at 10:38

Team 1: Lazer Cutting the Physical Map

After careful decision making and in-depth discussion, our team came to the conclusion that the mobile application that we hoped to accompany the physical map unit was an unnecessary component and came with an added danger for road users (having to look at their mobile phone while in transit).



It was more logical to have the navigation somehow incorporated into the bikes themselves for a seamless indicator tool.  The physical map unit will exist in the vicinity of the Dublin Bike station, but will act as an offered add-on to taking out a bike. A fun and engaging map, that is also informative. Each large button for the bike stations on the map will be numbered. The user approaches the map and plots the route from current station to station 'A', the user is given the option of a cleaner healthier route (GREEN) or a the quickest route (RED), depending on their demands. These routes are determined by EPA reads gathered from the monitoring stations which are carefully positioned throughout the city for an accurate and updated estimation of the air condition. The number for station 'A' is noted as the user goes to take out the bike. The cyclist has the choice to enter the number on the dashboard of the bicycle and press the red button for fastest route or green route for the cleanest. Once the action is complete the indicator lights on the bike are programmed for the journey and the cyclists takes off.......

Decided upon our  aims for the deliverable, we sourced material and began spending some time in the workshop. The final prototype for the physical public map we have chosen to realise in MDF fitted with working LED path ways and a vacuum formed plastic keyboard and buttons. The map of Dublin went through a rigorous process of vectorising and tidying in Adobe Illustrator prior to lazer cutting, to give a tactile and more engaging artefact we decide to build a 3D architectural map by layering 3.2mm MDF sheets to create a depth.

It was a time demanding process, with some trial and error to accomplish a clean cut through the board. While this was taking place we settled upon the programming of the LED routes. We worked out the needs for the circuit to operate using Arduino UNO electronic components...... Let the build begin

at 09:18

Team 3: Forms & branding

After the Wednesday crit, we worked on the form of the proposed design concept.

For Airen logo we tried some concepts by moving away from the shape of a bird. To make the Tree engaging we decided to include a camera to capture a gif image of people and share it with them through their email account or twitter account. People would need to scan Airen logo through their camera on a handheld device connected to internet. By using Augmented Reality, the Airen Logo would take them to the microsite, where people need to enter their twitter handle or mail id to receive the gif file.

at 20:19

Team 2: Air Kits

Louise started drawing out and thinking about the contents of the 3 air packs. Things she considered were how they tie into the primary school 5th and 6th class curriculum, the learning outcomes of the activities within the packs, what the activities are themselves, what the teacher pack contains and what skills the students would develop after completing each pack.

Some companies that have had success implementing similar ideas into schools across the country, that we looked into are Food Dude, Innocent Smoothies and Science.ie. We got a really good idea how to structure our company and who would fund it, basically going through the design blueprint and company bio.

Afterwards we looked at the packs in more detail and made a decision to focus on the first pack and the main activity of the second and third packs. We were then able to make some prototypes of what the contents of that pack might look like, the boxes that they came in etc.

Student pack

Teacher pack

We then started to research kit packaging to get an idea of how our kits might look like. We got some great inspiration on Pinterest as well as other companies who did similar things. Packaging is still a work in progress.

Alongside the packaging, Joe was looking into the brand side of things. By the end of the day we all liked the idea of creating a little character that the children can refer to and we named our product Eek. Details are still to be gone over but thats all I can say for now :)

at 21:00

Team 3: Final Crit Wednesday

Today we aimed to finalise a concept as we had been having a difficult time getting to this point to date. Some of the difficulties we had be encountering to date was bringing to many elements in. So, as mentioned from the last post we were now aiming to focus solely on bringing awareness of the data to the public on behalf of the EPA. Above is an initial prototype we developed 

The final concept we reached for Crit is shown below. Airen involves a number of different touch-points within the system. However, The main focal point would incorporate a physical data display somewhat similar to the below image titled Airen which would work as part of a larger eco-system.

