Week Two

Hi everyone and welcome back to the second weekly update of the project.

Monday, we started the week off with a full head of steam from the first week, and the generation of ideas that we had done the past Friday. When we all showed up to the project room we realized that the Carnegie Science Center was holding a free entrance day. We went and spend a few hours looking at their energy exhibits and what they were teaching during their energy show. We then came back to the ETC to do some team breakdown by filling out a RACI (roles & responsibilities) chart to allow ourselves to know what we needed to focus on and what we were responsible for.

Tuesday, we started our work on working with more branding, by coming up with, and starting work on a concept for both the poster and card. Later on in the day we defined the pillars of our project as:

1. Encourage change in habits to lower energy usage.

2. Get kids excited about science.

3. Synthesize solar, wind, and fossil fuels.

4. Build something physical. We also come in with ideas that for high level games to have a place to just start from.

Wednesday, we started the day by prepping for a meeting with our project advisors, then focused on our meeting with Jesse Schell about our high level concepts for potential games that we came up with on Tuesday. After our meeting with Jesse and using his input we created a list of new constraints for the project, being:

1. Feel/see energy, maybe with a crank.

2. Have some form of competition and cooperation.

3. Energy requirement differences between appliances.

4. Use all forms of energy presented in the Energy Lab or just mixed.

We would then go on to use these constraints in the brainstorming pitches that we would come up with for Thursday.

Thursday, in the morning, we presented three ideas to one another based on the constraints that we set in place the previous day. We also finished the first full concept for the poster/cards, and discussed any changes that may need to be made before Monday.

Friday, we started the day off by playing River Matters, then the day became the day of the meetings. The team had a quick meeting with our advisors about our ideas from Thursday. We then quickly proceeded into the meeting with Elizabeth Forward. We then had a short break to go to a seminar, but then quickly came back to a meeting with Dave Culyba about how our meeting went and toward what direction we should move onto from this point. The team wrapped up the day by setting ourselves up to begin paper prototyping on Monday of week 3, by generating some ideas and rooms to build.