MD318 – Blog 5

I must address the elephant in the room – Covid-19. The spread of this virus has not only closed the Maynooth campus & suspended lectures for the foreseeable future, it has also put our project in a state of uncertainty. Although many lectures are being moved online so we can progress, this isn’t really an option for MD318. Our hands are tied without access to the Mac lab & Adobe software.

Nevertheless, before the announcement of campus closure this week, Niamh, Lucy & I all met on Tuesday to work on the project. I finished a short animation using the Wacom tablet, Photoshop & Aftereffects. I created it as a rough module to be used with our Beta version. As I finished this animation and exported it, Niamh & Lucy worked on design ideas for the final version. We all discussed what needs to be done over the next few weeks – look into 3D design, laser cutting facilities, what information we want to portray in this design. We decided last week to use white painted wood as our material to project onto, now we are exploring the idea of having shapes cut out to stand in as the campus buildings to be projected onto.

I will admit, I was fairly frustrated when my fellow team members suggested we develop an app to accompany our projection map. Lucy expressed how she thought the project would be ‘too boring’ as a projection alone. My frustration stemmed from the fact that I was truly excited at the idea of an interactive map and so evidently disappointed when we were advised to stick to projection mapping and forget about the BareConductive kit. My team members seemed content with this change of plan, and although I voiced my disappointment, I agreed to a purely projection project. To think this was merely two weeks ago when we made the change and now they believed it to be too simple or boring? I was starting to feel conflicted in the group. An app would require a LOT of planning and development on top of the projection map. It’s also way too late in the semester to start making drastic changes such as introducing an entirely new project.

Luckily, after chatting to Javad, he was able to show the girls that this project will be far from boring if we have the right perspective and see the possibilities it will open up. As Javad stated at the very beginning of this process, this project os about the creative process rather than achieving the perfect end result. We should be focusing on the places this project could go rather than ‘how boring’ it will be compared to everyone else’s project. Yes, we are not designing a website or VR experience. But just because our idea is different to everyone else’s, definitely doesn’t mean it isn’t as impressive. If anything, being different in this course will simply make us stand out more in the end. I understand where the girl’s frustration is stemming from, our project has changed drastically from the first idea – a website regarding global warming. But in the real world we need to be adaptable, capable of rolling with the punches. This entire project process will be a learning curve which will stick to us in future jobs etc.