There are a number of touch-points involved in the overall system including a social media element, a new website element, the display itself. The touch-points are explained in detail in the image below:

 

We developed a detailed Stakeholder map to do with our concept:

During the development of this concept we were sure to keep to our research findings and tied our developments back to our persona's. There were two of the personas that were of particular interest to us; 

Claire C: Asthma sufferer and Health Conscious

Michael & Mary: Little Air Quality Knowledge

We aimed to design for the personas at two ends of the spectrum. Shown below are some of the insights we used from these personas:

Finally, we conceptualised some ideas of branding and wire frames to show the system branding working across the overall system shown below:

We presented these concepts to our peers and tutors for our final crit. Some of the feedback we received from our tutors included reviewing the form and scale of the physical element. We also received some feedback regarding the logo and how we may hook potential users into the social media engagement. Tomorrow we will aim to finalise and take onboard the feedback we received.

at 18:32

Team 3: Further Concept Exploration and Brainstorming

Further Concept Exploration and Brainstorming

Today we began the day by exploring all the concepts we had generated individually from yesterday. From this we aimed to explore the similar themes that were emerging from each of our individual concepts. Below are some of the examples of the concepts we had generated. 

From there, we developed a storyboard which incorporated all of our ideas and the feedback we had received on Friday and once again on Monday. We worked out an interactive bus display which used video mapping and face recognition to put a user into a realtime data display where they could interact with realtime visual displays and gather information surrounding the Air Quality. Additionally, we had an integrated application which was part accessible from the display. This was an encouraging application to change certain behaviours and give information surrounding Air Quality. In addition, we tried to integrate a community school-based activity to promote longevity in the product we were creating. The storyboard for this concept is shown below.

After some feedback, it seemed that there were a few too many touch points in this concept and we were brought back to drawing board. From here we sketched a large number of different concepts in many shapes and forms, gaining insights from a number of different projects, visualisations, data artists and more. Finally, we met with Ben Dromey an expert who works in Data Visualisation. His suggestions to us included taking a more simplified approach. Our purpose was to visualise data and make people aware that there was data being collected about Air Quality. This may not be the strongest of engagement factors which I think we were previously overthinking but Ben reassured that the "one glance everyday" is enough of an interaction to undertake provided we can represent it in the correct way. We looked at some further concepts surrounding the visualisation of data in a number of ways. We are eager to get a final concept nailed as time is now becoming a major factor. 

at 15:31

Team 2 : Branding our eek

Concept

For our product we wanted to establish a strong brand style that reflected the values and core concept. We started with the initial style of purple and grey to represent the entire eek company. For the streams we wanted to use primary colours of Yellow for Air, Red for Soil, Green for Waste and Blue for water.

We created a brand style tile which you can see here so that all members of the team can apply to any part of the product that they are working on.

  

Eek - The octopus

After some research in to existing educational platforms and schemes it was obvious that a character was effective in delivering the message and kids could relate to it. We focused on an Octopus as main character as we felt it shared some of our key values. Some interesting facts about Octopuses;

• Octopuses are considered the most intelligent of all invertebrates.
• As active predators they need to explore, understand and remember their environment and the behaviour of other animals.
• Studies have shown that octopuses learn easily, including learning by observation of another octopus.
• They are the first invertebrates to be seen using tools, such as using coconut shells to hide from potential predators and using rocks and jets of water in a way that could be classified as tool use.

We really felt these represented and reflected our projects goal and concepts. After some sketching eek our octopus was born..

at 18:12

Team 2: Defining the Concept

Over the weekend and on Monday our group decided to spend some time working apart. We thought this might help generate individual ideas. We then came together later on in the day for a catch up and shared our ideas. By doing this we saw that we all had a similar idea in mind of what our concept was. At this point, after presenting 3 slightly different concepts on Friday, it was still hard for us to decide which one to go with or what parts to use from each one. By breaking apart, it helped us to decide what we wanted as individuals, which then informed the rest of the group.

By that point we also got some feedback from Emma. Things for us to consider in our concept are which age range of school children are we aiming to design for, who sponsors or implements this project, what are the digital/ physical touchpoints, is this implemented in the home/ community and how etc.

Primary school being the main focus, maybe incorporating TY or the Junior Certificate students, we were able to narrow down who it is we are designing for. We then split up some work we could do like look into existing programmes within primary schools like Food Dude, contact a school where we could possibly do some user testing, do a Service Design Blueprint, details of the Packs and wire framing the digital touchpoints. The rest of the day was spent carrying out each tasks and trying to get as much done as possible.

This is a rough Service Blueprint that myself and Pag made to give us an idea of how the project works. Its not an easy job blueprinting something that you're still not sure of!