tomorrow, I need to make the statues, the poster, the website, the alignment cutouts, figure out how to better provoke first-time-users, improve the feedback, improve status updates and dress up the largely white prototype. So yeah, keep your fingers crossed :).

Me, Myself & I.

Ah, the rumours were true, the dynamic duo has turned into a faux trio ;). And like anything else, a double-edged sword. One one hand, it sucks. Because the amount of work that had to be done by 4 people, now has to be archieved by me alone. And I can't bounce ideas off of someone anymore. But then again, now I only get to do the things I want (heh heh) and there's no time wasted by discussions. I still would have liked to have group members though, but that's the way the cookie crumbled.

Regarding the project, it's in a constant state of entropy. Every meeting or conversation with classmates, friends, tutors makes the concept evolve. Hopefully for the better.

After the talk with the tutors I realised I could incorporate a lot more of our project name into the project itself. The movement of the statues now resemble those of the planetary bodies. Also, the movement isn't solely due to the people moving them, they now move on their own as well. Luckily, I'm not an engineer so I don't have to specify in detail how this mechanism will work and will stay in working order (making it 'hufter-proof').

I also think I've found a great example of the placement of the structure on the trip to the Princess Islands yesterday. The location itself really suitable, but the surroundings are exactly what I'd imagined while talking and brainstorming about this. With trees and benches all around. Shame that it's on a hill that's pretty much only accessible by car with devilish traffic. I reckon I have to mask those parts away ;)

I'm also trying to find out specific planetary alignments of large influence, as I want to replicate those to unlock the different messages in this 'solar system'. I've also found the poem I want to use, now I only need the different translations for the chosen languages, that shouldn't be that hard I imagine.

I think I can spend another day totally detailing the specifics and use the rest of the time to construct the prototype. I'm contemplating making an actual scale-model, but I have to find the best way to build it. Material and construction wise. For this I could really use a Turkish teammate who will know the different stores to purchase said items... :/

Trouble in Paradise!?

So, Cyrille and I just came back from our own trip to the Princess Islands (and missed the day at school on Monday due to some circumstances) only to find out that the Group C duo might have turned into a Group C solo.

I haven't had the chance to speak to any of the professors to explain the finer things of the situation. I'll refrain from commenting on the issue as I only have second-hand information. It has got me spooked though :(.

The weekend trip though, it was quite good. My girlfriend celebrated her birthday on Saturday, and as she's an Istanbul native we had a great opportunity to meet some different people and interact with them. Quite valuable as we're missing first hand experience due to the lack of a Turkish team member. Her father was quite knowledgeable about the Turkish history and told me some fun pointers to use in the concept. We were also given a short tour along the Bosphorus, with them poining out different important buildings. It's a shame that we didn't bring our camera.

Sunday, we made our trip to the princess islands. One of the friends owns an house on the island and gave us a tour. We rented a boat and made our way all around the island looking at scenery and taking an occasional dip in the sea. After being thouroughly baked by the sun we were surprised by a BBQ with some traditional Turkish food. This however, resulted in a late night where we slept through our alarm. We woke up, much too late, and dashed to the ferry to get back to the mainland but missed it by a couple of minutes. Tired, out-of-breath and pissed we decided to go back the the house as the next ferry would show up more than an hour later. At this point, it wouldn't have had much use to go to the University anyway as we would only have a couple of hours of time left based on the schedule.

All-in-all, it was a fun couple of days. Now it's time to wait and see what will happen tomorrow...

One week left

This week has been a lot about being creative, which, from time to time, was difficult. Since we're only two people in our group it's more difficult for us to brainstorm and come up with as many ideas. Willem and I is getting along well, and I think our concept is really good.

The presentation went pretty well, and it was nice getting some feedback from the rest of the class. It was interesting to see the concepts of the other groups, and how it differs, which was quite much.

The blogging part of this week is not going so well. I've been trying to blog almost every night but sometimes the internet isn't working and because I don't have my own computer it is sometimes hard for me to lend someone elses, because we're all split up after the lectures. This week I hope it will work out better.

Today I went to the excursion, but after the palace I went for my own to the blue mosque. It was a beautiful place. The palace was impressive, and it was interesting to see how they had used calligraphy in everyday life, for everything from pots to rain gutters.

Tomorrow it is back to work again.

The work has begun

This is the third day here, and I feel frustrated. We have done our MindMap, and started to discuss the subject yesterday. Today it seems like we have been waiting all day. I am a little bit stressed, and hope we get enough time tomorrow.

Anyway, the subject Calligraphy is interesting, but I don´t know so much about it so it will really be a challange to make something good and useful coming out of it.

Our group is getting along well, and I hope we could creative enough tomorrow to come up with what we are going to do as our final project.