at 20:20

Team 3: Developing the prototype - week 5

We arrived to the studio at the beginning of week 5 and came together to iron out the final details about the form of our piece, the materials is would be made with, the mechanics of how it would work, its scale etc.

After a lot of discussion we decided to stick with the tree form, specifically an abstract angular tree. We also agreed that the piece should have a strong base to support it, and that the Airen 'tree' trunk should be encased in perspex. The rational behind creating a secure base for the piece would be to protect the public, and the piece itself from damage or injury. This enclosure would be hexagonal, so that information about the six different pollutants being monitored could be explained in further detail on the piece. We plan for the information to be etched onto the perspex casing.

We realised that enclosing the tree may encourage people to litter, so we designed a hexagonal pyramid shape to sit on top of the case. This pyramid would fit tightly around the tree trunk so that there would be no space for anything to get in or out.

I created a 3D model of what this form may look like using Rhino3D. Seeing the form helped us to visualise the scale of the product and the materials.

We also created a mock twitter account using a template, to show what Airen's online presence might look like.

After completing all this preparation work we began to source materials to use for the next day, when we would begin building the Airen tree.

at 18:33

Team 2: EEK Kit Contents

Pack 1:

Pack 1, the first pack that the students receive, includes activities and fun experiments that eases and slowly introduces the students to Air Quality. This is the pack that we decided to concentrate on and develop the most. Along with all the packs comes a website that the students can log their activities and collections to share with their parents and the rest of the community. This pack contains:

• Catching Air Activity: vaseline and card (main activity) where the students spread some vaseline on the card and hang it outside in various locations around the school/ home. After a few days they inspect the cards for particulate matter they may have collected.
• Paper Pinwheel Activity: paper pinwheel with its arm and leg that need to be assembled. This helps understand air by making it visible.
• Lichen Spray
• Data Paint: visualising data by using paint. Introduction to data.
• Instruction Cards: each pack contains instruction cards that the students will use as a step-by-step guide for the activities.

Pack 1

Pack 2:

I won't go into a lot of detail in this pack or the third pack. The main activity in the second pack are the NOx Air Quality Monitoring tubes that the students can leave around the school/ home to collect NOx samples. This will lead to a brief introduction about the EPA and also an opportunity to start mapping the area for the rest of the community to see. Other activities that might be included would link to the previous pack, for example, documentation of the growing lichen.

Pack 2

Pack 3:

The third pack is the final pack, received during the third school term after having completed the previous two. This is a more advanced pack and it contains sensors that the students can use at school/ home to collect data. This will be further linked into the EPA and data collection. It carries on previous activities by making them more advanced. 

Pack 3

After finishing the 3 packs, after getting feedback from teachers, we decided to not have a reward system. The teachers that we spoke to already had their own reward systems within the class/ school. We are considering various end-of-year exhibitions, showcasing student's work, individual certificates that the students might get and some prizes given out on Sport's Day for best project etc.

at 16:50

Team 1 - User Testing

Back from a weekend of working our concept into an interactive smart glass map above a tactile model which involved testing how the interactive glass would look in after effects.

 We began today by going out into the wild to user test our interactive air quality map with members of the public to gauge their reaction and see what features they would like included or removed.

This process was very helpful and gave us tones of useful feedback and insights about the product.

The public seemed very enthusiastic and yet once brought back to the drawing board we had a good hard look at the concept and felt that it was drifting from the brief of raising awareness of air quality as the more features we added we found the impact of it's air quality capabilities were drifting into the background somewhat.

We called a meeting with our peers in the class in the afternoon to consult them about our fears surrounding our concept. Following a long and helpful conservation, we have decided to change our concept to bring it back more in line with the brief while retaining the core idea of providing air quality data for Dublin bike users in a way that would make the data more meaningful to them.

This will take the form of an app that will allow the user to choose the quickest or the AQ beneficial route to their destination which will then link into the bike as previously with a handlebar light display guiding them to their destination based on the decision they made when picking their route with the app. We look forward to bringing this concept through to our final presentation and doing the large amount of work that has gone into this brief justice.

at 09:50

Team 3 Branding and Colour Palettes

Today we aimed to look at the branding and colour palettes that we aimed to use for Airen our design solution for the EPA and Intel. We examined a number of colour palettes using mood boards and Adobe Colour Palette Selection. We aimed to find a soft colour palette which would also work nicely with the EPA's existing overall branding. We found a nice palette which would wok in this way called pear fizz shown below:

From here, we were able to begin Logo design and Avatar development for our online persona and twitter touchpoint to the project. 

We played around with a number of fonts and colours for both the Avatar and the online persona. Shown below is Airen our online Avatar:

Incorporated into his design is the EPA logo and he is modelled off the sign for an information point. We kept within our colour palette in our design and tried to keep a friendly quirky appearance overall.

The logo we chose to go with also incorporated Airen our little avatar and is shown below. This will be the branding for our final product.

at 15:25

Team 2: Teacher Reviews of the Kit

After figuring out the pack contents we got a group of Primary and Secondary school teachers to come in and review the pack and the idea of our service. We got some really great feedback on how this could be rolled out into schools and also what kind of engagement the students might have, whether they would want to engage with this at all. Our chat with the teachers reinforced our selection of the 5th/ 6th class age group.

Meanwhile we also arranged to go to a local school to speak to a 6th class teacher and to run the Vaseline and card/ jar activity with the class. 

We divided ourselves up: 3 people would run the activity with a group of students and one person would be filming. We prepared a pack for each of us to take. Each pack contained vaseline, jars, card and string. 

The teacher introduced the activity to the class by asking what they thought the phrase "a breath of fresh air" meant. The way we ran the activity was we got each student to put their names on their card/ jar and tie a piece of string on the card. We then went outside into 3 different areas of the school playground and here the students put vaseline on their cards and jars. They then found a spot to hang the cards and place the jars, noting down their locations. The children were all curious as to what we were doing and why, and some of them, surprisingly enough, knew a lot about air quality already.

We are hoping to go back to the school before our final presentation to get the cards back and see if they collected any data. Overall both the students and teacher enjoyed the activity. It did not take up too much time and it was great for us to see it in a real life context.

at 15:51

Team 3 Friday Prototypes, Meetings and User Testing

On Friday morning we began early building a new form prototype in the studio. We tried to incorporate the feedback we had received from the clients from the previous week and our tutors during the current week. We developed  a low fidelity prototype shown below.

In addition to this, we also began to start considering some of the wireframes for the user journey we had suggested for the interaction points of Airen. At this point we were primarily concerned with the wire frames for mobile as this was our main point of interaction with the physical object. 

The ideation behind the microsite we suggested is that it would provide an online interactive experience for users who could not physically engage with the tree. Users would be able to interact with the tree by choosing different locations to check the data along with finding out more information about each pollutant the EPA is currently testing for and what those pollutants mean to the general public. 

IN the afternoon we led a peer-feedback and user testing session with our peers. We asked them to critically analyse our overall service through each suggested touchpoint. We found this really helpful as they had great feedback for us and some really interesting points which we then iterated into our design where possible before heading out to user test.

Our user testing we went very well that afternoon. We headed out around the campus and nearby Dublin 8 to get some feedback on the prototype. We got some really nice feedback surrounding the product.

Some of the feedback we received included:

It was perceived it to be about about pollution

People said they would engage with the tree if they were to see it

Suggestions included placing it in a public space, especially around high commercial areas

Users would engage in online aspect if they were receiving something for free

Users stated it needed to have a balance of fun and putting the relevant information across

Users suggested the form was interesting but needed to be a little more abstracted and appealing

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