This week we started off strong with a playtest on West Liberty’s campus. We hosted the 2-3 hour workshop once again with the same 4th grade class. Our client Lou Karas, two of her grad assistants and the 4th grade teacher Mrs. Lackie were all their to help. We took a backseat and the let the workshop run on it’s own. This way we can collect data on what’s needed for the final delivery of the project. We also got the chance to meet with Tom Estlack the manager for the West Liberty website and server.

West Liberty Playtest

We arrived at West Liberty around 9:45 am which gave us enough time to get ourselves situated as the children arrived on campus. Last week we had created a workshop guide and given it to Ocean and MJ, Lou’s graduate assistants. Our goals for this playtest was to see what is needed to run the workshop without our help and test the final tools functionality. There was already some information that was missing from the instructions for example, the website links and the puppet instruction pdfs.

Observing the grad assistants play the intro and UI tutorial video we saw the students drawn to the screens. When using the tool, they were much better at controlling the camera and adjusting the puppet shapes/proportions. We did run into an unexpected step when we realized that we had to sign into the guest Wi-Fi on each Chromebook with an email. Other than that, the design port when very smoothly. We aren’t sure if the comfortability with the tool is because this is their second time playtesting or if the UI tutorial really did it’s job. Nonetheless, they were excited to use it and wanted to make more puppets.

Ending the design stage and moving into the printing stage gave us problems in the last playtest. Student became restless while their printing was being completed. In effort to entertain the kids while the printing process was being done, we added the assemble video. Even with the video played, kids were still restless while waiting for the puppet. The video was also longer than the other videos making it harder to keep the kids attention. The assemble video was also meant to explain to the kids the puppet making process because they probably weren’t going to read the instructions. The 4th graders were did make more puppets, faster and more complete, but there is no way of knowing if this was a result of the video or because we were testing with the same group of kids.

We had to step in to help the grad assistances collect all the puppet templates onto a flash drive. Chromebooks are a little complicated when downloading so the process didn’t go much faster than last time. All together the 4th graders were still able to get all their puppets printed by 11:00am. Then in the next hour, some were able to create a completed puppet. The class had to get back early so around 12:00pm, they stopped working and put their puppets in to-go bags to finish at home.

Server

While at West Liberty, we met with Tom Estlack who helped us talk through server possibilities. We presented two options; one West Liberty host the tool on their private server or two use itch.io to set up the tool on a free public server. Tom said we could probably put the tool on the Center for Arts and Educations WordPress website. From here, the Puppamatics team just has to test WordPress’s WebGL implementations and then send the build over.

Preparing for Final Presentation

Getting to see our tool in action one last time was a special experience for us. For the rest of our time this week, we had to prepare for our final presentation. A bittersweet time, the final presentation will be Wednesday May 1st around 10:50am. This is an opportunity to showcase our iterative process and the success of the project. We will also reflect on our design decisions and challenges.

Juggling all the information gathered and incorporated into this project is more complicated than expected. We want to highlight our project goals and while also showcasing our deliverables. We are at unique space where we were able to tackle some of our reach goals. Showing the compromises we made to get to that point is also important to put in the presentation.

Probably the most important aspect of the final presentation is what we learned. Our team was been wonderful to work with. We’ve given each other the trust and respect it takes to get the work done. In regard to teamwork, we have truly come together. Our lessons also venture into the professional as we were working with a client. That is new for most of the team. Keeping the clients interest at mind while also using our expertise has been an experience for all of us. We’ve learned so much from client about education and child development.

Final Delivery

Hosting the tool on West Liberty’s server isn’t the only thing we have to consider when consider for our final delivery of the project. If this playtest has taught us anything, it is that we will need include more instructions for the workshop flow. This project isn’t meant to make the teachers lives hard and a clear guide will clarify their role in orchestrating the event. We’ve complied this list of items that will zipped in a file and given to the client via email, hard drive, and google drive access:

• Unity Executable File
• Unity WebGL Build
• Puppamatics Teacher Resource Guide
• Copy of all the videos
  • 3D Intro Video
  • UI Tutorial Video
  • Assemble Video
  • 3D End Video
• 2 Legged Puppet Instructions
• 4 Legged Puppet Instructions

Next Steps

All we have left is our postmortem, final presentation and final delivery send off. Cheers to a good end of the semester!