Starscape

Preparing for Quarters

Posted on February 10, 2011 by rgrabman

We’ve been busy here at Starscape! Our quarter walk-arounds were this past Wednesday, which means that we were given the opportunity to host faculty, staff and visitors to get a wide variety of input and opinions on our project.

Our presentation consisted of Hye Mi speaking briefly about Give Kids The World and the star program already in place, which Tom followed up with an overview of the challenges presented by the physical space that we’ll be working in. Anthony spoke about our the tech choices we’ve made, and Stew demonstrated the abilities of the cameras that will be embedded in the tower.

We had a lot of good questions regarding the experience from the point of view of a volunteer, working to get the stars up in the right place, and how to make the process as easy and intuitive as possible to use (this is an area where our volunteer experience during our Orlando visit will come in handy!). We also had several visitors give us interesting feedback from unexpected areas: while a few were concerned about our tech choices becoming outdated before the tower was filled, one rightly pointed out that no matter how many iPads we were able to stockpile, that hardly matters if the batteries die before they are used.

Of everything we got asked — about technology, story, art and team makeup — the one thing everybody was concerned about was lighting the space, and finding a way to isolate or highlight the physical star, instead of relying solely on digital cues to identify where it is located. We’ve been in constant communication with our partners over at ITEC about the issue, and are continuing to refine the list of tech that will be integrated into the building, which is currently being built. Hopefully we’ll have more concrete answers soon!

(“Concrete”, get it? Get it?? ‘Cause the tower is made out of– oh, never mind….)

Cassandra Makes Notes During a Story Meeting

Next up: Central Florida may be the lightning capital of the United States, but Project Starscape is the place to go to see some brainstorming!

Posted in photos, recap | Comments Off

Orlando, Day 3 (Jan 30)

Posted on February 1, 2011 by rgrabman

Our final day in Florida (for now!) was spent volunteering at Give Kids the World. We were put to work in all areas of the resort:

We fixed software, cleaned machines, blew up balloons, hung decorations and even tried our hand at placing stars in the Castle of Miracles.

A number of stars had to be moved with the addition of the Pillow Tree into the Castle several years ago. Unfortunately, the same stars are being displaced once more, this time due to Star Tower construction.

We discovered first-hand just how hard the stars are to read. Age, handwriting and the reflective surface all add to the difficulties. The addition of barcodes to the back of the stars in 2006 has made cataloging the subsequent stars far easier, but the ones we were handling were from 1999 and had no unique markings other than the Wish Child’s name or message. The Village hopes to one day properly catalog every star in a database, but it’s slow, tedious work and is dependent entirely on volunteers. Even now, with the barcodes, it is still reliant on imprecise location assignments: section 4, line 7, star 14 — and hope that the lines are relatively even so that you can find it easily!

Part of our goal in designing the experience of the Star Tower is to be able to precisely pin-point the location of each star, using a simple, clear placement method and an exact positioning system.

We had such an amazing weekend, between our client visits and the trip to Universal. Our entire team is even more excited to work together towards such a meaningful end product. So far, so good…

Except we probably shouldn’t have let Dani get a wand. Ever since Saturday she’s been getting a little power hungry…anyone seen Tom?

Posted in GKTW, photos, recap, trips | Comments Off

Orlando, Day 2 (Jan 29)

Posted on February 1, 2011 by rgrabman

Dani, Matt "Stew", Anthony, Cassandra, Hye Mi, Tom, Rebecca and Katherine

Our second day in Orlando was another early start, but this time instead of an airport we were making our way to a theme park!

We are designing a magical experience for children and families that takes place in an indoor, low-light situation. Where can we possibly perform research into existing, applicable work? Why, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios of course! This visit was the cherry on the cake of an already amazing project.

There are some obvious fundamental differences between Harry Potter and the Star Fairy program, including but not limited to: the amount and awareness of backstory involved in the creation of the experience, the amount of time and money available, the fundamental needs and wishes of the guests. Universal may have had a massive budget to build the Wizarding World, but they also had extremely defined constraints to work within. We won’t be constructing an entire castle (we already have one after all!) but we do get a huge amount of creative freedom in designing the richest, most engaging experience we can dream up.

Naturally, we explored the rest of the park as well. Spiderman took us on a trip through New York City, we got lost in the wilds of Jurassic Park, took a stroll through the Truffula forests and stopped by the desert paradise of Margaritaville for lunch. And, of course, being students at the ETC we had to analyze every second of it but despite what some people may think, this kind of work doesn’t get old.

Posted in photos, recap, trips | Comments Off

Orlando, Day 1 (Jan 28)

Posted on February 1, 2011 by rgrabman

In the wee hours of Friday morning we fought our way through the cold and rain and general grossness of Pittsburgh to begin our journey to sunny, warm, beautiful Florida. We arrived to a fun surprise: Tom’s license, while renewed online, was not valid for renting the van! So Katherine, being the only other student over twenty-five, was put in charge of the boat-van, since our advisers would be leaving us after this first day of our visit.

From the airport we drove directly to ITEC to meet our partners, discuss our plans and get some information about the building they’ve designed. They gave us a tour of their facility, fed us lunch and answered a ton of questions. We were also given the opportunity to float our ideas for the interactive experience that we are designing to take place in their physical space. They were extremely supportive and offered up some helpful suggestions.

Next up was the main attraction: a visit to Give Kids The World! We entered the Castle of Miracles, where the stars are currently housed. Every single Wish Child has written their name or a message on a small 1.5-inch reflective star, which is placed into the “sky” of the castle, where it will remain. Unfortunately, after so many years and so many children, the castle is running out of room. We were all blown away by the sheer number of stars and the surface area they cover.

We also payed a visit to a previous ETC project, which was responsible for the creation of the Star Fairy and the current database system. The addition of a Star Passport with a barcode was a huge leap forward in organizing and documenting the thousands upon thousands of stars that are placed in the castle. Cassandra has been working since last semester on fixing up the software that runs the current Star Fairy show, which has been experiencing problems lately, to the extent that she “went on vacation” around the holidays.

We headed outside to the building site for the Star Tower, ITEC’s solution to the problem of where to put the next generation of stars. Although we’ve known the measurements for some time, seeing it staked out in the ground was a good reality check: it’s a small, contained space — plenty big for a sky of stars, but pretty tiny for a large family to stand in all at once. Seeing how it will abut the tower and how large of a footprint it actually has has already spurred us to rethink some of our plans to accommodate the comfort of the guests.

The Team and our Friends at ITEC and GKTW

We heard some amazing stories about the emotional importance of the star program and were reminded why this resort is such a unique and special place. It was a very long, very informative day, so we headed out to dinner with a promise to return on Sunday in order to volunteer and get some hands-on experience in the village.

Although exhausted, we did manage to make time to devour some chocolate lava cake from Chili’s before checking into the hotel, where we were in for another surprise: bunk beds!