Week 3
And we’re back to the Children’s Museum this week! This time with our entire team and Heather Kelley. We used this time to explore the museum, play with the exhibits, and observe how children interact with the space. From watching children play with the Rube Goldberg exhibit and the tough art pieces we noticed a few things:
- Exhibits need to be near indestructible
- Children don’t play for a very long time
- Experiences tend to be low to the ground, but as a result, those experiences are typically damaged
- Experiences are engaging for adults as well
We also used this as an opportunity to get some great team photos for our website.
Over the weekend, we put together a pitch deck for our client. We narrowed down our pitch to three distinct concepts:
- Giant Umbrella: A mixed-reality play experience for one or more guests. Guest controls a giant umbrella prop attached to a physical track. A rainy day scene is projection mapped on the back wall. The umbrella provides “coverage” from the rain. The guest can work together with another guest to provide coverage to creatures that appear.
- Mechanical Acts of Kindness: A non-competitive play experience depicting kindness as a chain reaction. Guest interacts with physical levers, pulleys, cranks, etc. to perform acts of kindness. These acts of kindness appear on a screen/projection on the wall.
- Kindness Generator: An arcade-like experience, in which guest(s) can perform acts of kindness for a character using props (with RFID tags) to trigger reactions.
After pitching our concepts on Friday to the clients, we received unanimous support for the Giant Umbrella concept. The feedback that we received was very positive. The clients liked that the experience was:
- Simple + elegant
- Creating an intimate moment
- Translating a concept into an experience
- Non-linear storytelling, but with a progression
- Compatible with “play with real stuff” philosophy
- Created potential for pretend play
- Visually clear cause and effect
- Potential for stunning visuals and high wow factor
They made some suggestions to us:
- PLAYTEST – early and often
- Hide Easter eggs (surprises for children + adults)
- Create a large physical interface to play with
- Add more elements that you can control – physical elements affecting digital environment?
- Make choices?/ have consequences?
- Create other scenarios?
- Accessibility – what about the seeing impaired?
After our meeting with our client we are very excited to be moving forward with this concept. Now to get everyone else on board…quarters! Next week, we will presenting our ideas to faculty.
Until then, be kind,
One Small Act