Hello!
This week marks the end of the first third of the semester and this post will (mostly) be a reflection on the semester as a whole so far.
Process Grades
Starting with one of the last things we did this week, process grades. I’ll be short and to the point: we are behind where we would like to be. By this point, we’d like to have our game testable in two main dimensions: the transformation/message and the interactions/gameplay. We don’t actually have either at this time.
Starting with the interactions/gameplay (because I believe it to be a simpler explanation), we are more experienced with creating a game than creating a transformation. Therefore, we have not been especially forward with trying to get gameplay to a testable point since we believe we are able to do it in a shorter amount of time. I believe this to be the incorrect approach because we would be purposely backloading our work efforts instead of trying to knock out “easier” tasks head-on.
As for the transformation/message, we are (as a group) not especially experienced in delivering a transformation. Additionally, our overall experience with how to identify and counteract racial bias is low, which has meant we haven’t felt particularly confident in developing our ideas/story. Moving forward, our plan is to continuously make attempts at delivering our message so that we are able to gain feedback and iterate on it. Trying to have a great experience in a vacuum, without testing with experts or our audience, is unlikely to go in our favor. Therefore, we need to be prepared to regularly test our game and receive feedback.
Advisor and Client Meetings
On Monday we met with Mike and Ricardo to explore our physical prototype in preparation for our meeting with our client, John, on Wednesday. Both meetings went alright, although in respect to our progress, I believe both our advisors and client were expecting to be shown more this week.
We intend to take this feedback very seriously and are looking into the ways we can best utilize our time ESPECIALLY in relation to our upcoming 1/2s presentation.
Moving Forward
In order to ensure we are progressing at a rate that will allow us to catch up, we have made a few decisions moving forward.
The first decision is that we will likely have to schedule additional core and/or individual project hours. If we are able to catch back, we may be able to relax our schedule, but for now we need to think about what all we are able to do in order to ensure we are progressing.
Another resource we are going to use is a task board located here https://stemspire.monday.com/boards/3212260117/views/73295888 (apologies if the board is private. I have included a picture below to show what it looks like.) I believe organizing the work ESPECIALLY in a way that supports individual efforts, will allow us to better maximize our time. With this system in place, we will attempt to make all needs more readily understood.
An additional resource we intend to create to aid in our development are supplemental design documents like the chart below. By better documenting what our current understanding and flow within the project are like, we are able to more confidently make decisions that follow our existing models OR more easily recognize our need to re-calibrate our path.
I don’t believe we have dropped too far behind for it to be a serious concern of our ability to complete the project but we will need to make sure we are more effective in how we use our time.
Thanks for reading,
James from STEMspire