Tech Review
On Sunday, we held a tech review session with Ian, where he spent about 2 hours going in depth into the tech stack of The Brilliance Bottler. This call was very informative, as it helped us understand the limitations, challenges and opportunities involved with building for a unique system like this. He suggested that it might be a good idea to build a prototype in a traditional game engine first to playtest and design with, and then translate that into show control afterwards if we decide to go with the Bottler.
Brainstorming + Florida Trip Preparation
On Tuesday, we met as a team to go over each of our ideas. Each member then took 2-3 ideas that stood out to them from the list and began iterating on them further, focusing on the user experience. We also came up with 6 Design Pillars which any idea that we pitch to Ian should adhere to:
1. STEAM Focused
2. Multiplayer/Teamwork Based
3. Self-explanatory, does not need to be monitored
4. Robust – should not break easily
5. Audience: 9-13 years old
6. Accessible
We met again later in the week to discuss and refine these ideas. By Thursday, we had 10 ideas ready to present to Ian when we visited Give Kids The World over the weekend.
Children’s Museum
Thanks to Anthony Palyszeski, we were able to visit the children’s museum of Pittsburgh! It was cool to see all of the exhibits, especially past ETC projects like Puppamatics. Portions of the Museum were closed in preparation for a new exhibit opening up, but the trip was still very informative. We also visited MuseumLab, a very similar space to the Children’s Museum that, like the WonderLab, is aimed at older kids. We were able to speak with a few of the facilitators that were working that afternoon, who advised that kids in the 9-13 year old age range tend to prefer chaotic activities and physical interactions. They also tend to prefer individual activities to ones where they have to work with a partner. Though we aim to create an experience that encourages collaboration, we will need to ensure that it is fun for kids who want to play solo as well.
Give Kids The World Visit
On Friday, Melanie, Rushil and Aaron headed down to Florida to visit Give Kids The World. The evening was pretty active with guests, but with plenty of other volunteers they were able to casually observe and interact with families. Walking around the space, they noticed that there were other potential interactions that we hadn’t considered yet, with one room featuring a TV screen that is attached to physical buttons. Currently these buttons don’t do anything, and volunteers noted that children do like to press them and expect something to happen. They were also able to chat with other volunteers and see some experimental prototypes that they had for augmenting the puzzle portal, such as track pieces with sensors. Several of their prototypes lined up with some of our ideas and they were willing to give us some ideas and advice if we continued down a similar direction! We are glad to have some new current and retired contacts in the LBE industry we can reach out to for suggestions or advice on the project just from this site visit alone!
The remaining team members arrived on Saturday and headed straight to Disney Springs to regroup with the rest of the team. After walking around a bit and enjoying a dance performance, we met up with alums Angie Mendenhall and Conor Tripett in order to enjoy a quick dinner before it was time to volunteer. Angie and Conor are currently working at Disney and Universal respectively, so they were able to offer perspective on both Give Kids The World and the Themed Entertainment industry as a whole. After some great food and even greater advice, we all headed to Give Kids The World.
The team at the WonderLab were incredibly friendly and welcoming. Angie and Kayla led another tour of the village for the members who arrived on Saturday. It was a pretty slow night at the village as there weren’t as many families staying there this week, but the village is an absolutely beautiful environment (especially with all the Christmas lights up!). It’s easy to see how much care and consideration went into every aspect of design.
Back at the WonderLab, we got to see both of the platforms in action. First we took a look at The Brilliance Bottler, and immediately noticed a few problems with the current setup:
- Kids do not intuitively realize that the little screens are touch screens and assume that they need to press one of the physical buttons to start the game.
- Kids do not understand the memory game because their instinct is to immediately touch the buttons that glow. Then they get frustrated that nothing happens.
- When playing the game, there is very little feedback that you are playing the game correctly, leading to confusion.
- The UI on the touch screen during the game is very unclear, leading kids to be confused about whether or not they’re supposed to be using the screen for something.
Because of this, the Puzzle Portal room is definitely the more popular attraction. However, there are still some areas for improvement:
- There aren’t currently enough track pieces to make particularly long courses for the marble run, which leaves the room feeling a bit empty.
