Bon Appétit! This week, our appetizer special is garlic bread! We’ve established the core foundations of our project—the same way garlic bread is the staple appetizer at many restaurants—but we still have so many concepts and directions that we could dip into. Should we go with pesto? Olive oil? Marinara? So many possibilities!
Brainstorming, brainstorming, and more brainstorming. This week was riddled with active brainstorming sessions with the whole team. We made a few early experiential storyboards to help determine a direction for our project. Our storyboards covered three primary paths: social experiences, party game experiences, and narrative/educational experiences. While each of the artists took on a different storyboard, we came together to discuss the best example scenarios for each category.
Early on Thursday, three additional Spectacles arrived, and the team promptly began setting them up. While they were being set up, our programmers began tackling all necessary updates required to sync up a networked session for the team. Without a doubt, some challenges arose as the setup progressed.
The first lesson from the Spectacles is that the battery life is more limited than originally expected. Per the Spectacle Support page, even plugged in, the battery level will continue to drain while the glasses are in use. The actual battery life is also very short. The Spectacles Support page claims up to 40 minutes of use, but we have found that to be closer to 15-20 minutes.
The second lesson is that the temperature of the Spectacles seems to quickly rise when in use. This does not appear to occur on each pair of Spectacles, but this issue affected 2 of the 5 that were set up, sometimes causing the Spectacles to suddenly shut off to avoid further overheating.
Third, even though the app will be updated upon download, the Spectacles themselves require updates. To update the Spectacles, they need to be able to log into a network. Personal hotspots seemed to work best because if the network requires a username, there is no way to opt into that type of a network.
We have luckily already started tackling the network issue in coordination with IT. The IT team will be setting up a router exclusively for use of the Spectacles. This should solve any issues with username requirements.
Enough with negatives; let’s talk about something amazing. After finally getting all of the spectacles onto a network, having all of them updated to the same version, and having each team member create and connect a Snapchat account, we were able to all join the same session of “Finger Paint,” a lens published by Snap Inc. This really inspired us, as we witnessed how we can interact with each other in real time, something that was only theoretical prior to Thursday afternoon. There is something magical about using your hands and instantly creating visual art that others can see. We were able to create trails, decorate physical objects, and write messages to each other that only those with spectacles could see. It felt almost like the first time stepping into VR. AR is drastically different and the capabilities for interesting interactions are limitless.
We also began to come up with designs for our team logo and poster. Are we allowed to say that hunger is a major challenge of designing food-based logos? We knew we wanted the letter A and R to be prevalent in our project name. It feels almost necessary to communicate the enormous AR aspect of the project. In the logo design, making a burger or sandwich out of the letters felt so fitting. Adding a bamboo toothpick to hold the food together automatically makes any food item feel more like an appetizer. We brought some early preliminary designs to Charles, our design instructor, and found that the readability needed some work. The food theme was clearly communicated, though we were pushed to try to find areas to incorporate the actual glasses design into our logo.
Next week, we will receive feedback at Quarters walkarounds and continue iterating on our designs and experimenting with the tech.