game2learn

Brinkman 1-20-12 Report

2012-01-20T06:50:00.001-08:00

1. What did you plan to do this week?
- Write Android sections of GG final report
- Write Table Tilt paper

2. What did you do?
- Wrote Android sections of GG final report
- Wrote short Table Tilt paper for FDG Experimental Game entry
- Helped Veronica prepare SPARCs materials and create pre/post tests

3. Problems encountered?
- Finding a LaTeX editor that worked well in Windows

4. What do you plan to do next week?
- Extend Android functionality to include "extras" that were cut out of last semester's schedule
- More Android testing

5. How many hours did you work?
~18

Katie Doran Weekly Report 1/13 - 1/19

2012-01-20T06:50:00.000-08:00

1. What did you plan to do this week?

- Submit ITiCSE paper (deadline early on 1/14)

- Submit abstract to grad research fair (deadline 1/18)

- Identify target conferences for this semester

- Assist in Global Game Jam preparations

2. What did you do?

- Finished and submitted paper to ITiCSE on Citizen Schools work

- Submitted an abstract for a poster to the Grad Research Fair (also on outreach)

- Identified several target publications (see #6)

- Have finalized nearly all details for GGJ, secured funding for advertising (unfortunately not for food, but may already have another source for that), contacted Journalism professors about students to assist in interviews for a paper on GGJ & Creativity

3. Problems encountered?

- Format of data from Citizen Schools made it impossible for me to calculate the statistical significance of my results, weakening the impact of the ITiCSE paper

4. What do you plan to do next week

- Finalize all Citizen Schools lesson plans for this semester of outreach and put them online

- Make plans for a short-paper submission to GAS on our work creating a game-based digital layer for the museum (deadline 2/17)

- Investigate feasibility of a study on learning benefits of Citizen Schools outreach for the instructors

- Global Game Jam event & study

- Citizen Schools WOW! training

- Set up new devices for outreach use

- Contact Mike Kubiak from Citizen Schools data collection office to determine what data I need and, out of that, what I can get (what I received most recently was good, but did not have all the information I would like to capture)

5. How many hours did you work?

~12 hours

6. What publication venues are you targeting and for what papers?

- GAS 2012, short paper (4 pages) - Creation of a Game-Based Digital Layer for a Science Museum (deadline 2/17)

- ICER 2012, discussion paper (6 pages) - Better Understanding through Outreach: learning gains among instructors of computer science outreach (deadline 4/20)

- Meaningful Play 2012, extended abstract (500+ words) - I'd like to submit a paper on OLPC serious games for Haiti, but this depends on me creating such a game before our spring break trip...which I plan to do, but may or may not be successful (deadline 7/16)

- A D.C. somewhere? Maybe ICER?

Antoine Campbell Weekly Report 11-8 / 11-14

2009-11-14T07:26:00.000-08:00

1. What was planned?
*Finish Undo System
*Practice for 8 hour startup Web Application Competition

2. What was done?
*Lots of practice for the 8 hour startup competition
*Won the 8 hour startup competition!!!

3. Problems encountered?
*Splitting time up, had to just work on Ninjitsu Sea Pirates this week, only seem to be working with a two man team, which is giving us even more work. Teammates are not following through on assignments.

4. What did you learn this week?
*A little bit of practice goes a long way, presentation and polish also go a long way.

5. What's planned for next week?
*Get back on to Bunny Generals, not that the competition is over, and my birthday is out of the way, can get back to work on it.
*Writing a two essays for the DOE grant. (I should have payed attention in English class, I like numbers)

6. Hours worked.
*Not sure exactly a lot but not on Bunny Generals so not sure what to put, at least 15.

Antoine Campbell Weekly Report 11-1 / 11-7

2009-11-14T07:17:00.000-08:00

1. What was planned?
*Mainly Finish the Undo System
*Test for bugs
*Playtesting

2. What was done?
*Developed a system to Undo the actions made by the player after a mistake is made, however it does not function as I want it to so playtesting will tell whether it is helpful or not.
*Found a couple of bugs, fixed the bugs I found, got a couple of unexpected functionality if someone just banged a bunch of keys on the keyboard.
*Only had one person playtest and use the undo system, and depending on the situation it moved the algorithm ahead instead of back, I think I just need to change some values here and there.

