Wrapping Up The Semester

So I just wanted to write a quick few words to wrap up the end of this project, or so we think. I feel over the course of the semester we learned a lot of useful information, whether about how to successfully work in a big group geared towards one goal, or just different issues within the world that we discussed through assigned readings. Design Rebels was an important class for me this semester. I got a lot out of the going ons in the world, and how we can take action towards these issues to benefit humanity. Chomp Magazine was an attempt to approach children with these issues at an early age, so they can be more informed than we've been going into this course. The more you know, the better you can take action, and the early you start, the better. I think Chomp Mag was a success to an extent, I feel we may have set the bar really high for the amount of time we had to complete it, especially for a website of that magnitude. We thought we had a lot of content, but what it boiled down to, was we didn't get a lot of the stuff in time, we didn't follow the schedule as closely as we should have, which means in the end, everything was rushed. The class presentations were good, actually going to a school and speaking with the children was a great way to reach them. I was only there for two, but the first one went extremely well, we had at least 5 people speaking, which helped a lot. The second one i was at didn't go as well, but I'm almost positive the last one was the best, we finally got the projector to work, so i was told, so that shouldn't added a big visual element to the presentation. Not to mention we had bigger numbers again for speakers.

I'm not sure whats next for Chomp, I really don't know how we can measure the amount of success we had, or how to go about continuing this project, as if i have time to do so anyways. It would be nice, but we'd really have to change the format of the website I feel, so we can update it easier, but how do you do that and still make it interactive? It almost seems like we'd need full-time flash animators to even try to attempt it. Using an ordinary website just wouldn't capture children's attention like flash movies can. I feel the next step could be talking to more schools? If we did so, we'd definitely have to have more preparation for them, have an actual planned discussion, so we're not winging everything. I think the game was a really good idea as well, and also throwing in visual elements to tie into some facts that we can list off for the children. Show images of forests being cut down, strip mining, all that stuff, just images that show how much damage our commerce and growth is hurting our planet. I wouldn't mind helping out doing so in the future, but it'd have to be with the right people, I'd want Sean Berg and Carman to be involved as well, otherwise I don't think the original chemistry would be there. Anyways, this is me closing off the discussion of Chomp Magazine, we'll see how it goes in the future, I hope its not the end, but I know we're all busy. I have to graduate. But I do think the end idea with Chomp was a great idea, kids are the future and we're discussing issues that are not going away anytime soon, they need to be informed about these issues, so they can address them in the future, just as we've attempted to do so.

Middle School Presentation

While its still fresh in my head, I just wanted to write down some observations about the presentations we gave to the Martin Luther King Middle School this morning. Overall, I do understand why it was important to speak with a class, but why the specific middle school? I have no idea. They were a tough crowd to speak with, probably mostly because of the area, I don't want to say that race was an issue, but the school was about 98% black. The first class was fine, they were the 7th graders, which were younger than the second. We also had a lot more people for the first presentation, so everyone gave their little part, it was fine, ran real smoothly and the kids got into it. The second class we talked to was the 8th grade, which were a little tougher, they acted like they were too cool to listen to the visitors speak. Its whatever. We only had 2 people to speak for the second part, which made it a lot harder and put more pressure on them, in the first presentation, people would fill in some information here and there for each other, throw in their 2 cents. Because of the shortage of personnel, we couldn't conduct the game like we had done in the first presentation, which took out the class participation aspect of the demonstration, so the kids sat down in the chairs and weren't as into it. We also had some technical difficulties with the computers and displaying our website, which was a pretty big hit. They computers we totally outdated, which meant they were a big issue with displaying them on the computers, plan B was to show it on a projector, but we couldn't get the right connection for the Mac laptop. So we wound up just holding up Sean's laptop and showing small groups at a time, which really sucked, but sometimes you just have to do what you gotta do. Next time we'll be completely prepared for the worst, plan for everything so we don't run into this kind of problem in the future. The freebie bags were a big hit though, for the gardening aspect of our page, we prepared some baggies with homemade grow kits for the kids, which everyone was pretty excited about, kids always love free stuff. One last thing I noticed in the presentation that I feel could have been beneficial was adding in some of the recycling facts that I had read over for research. We had planned on throwing those in there, but I think in the heat of battle, we just got nervous and forgot. I just think it would've been facts that the kids could easily visualize, which would give them a better idea of the impact we have on our planet with trash and how much recycling can aid in our planets health. Besides that, we did good, I should have some pictures real soon, they just need to be downloaded and edited. I haven't felt the greatest lately, so I've been trying to hang out, get some school work done,

Latest Update

Just wanted to write a few short notes, I fell behind on the journal posts because of so many end of semester projects and all that b.s. This late into the semester, I'd say everything is going well, we seemed to have gotten everything taken care of that we needed to. We got the posters printed out, the printing turned out nicely, I was happy with the results. I really liked the weird dimensions we used on them too, really sets them apart from the others, its more interesting and draws attention to itself. The website is in the final stages, hit a few obstacles nearing the end of the semester, we fell a little bit behind schedule, but in the end we did the best we could. I think its a cool website, just a matter of how successful the project will be after this semester, I don't see myself having the time to put too much effort into it. Us three "web designers" put a shit ton of hours into the thing though, there was a lot of research and figuring out specific parts of the site. Some parts of the site we had to cut corners, we either couldn't figure out how to do something, didn't work right, or just straight up didn't have the time.

I think from here, we just wait out the end of the semester, still need to get it up and running online, which really isn't that big of a deal, everything functions properly, we used the correct dimensions, once its online, we should be good to go. I think one last minute thing we need to add is the site requirements, showing the best resolution to run it at, as well as flash and browser requirements. Sometimes that become a big issue, depending on who your audience is. I think we all put a lot of effort into this project, I feel some more than others, but I dont want to single anyone out, I'd rather finish off the project, get the grade and move on. Its been a long and exhausting semester, I just want to see how the other group feels about what we accomplished.