In Class Critique + Brainstorming

Today’s class was mostly a work session. In addition, we did an initial presentation of our idea and got useful feedback that informed several considerations that we plan to take forward as we continue to develop our idea. To begin, we put together a rough sketch of our envisioned service to facilitate conversation around our idea.

Drawing the sketch actually helped bring light a few issues that we needed to sort out. Firstly, while our initial idea depended upon the presence of poles, or sticks, to demarcate where VR plants would grow, we discussed challenges that might arise if poles were stolen from the garden space. Faced with this constraint, we considered alternate ways to draw attention to the space and mark where VR plants were growing. Some considerations were solar lamps that would create a light beam at night to replicate the presence of a pole. A similar idea was presented in which the light would actually project a hologram of the growing plant to attract attention and show the current level of interaction at the garden. We considered colorful windmills, or wind chimes as another option. After much discussion, we decided that a complex installation was not a priority for us, as the primary goal of our project is educational. Instead, we decided to allow players to create a personalized tag, something that would be made as a group at the garden and inserted into the soil where the VR plant would grow. This marker might have a QR code, or some sort of embedded technology that would allow it to sync with a digital device in order to play the VR game.

When we presented our idea to the class, several interesting points were made that we then quickly ideated on to incorporate into our idea. Firstly, a classmate wondered how the game would facilitate transition from virtual growing to physical growing at the end of the winter. We are interested in further exploring this area, but at a first level we considered distributing seeds to all players that participated through the winter.

Another interesting point made was about how the app would continue to work for the garden stakeholders over the summer. While we are hesitant to complicate summer garden operations, which seem to be going well, we want to consider how the educational potential of our tool might extend into the summer. Because the potential of this tool is really as a garden planning and educational tool, we considered how a player might be able to compare his or her virtual growing calendar (compiled through the game as (s)he interacts with the virtual plant) with the actual calendar (s)he follows when growing his or her plant in the summer. Comparing this data would allow the player to learn in actual time and space. Additionally, over time this data might be made available to the Octopus Garden. This data might help the garden learn about how certain plants do in the garden as well as what forms of care are most appropriate.