3. Problems encountered?
*Undo System no as easy as originally thought
*Need more time competition approaching, working on 3 projects and preparing for a competition

4. What did you learn this week?
*Some interesting debugging techniques, Visual Studio is great

5. What's planned for next week?
*Just to get the Undo System working so I can playtest, the Undo System should be the last bit of feedback that was received about Bunny Generals

6. Hours worked.
*About 14

Amanda's report 11/02-11/06

2009-11-10T14:33:00.000-08:00

1. What was planned for this week. Code cleanup. Prepare lecture on DarkWynter’s HUD and Event System for the serious games class.

2. What was done. Both.

3. Problems encountered. None...other than prepping lectures takes bloody forever.

4. Plan for next week. Deliver said lecture on Monday.

5. How many hours worked. 15

Amanda's report 10/26-10/30

2009-11-10T14:29:00.000-08:00

1. What was planned for this week. Halloween Game night. Code cleanup on the engine.

2. What was done. Both though there was more work done for the Game night than anything else.

3. Problems encountered. Game nights.

4. Plan for next week. Finish code cleanup.

5. How many hours worked. 20

Amanda's report 10/19-10/23

2009-11-10T14:24:00.000-08:00

1. What was planned for this week. One click install, work on the parsing some more, final engine prep work for the turn in to Reality Works, deliver lecture prepared last week. Proctored the discrete math test.

2. What was done. All of that.

3. Problems encountered. One click install - not entirely certain that it works the way it should. Just have to wait and see what Reality Works says.

4. Plan for next week. Clean up the disaster of a mess that I had to make of my code base in order to hack in some quick fixes.

5. How many hours worked. 30

Amanda's report 10/12-10/16

2009-11-10T14:12:00.000-08:00

1. What was planned for this week. Fix that camera and one click install. Fix parsing on third level. Meet with my high school mentee and get her started on her project.

2. What was done. Camera...I just dropped it. It wasnt going to work for me in a reasonable amount of time. Parsing on third level ... flaky but it works. Spent two hours with my high school mentee and she is well on her way. Prepared lecture: How to build a .Net compiler into an XNA game, parse student code, launch an XNA game from a form, build data driven surveys in XNA and MS Forms, how to integrate Nuclex into an XNA game

3. Problems encountered. Camera.

4. Plan for next week. One click install, parsing, deliver the lecture.

5. How many hours worked. Short week so only like 10 or so.

Eagle Week 11-1

2009-11-10T13:45:00.000-08:00

What was planned for this week
Finish GRFP application
Plan two lectures for the serious games class.

What was done
Lots of work on the GRFP; lots of good advice in the days before final submission.
Help many students with their applications.

Planned the lectures for serious games class on Sunday....

Problems encountered
Two tests due at the same time as the GRFP is a huge headache.
Doing work on Sunday.

Plan for next week
Work on the EDM IRB.

How many hours worked
40

Eagle Week 10-25

2009-11-10T13:41:00.000-08:00

What was planned for this week
Get more work done on GRFP; help other students with GRFP

What was done
Crunch time; students started coming to grfp meetings.
Have basic drafts of all essays, still working heavy on everyone's research proposals

Problems encountered
Feedback exists in small bursts; helping students more than getting helped.
Lots of tests next week at the same time as GRFP due date

Plan for next week
Do lecture prep for the serious games class.
Do IRB for the EDM project

How many hours worked
40

Eagle Week 10-18

2009-11-10T13:38:00.000-08:00

What was planned for this week
Find a project planning tool.
Get GRFP drafts and receive feedback on them

