#14 Scenario Building
What are your scenario ideas for your learning experience? Illustrate and Describe. What role is form — textual, visual, aural, temporal, tactile, etc. — playing in your ideas?
0. Under the Umbrella of the Life Finance Office (@ CMU HUB)
Illustration
Scenario
Our ideas take place under the umbrella of the Life Finance Office, which will be a branch of CMU HUB. When students enter college, they will be invited to the Life Finance Office, where they can learn about the resources and activities that the office provides. While surface artifacts with visual and textual forms will be provided as resources, the activities will engage more in immersive and engaging experiences.
1. Scavenger Hunt
Illustration
Scenario
In the scavenger hunt, physical space and artifacts serve the perceptual processing to help memorize the basic principles of personal finance. First, the campus space will act as a spatial arrangement connected with each related knowledge. Not only will it help learners map out the knowledge with physical space, but it will also help them remind and remember throughout their experiences in college. The tactile form of the artifacts will play an important role in the scavenger hunt experience and the final reward. On the other hand, the surface representation of the personal finance index card/poster will be a visual form designed to continuously support learning and practice.
2. Escape Room
Illustration
Scenario
Among the ideas, the escape room has the broadest range of forms to be involved. Visual, aural, olfactory, temporal, and tactile forms can be designed for the space and artifacts. From the previous activity of blockbusting, we have brainstormed possible ways to involve sensory experience in the escape room.
3. Board Game & App
Illustration
Scenario
For the board game and app idea, the board game will play an essential role as a physical form bridging the digital experience. The tactile heavy artifacts used in the board game will be translated into the mobile budgeting app. While the mobile app is heavily dependent on visual form, the physical form is designed to construct an abstract representation of the practice principles into a physical structure. For the visual of the budgeting app, the graphic representation will be used to show the expenditure.
The game can be a stand alone experience apart from the life finance office, but we would want the learners to play with friends in the context of the office and install the app on-site for further learning and staying connected with the office.
*Details about the Board Game
As same as the scavenger hunt, the board game is designed based on the 10 simple rules of finance that we wanted to teach the learners. They are from the book The Index Card written by Helaine Olen.
The #1 rule is the main goal of the game. Players have to save 20% of their income each round. If they fail to achieve that goal, they will lose automatically. Once over the bottom line or 20%, all the attained assets and savings will be calculated to decide the winner. Other rules are translated into the boxes on the board and cards.
How the board game works:
- Players start with a certain amount of income at the same income level (Low income, middle income, upper income: depending on the income level the players choose, the strategies will have to change.)
- Players rule the dice. The dice will move them through the boxes. Also, they have to flip one card from the card deck. If the number is even, they will flip from the even number card deck while if it is odd, they will flip from the odd number card deck.
- The boxes have examples of life events such as tripping and getting injured, winning a lottery, doing groceries for an empty refrigerator, paying taxes, getting a tax refund, getting a scholarship, buying a friend’s gift, paying for a flat tire, water leak, and pay existing debts.
- The odd number cards will have conditions applying to all users. Such as war, pandemics, natural disasters, global events, etc. Some may be related to the stock/ETF price change. Even though the conditions may have complex effects in real life, they must affect the game in macroscopic inflation and deflation.
- The even number cards will have conditions that affect individual players. Purchasing a house, purchasing a car, purchasing insurance, auto purchases on stock, higher interest rates (penalty), and lower interest rates (benefit) could be examples.
- The even number cards are paired with boxes like the following illustration. Depending on the assets they own from the cards will change the scale of the effect of the life event on the boxes.
*Connection between the board game and budgeting app
The budgeting app is designed to help learners apply and master the skills in a real-life context, beyond the magic circle.
The app will be designed mainly around the goal of motivation, attention, and skill mastery. Also, it can act as a medium for the Life Finance Office to regularly send information and useful tips to students.
How the app works:
- The main goal is to save 20% of the income, which is the same as the board game.
- In addition to the main goal, users can set goals based on personal milestones. For instance, it can be saving n$ per month to pay off student loans, saving n$ to buy a model x car. They can also decide to set the goal with their friends so they can compete or together try to achieve the goal.
- The app will track the user’s expenditures and categorize them in identical colors and labels to the board game. (To be decided if the tracking would be automatic or manual.)
- Every month, the users will be celebrated with surprise when they succeed accomplish the goal. Even though they fail to meet the goal, the app will help them reflect on the activities and help them figure out the reason for failure. For instance, it could be being too ambitious or having unexpected events in the category of card games.