- The Vestaboard also isn’t being utilized, and the single panel underneath seems ripe for interaction.
- A lot of the 3D track pieces get broken very easily
- The toy bin in the center is so large and empty, it feels like there are objects missing
Having a few members who had been able to volunteer both evenings turned out to be very beneficial, as they got to interact with different sets of volunteers, get their impressions of the space and ask about what activities they thought could be improved. Pretty universally, the volunteers want to see The Bottler become a platform that kids can understand and enjoy. After finishing volunteering – and making buttons – we returned to our Airbnb and immediately began working on improving our pitch presentation for Ian.
Initial Pitches w/ Ian
Ian greeted us at the visitor dropoff area of Give Kids The World bright and early on Sunday. After taking us to drop off our stuff at the WonderLab, he offered a rare treat – Ice Cream from Henri’s Starlite Scoops, a space themed ice cream parlor that offers ice cream for breakfast to all of the guests! We headed back to the WonderLab, where Ian opened up the Bottler and gave us a thorough explanation of the Hardware that powers it. After finishing, we showed Ian the pitch presentation we had developed. He seemed really excited about all of our ideas, but the ones that stood out the most were:
1. Robot Dance Party – This was the idea that we pitched using the screen that was connected to the physical buttons. We weren’t sure if Ian would be okay with this since it wasn’t one of the platforms we’d initially been offered, but he actually really liked the idea of activating a space that currently isn’t in use! He spoke a bit about how they had initially designed that are with the the thought of leaving little bits there for kids to play with, however that idea quickly became unfeasible with how often they would have to replace the bits. he wanted to add a little more of an educational aspect to the game to ensure it didn’t feel too much like a game. Heather also mentioned that this type of game has been done before, so we would need to ensure that we introduce an element that really sets it apart.
2. Wonder Run – While he enjoyed most of the Puzzle Portal ideas, he enjoyed the idea of augmenting the Marble Run the most. We would have to figure out the best way to get screens in there, and Heather even suggested a few screen-less options we could pursue, but he liked the idea of giving the Marble Run an optional goal for older kids, while continuing to let other kids do whatever they wanted with the track pieces.
3. Color Engineer – Ian really liked the idea of introducing kids to color mixing, and had previously pitched similar ideas before. However, he felt that this idea would work better in the puzzle portal than on the Bottler, as the color range of the Alcorn screens isn’t that great. He mentioned that a project he’s been planning for a while has been to install LED strips around each of the panels, and this would be a good opportunity to implement that.
Prior to the conversation, a few team members had been leaning towards the Bottler as our platform. However, Ian expressed a few concerns during this conversation that began to change our view. First, many of our ideas viewed the bottler LCD screens as actually screens rather than containers of liquid. Whatever game we make, the bottle screens would need to retain the same function – filling up with liquid. Overall, his main apprehension was on being able to build something that can be installed on the bottler without being able to replicate the system in Pittsburgh. While some aspects of the Bottler, like the animations that are built in TouchDesigner, can be easily emulated, the show control system cannot. He offered that rather than building and installing something on the bottler, we could develop a Unity prototype, focusing on the game design, and then one of his developers could translate that into show control and install on the bottler.
After discussing Ian’s feedback and considering his concerns, we decided that we would move forward with either the Dancing Robot or one of the Puzzle Portal ideas. As Ian is already extremely busy, the team does not want to hand over an unfinished product that he would have to invest time into installing on his own. However, we do still feel very passionately about making the Bottler a platform that kids can enjoy to the fullest, so we are setting a stretch goal to fix some of the pain points on the current memory game. Ian offered to connect us with Christie Miga, a former Give Kids The World employee who was instrumental in building the WonderLab. She and her husband were responsible for the design, theming and background story of the WonderLab, so her feedback – especially in regards to using the WonderBots – would be very valuable.
Now it’s time to head back to Pittsburgh and prepare for 1/4s!
Priorities For Next Week
- Review feedback from Ian and narrow down ideas.
- Connect with Christie to get her feedback on the ideas, especially on the narrative/theming side.
- Prepare for 1/4s.