What was done
Worked with evie and decided on using Assembla
Worked on GRFP, went to meetings to help other students work on GRFP applications

Problems encountered
The program cost money and someone has to pay for it.
Not many students attended the GRFP meetings.
Not getting much feedback on my essays

Plan for next week
Continue to work on GRFP; help other students work on their apps

How many hours worked
20

Eagle Week 10-11

2009-11-10T13:34:00.000-08:00

What was planned for this week
Stress test the jung tool and get matt and shaun set up with the tool and ide

What was done
Everyone on EDM vis should have access to the working copy of the ide and jung tool
Created a first draft of my GRFP research proposal

Problems encountered
Keeping contact with pslc mentor is difficult; limited feedback on GRFP proposal.

Plan for next week
Concentrate on GRFP until the essays are completed.

How many hours worked
20

Eagle Week 10-4

2009-11-10T13:31:00.000-08:00

What was planned for this week
Create an example project in JIDEA with JUNG
Get an educational license for JIDEA

What was done
Contacted JIDEA team and got a license for our project
Created a small example project in JIDEA with jung that
could show some of the abilities of the program

Problems encountered
JIDEA is great, some of the jung documentation is a little weak

Plan for next week
Get started on some NSF GRFP work
Stress test the jung tool

How many hours worked
20

Eagle Week 9-27

2009-11-10T13:28:00.000-08:00

What was planned for this week
Edit John's Thesis
contact pslc mentor
Find a suitable Java IDE
Try to connect jung to a new java project

What was done
Contacted mentor to discuss continuing my pslc project
found JIDEA for java ide

Problems encountered
netbeans is hard to work with existing liberies
eclipe does not have built in GUI editing, these will not work for our needs.

Plan for next week
Get an example project up and working in JIDEA with jung

How many hours worked
20

Eagle Week 9-20

2009-11-10T13:23:00.000-08:00

What was planned for this week
Look into existing Vis tools.
Look into continuing my PSLC project.

What was done
Tons of mindless grading for logic class.
Looked at existing tools; there are a few that might be good.
Most are in java, there are a few in C#

Problems encountered
Tests were not always in the lab.
Working in Java would require a better IDE, Netbeans and Eclipe are both options.

Plan for next week
Contact pslc mentor.
Help do edits to john's thesis.

How many hours worked
25

Eagle Week 9-13

2009-11-10T13:19:00.000-08:00

What was planned for this week
Create a first draft of the SIGCHI paper.

What was done
Created a draft of the SIGCHI paper; sent it to Dr. Barnes for review.
Spent a ton of time doing revisions.

Problems encountered
The AC in the lab is broken!!
Limited feedback before the due date.

Plan for next week
Look over a few existing visualization tools for the EDM Viz group.

How many hours worked
40

Eagle Week 9-6

2009-11-10T13:16:00.000-08:00

What was planned for this week
Attend lots of meetings and plan for the semester.

What was done
Sat in on the EDM Vis group's meeting; attending several other meetings.
Starting drafting and doing literature reviews for a SIGCHI paper.

Problems encountered
Lots of meetings; SIGCHI conference is different than where we have published in the past.

Plan for next week
Create a first draft of the SIGCHI paper
How many hours worked
15

Eagle Week 8-30

2009-11-10T13:03:00.000-08:00

What was planned for this week
Prepare example games for the Serious Games class.
Get ready for the start of the semester; including building google cal etc

What was done
Submitted the games to Dr. Barnes; set up my gCal for the semester.

Problems encountered
Two of my classes have changed class times; this is a pain.
Have to do lots of running around to register for the GAANN class due to these scheduling errors.

Plan for next week
Attend the Computer Science Department retreat.
Attend at meeting on the start of Peer outreach group for STARS.

How many hours worked
15

Amanda's report 09/28-09/09 (two weeks)

2009-11-10T12:03:00.000-08:00

1. What was planned for this week. Camera fixing, more level testing of the third level, began prep of the engine for RealityWorks. Hold office hours for the discrete math class for their test.

