Week 11
What have we worked on this week
After coming back from San Francisco, we returned back to work on the project with full steam ahead.
Application
In the beginning of this week, we had etching, saving the cut lines and etching lines separately, textures for the template shapes drawer and the background ready. We worked on bringing the app together. We combined template shapes (stamps) punching lines, etching pencil and cutting (saving) for our weekend play testing. We postponed erasing and gluing properties for this week’s play testing but after fixing the current bugs, we will be concentrating on these functions.
Here is the version that we have tested this weekend.
Laser Cutter
Sangyun has worked on adjusting the z-table height of the laser cutter. He designed a tool in SolidWorks and printed it by a 3D printer for adjusting the laser cutter at MAKESHOP.
Play-testing time!
We had 2 play tests this weekend for 4 hours each at the museum.
On Saturday, we had 13 play testers. (8 boys, 5 girls = B-6, B-6, G-6, G-7, B-8, B-8, B-8, B-8, G-9, B-9, B-10, G-10, G-11)
On Sunday, we had 13 play testers. (B-2, B-5, B-6, B-6, G-6, B-7, B-7, G-7, G-7, G-8, B-8, B-8, G-10)
We had very informative play test sessions in these 2 days. We asked kids to use our app to design something to be cut and etched. Then we printed their designs through MAKESHOP’s printer and simulated the laser cutter with pen knives. We asked kids whether the end products were the ones they were expecting or not.
Pronounced Results
- Kids generally enjoyed the app.
- Kids either did not recognize the stamp shapes drawer or did not want to use them.
- Pencil active/inactive feedback was missing on Saturday and it caused confusion.
- The buttons did not respond quickly.
- Shapes were not returning back to the right places and it caused confusion.
- Kids tap on the shapes in the drawer to select them instead of dragging them.
- Punching shapes with tapping is not intuitive.
- Kids tried to drag the etching pencil to select it.
- Some older kids designed with combination of the etching and cutting lines.
- Girls like punching hearts. Especially around their names.
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- Parental involvement is almost zero, they mostly watch until kids get really stuck.
What were the challenges we faced
Programming-wise:
- It is much harder to integrate application together than we thought it would be.
- There seems to be issues while saving a canvas as a .png file using toDataURL(). Svg images also are causing some problems.
Laser cutter wise:
- It is hard to find the appropriate height level of the z-table.
Next Week!
- We will be working on our bugs.
- We will be playtesting in Elizabeth Forward School District on 4/12.
- Documentation! We will be preparing the user manual of the laser cutter to MAKESHOP along with the necessary tools list