Reflecting on the RE Studio project
A look back over this year’s 12 month class project
RE Studio has been one of the most interesting classes I have taken in all my years of college and I look back at so many positive learning experiences that came from having such a uniquely structured and open ended class. Starting a twelve month long group project with no immediate clear direction or end goal was extremely daunting but I am definitely glad I was able to take on such a task as it allowed for so many ideas and project directions to be explored. It’s crazy to look at my group’s original brain storming sessions in the early weeks of the project and see how far they’ve come and how much they have changed.
I remember choosing the topic of User Experience of Physical Spaces because of how broad it could be. As someone who had been to countless fairs, conventions, and carnivals, I saw it as having unlimited fun possibilities. Outdoor movies, games, and little markets were some of the first ideas on my mind. This was of course months before any kind of quarantine. Though it ended up not happening, one of my group’s first ultimate goals was to actually set up our event in public for the local townsfolk to visit.
One of our first ideas that we worked on building out was the idea of some kind of playground or physical space that would be designed for working adults who needed somewhere to just let off some steam and be goofy if they so chose. Somewhere they could act like a kid again without the risk of being judged harshly for it. Whiteboards and whiteboards full of idea later, my group and I had hit a road block. There were just too many ideas and none of them seemed to fit with the angle we were going for, the idea of non disruptive stress relief.
We did quite a bit of interviewing and discovered that there was in fact interest in a product like this, if we could just iron out the details, so my group decided to run a few experiments with common ‘toy’ items. Our first experiment had us looking at building blocks like Legos, which could be put into deliverable little packages and used to encourage creative thinking and output, as well as team building skills should people decide to build together and listening skills, should users need something to interact with when listening in meetings.
We did quite a bit of interviewing and discovered that there was in fact interest in a product like this, if we could just iron out the details, so we ran a few experiments with common ‘toy’ items. Our first experiment had us looking at building blocks like Legos, which could be put into deliverable little packages and used to encourage creative thinking and output, as well as team building skills should people decide to build together.
Our second experiment was carried out in a similar way, where we would leave objects in plain view of working adults to see if they would interact with them on their own, thus reinforcing the idea that adults would interact with anything we create for play.
We set up an experiment in the local public park outside our town’s library with those big exercise balls,called hippity hops, and inflatable swords and left them in an enclosed area, just to make sure that no one would walk off with them. We then stepped back and just watched. And honestly, we had a few families actually stop and play with what we had set aside. My group mate and I got some time in at the end to play with the hippity hops before putting them away.
At first, it was very encouraging, with us having a good idea of where we were going for a while. But we soon hit similar roadblocks. It became disheartening real quick as each of us growing more and more frustrated that parts of the solution were not falling into place for us. We disagreed about which direction we would take the concept, with ideas like turning it into something more carnival like or creating a moving experience that would travel from location to location being thrown around. At one point, what was suggested was an experience built into a preexisting building that would be something akin to an interactive light show, where the person walking through could influence lights and projections in the room with their body movements. An interesting concept, but where to go from there?
One of the biggest deadlines that approached our group far faster than we could have anticipated was a campus wide competition called the New Venture Challenge, where students would present and pitch ideas for entrepreneurial concepts. The month leading up to the challenge in February of 2020 were incredible stressful. My group squabbled amongst ourselves about what work we wanted done so we could present and what topic we wanted to go with. In the end, we threw together a rough idea that none of us had much hope for, just to have something nice to present.
It was extremely frustrating around that time but it did lend itself to some good quick thinking on all our parts. Some of the pieces we produced for that competition were not bad considering the short time frame they were made in.
What ended up being so much better is the brainstorming and redirection that happened after the competition, where we decided to scrap our current idea entirely and start with something entirely new. The topic we landed on the second time around was the idea of stigmas around those suffering from depression and how we could help those who aren’t diagnosed better understand those who are. It was a pretty personal topic for both my one group mate and I, and we felt the concept was far stronger, so we went ahead with the idea.
I am extremely proud of how far we were able to take the idea in just a few short months and of the work we as a group were able to produce. I myself did learn a few new skills, dabbling in vr filter making and some of the program After Effects, though I found myself really getting practice with video creation and editing. Both of which I had done before but it had never been my main focus, with projects few and far in between, so it felt like a nice challenge to edit a longer video like what we ended up with. It was a good test of my memory of how Premiere worked and I have to say, I am proud of some of the effects and shots that went into the video.
Though it was super weird to also be the one acting in the video, as staring at videos of myself for so long was…interesting. Shout out to my group mate, Megan, who did all the filming and was willing to do so much just to get some nice shots.
Over all, I think I did end up liking the project as a whole, through the ups and downs, as it posed a really good challenge, as it was supposed to. I learned better communication skills by working with my team, which are invaluable, and I do feel better about working with groups on projects moving forward. It was a fun time over all, that I do not regret taking.