2. What was done. All of that plus the games repitches in the serious games class.

3. Problems encountered. The third level parsing is not working correctly. Have to fix that and the camera...

4. Plan for next week. Third level parsing, one click installation, camera.

5. How many hours worked. 24

Amanda's report 09/21-09/25

2009-11-10T11:53:00.000-08:00

1. What was planned for this week. Grading 2175 test. Finish the secondary camera in EleMental and test the level. Game night.

2. What was done. Graded the 2175 test. Organized the Game2Learn group taking the course so that we could meet in order to revamp the original team layout and redo all of the game pitches to be more applicable to the idea of the serious games course (also to make the teams more equitable).

3. Problems encountered. Camera!!! Also, the whole revamp of the class was brought to my attention while at Saucer...

4. Plan for next week. Repitch for serious games, camera, test the level.

5. How many hours worked. 24

Amanda's report 09/14-09/18

2009-11-10T11:46:00.000-08:00

1. What was planned? Work on getting the secondary camera some more. Wrote the third challenge class and scaffolding code.

2. What was done? Third challenge complete and works...not real happy with the parsing but need to check out a better way to do it anyway. That secondary camera might just get dropped.

3. Problems encountered. I cant copy and paste in the blog browser...

4. Plan for next week. Figure out what to do with the secondary camera. Test the third level as extensively as possible. Change the events over to the new level format.

5. Hours worked. 12

Amanda's report 09/07-09/11

2009-11-10T11:38:00.000-08:00

1. What was planned? Work on EleMental code - secondary camera, changing the code challenges, mini map, and event code.

2. What was done? Code challenges are changed.

3. Problems encountered. Secondary camera...harder than I thought.

4. Plans for next week? Get the mini map working, make the third challenge, do something with the secondary camera.

5. Hours worked. 12

Antoine Campbell Weekly Report 10-27-09

2009-10-27T10:13:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?

*Implement Point System

*Implement Undo System

*Add all help messages to message boxes

2. What was done?

*Point System Done

*Help Messages Done

*Still Working on Undo System

3. Problems encountered?

*Having to redo all the player actions in order to get the undo to work, going to try a stack based Undo class that recalls all the objects state rather that just the last state.

4. What did you learn this week?

*It is possible to make an online live PHP editor using AJAX, an amazing technique

5. What's planned for next week?

*Finish with the coding of this game, run a study ASAP

6. Hours worked.

*About 12

Antoine Campbell Weekly Report 10-16-09

2009-10-16T09:34:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?

*Implement Prototype Point System

*Remove lower HUD and place specific help into popup message window

*Design an undo system to allow players to make mistakes and revert their actions

*Add instructions to all levels(XML) no more tutorial screens

2. What was done?

*Added level instructions to XML for levels

*Still adding all help messages to pop up message window

*Implemented a prototype point system(needs a little refining

*Attempted a Undo System

3. Problems encountered?

*To implement the undo system the player controls and actions need to be more generic

4. What did you learn this week?

*Working one less day a week at work will allow me to get a lot more work done.

5. What's planned for next week?

*Modify point system and undo system

*hopefully show to Dr. Barnes and get some feedback

6. Hours worked.

*About 14

Antoine Campbell Weekly Report 10-1-09

2009-10-01T11:42:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
*Finish setting up the RPG styled dialogue boxes
*Redo tutorial screens
*point/combo system
*Allow players to make mistakes

2. What was done?
*Finished RPG dialogue boxes, reading in from XML
*Added ability to access help at any time.
*Mockup of point/combo system

3. Problems encountered?
*Never have enoguh to time to do everything, working many projects and jobs simultaneously

4. What did you learn this week?
*How to use XPath
*Coding Dialogue box with smart word wrap

5. What's planned for next week?
*Fully implement point system
* Demo for Dr. Barnes
*Figure out some system to revert player mistakes
*Add all the instructional info into each levels dialogue box.

