We started off with a talk about Facebook and the usual "iterate, iterate, iterate" stuff. To be honest, I don't believe in a completely "waterfall" or a completely "agile" development model. I believe some planning should be done (even choosing your programming stack is part of the planning), but as to how much, it's usually based on my intuition. Sometimes, you can't really plan out everything, so you know it's time to start working (and even if you are wrong, you'll probably learn something and am in a better position to work better). But there are times where you actually have a good idea of what you are building, and hence, can plan stuff. Perhaps this makes me hard to work with, because I belong in neither side of the spectrum.
The second talk was a bit mind-boggling, and after thinking for a week, I finally came to the conclusion that the video was demonstrating the popularity of Psy's Oppa Gangnam Style in America. It was not a video tutorial for Prof. Colin. :(
Tuesday was sitting down with Su Yuen and Prof. Colin. I was late so I didn't catch the first part. I think they were worried about the stuff that we promised but my work style is to write all potential features down in our proposal, regardless of whether we really want to have it built. (Our CS3217 proposal is 150% of what we actually wanted to build.) I agree with Su Yuen though - while a framework is nice, it's not exactly poster-presentation-worthy.
In any case, our team-mates discussed, and we headed down on Saturday to see little kids, under Kai's help. I have quite a few observations of them (e.g. little kids have goldfish memories too, so you should tell them one instruction at a time). Also, parents seem quite kiasu but I can understand why they bring their kids to such places (missed opportunities + parents always want to give kids the best.) I took time to observe the teacher's games as well. In most of the games, a combination of skills is taught, and identifying them takes some skill as well.
Also, hearing about how childhood affects your life is very interesting. I played quite a lot of games when I was small, so I'm relatively okay with learning games. (I'm terrible at Scrabble and Chess, but パズドラ is fine because I'm better at sliding puzzles.) I never had the opportunity to learn music when I was small so even as an adult, I'm still doing my best to learn it. Art too. I think as a kid, I didn't care too much about injuring myself, because as an adult, I'm quite careless. E.g. I'll walk into a table or a chair quite frequently, and there are bruises on me that I can't even explain because I walk into things naturally.
After the observations, we sat down to scope out our ideas. We got a lot of things pat down, except for how to gamify it properly. We are undecided between two ideas. Because I suggested one of them, I'm definitely bias to one of them. Our application involves getting the parent to print and paste disguised QR codes around the house. The kid, armed with a iPad, has to find the objects that the QR code is attached to (say "table"), and scan the QR code to complete a "mission". (I'm using the word "mission" loosely here.) The objects to find is randomised each time.
The kid will learn spatial awareness (what objects are found where, which is a very core skill). I think the treasure-hunting format also teaches them to be more perceptive. Subconsciously, they will also learn words too. I think if the parents facilitate them well, I think the kids will learn how to link things up (spatial awareness of relationships.) In addition, parents can add/remove objects, so there's this time element to it. (For lack of better phrasing, the game is very "now".)
Our two ideas on gamification:
1) Children are given a list of objects to find each time. When they find it, it'll appear in their virtual house within the iPad. When they find more objects, they are given the opportunity to customise the object more (e.g. if you find a table, you'll get a table in your virtual house in the iPad. If you find the tables again, you get to make your table look nicer.) The rationale behind this is that children like to own things. I think if so, parents would be allowed to share their children's house on social networking sites as well.
2) There will be characters involved. Each time, a character will request items, e.g. a table if they need it for a party. (My sis cuts in and says, "Is it a tea party for the sprites in Harvest Moon?" xD) The child is then prompted to find the item and "share" the item by scanning in the heavily-disguised-QR-code. After finding the items, the character will thank the kid. The child can see how much he/she has helped the characters.
My idea is the second one, and to be honest, I don't like the first one because it's not particularly logical to me. To own stuff, you must not have owned it first. In a way, the kid already "owns" the table because the table is in their house. Of course, I'm not a kid so I wouldn't really know whether they like owning stuff in that manner. (Actually, if scanning the QR code of objects gets you the objects in the virtual house, why must I bother with the randomised missions? Why can't I just scan all the objects as and when I like?)
I like the second idea because it sort of helps make the QR code a bit believable. Like, the kid can be tricked to think that the QR code is a mechanism to facilitate sharing with characters from the virtual world (although no actual sharing is involved.) Of course, kids also learn to share items with people. :D But because this is my idea, I'm bias towards it. And honestly, characterisation is really appealing, if done right. (Though it's quite troublesome, because the designers will have to draw a lot, but it's terribly exciting to come up with personalities for all the characters.)
After discussing with a few people, they mentioned that both ideas are fine. At the end of the day, how we execute it is probably more important.
P.S. I was supposed to go witness video-taking today (so that I can video-tape children better for poster presentation), but "unfortunately", my family scheduled lunch together. :( Food was good~!
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