6. Hours worked.
*Only about 6, moved this week

Antoine Campbell Weekly Report 9-24-09

2009-09-24T09:12:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?

*Update Bunny Generals using the feedback received from playtesting, the user study, Dr. Barnes, and Dr. Souvenir.

*All levels only highlight active advisors while others are faded and their values hidden

*Extend HUD on Insertion Sort level

*Larger , better looking characters (Courtesy of Wu's Castle, thank you Mike Eagle)

*Hide the cursor to prevent people from thinking they can use it

*Remove all XBOX controls from the menu screens

*Add names off test to each Survey Form

*RPG style text box, rather than bottom HUD

*Add ability to refer back to tutorial screens or Instruction from within the game

*Selection Sort should start with first element set

*Game should eventually be all inclusive, meaning the survey monkey surveys should be written into a form

*Pre and Post test should ask participants to describe each algorithm in their own words

*Add point/combo system

*Allow players to make mistakes, then revert back

*Don't allow tutorial screens to wrap, only forward or back

2. What was done?

*All levels only highlight active advisors while others are faded and their values hidden

*Extend HUD on Insertion Sort level

*Larger , better looking characters (Courtesy of Wu's Castle, thank you Mike Eagle)

*Hide the cursor to prevent people from thinking they can use it

*Remove all XBOX controls from the menu screens

*Add names off test to each Survey Form

*RPG style text box, rather than bottom HUD(Halway There still working on this one)

*Selection Sort should start with first element set

*Don't allow tutorial screens to wrap, only forward or back

3. Problems encountered?

*Finding and buying a new car, looking for a new house/apt, and trying to fix my Mercedes cost me a lot of time of at the beginning of the semester, now it's catch up time.

*Trying to develop a simple system to pop up the RPG style message system based on certain players events, guess in comes an Event System.

4. What did you learn this week?

*The world would be a better place if we had 36 hour days.

5. What's planned for next week?

*As much of the above listed items i did not complete for next week/week end.

6. Hours worked.

*About 24 over the last 2 weeks

2009-09-22T09:45:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
I planned to familiarize myself with the literature regarding visualizations, specifically ones that relate to our work. Read a number of papers and other resources, authors' webpages/tools, and see what other works could be used in our own. Primarily what do we like and dislike about other works and how do we incorporate or avoid those in our own work.

2. What was done?
I read a number of papers as well as other literature to get a better understanding of our project. Made some notes that I will bring to our Tuesday meeting.

3. Problems encountered?
No problems. Some papers are more related than others.

4. What did you learn this week?
Miscellaneous concepts regarding visualization. Quadratic curves make a good way to avoid edge overlap in graphs. The pivotGraph paper is a good source for aspects we should be mindful of while making our visualization.

5. What's planned for next week?
Read more papers, take more notes. Think more in depth about the problem that we have and how we can start to create structure for the work-flow in the coming weeks/months. What are the steps necessary in order to complete this project? Design (conceptually), Design (concrete), Implementation, Documentation, Testing, Research Paper?

Rachel Brinkman - Week 10

2009-08-18T14:58:00.001-07:00

1. What was planned?
- Fix accelerometer data, finish code for passing the ball between screens.
- Test game
- Write paper

2. What was done?
- Fixed accelerometer
- Finished ball-passing code
- Everything is finished for the game! At least for our first release... yay!
- Finished final paper

3. Problems encountered?
- Sometimes the ball can be lost when it is moving between screens if the vector is reversed while it is traveling. It doesn't happen very often, but when it does, the packet is lost for good, because none of the devices think that it is in their coordinates.
- Also, occasionally scenarios can be generated that are impossible. To counteract this, Evie added a swipe gesture to reset to a new scenario. Eventually, we want to change the level generation to better prevent extremely difficult or impossible scenarios.

4. What did you learn this week?
- This summer has been a very positive experience for me, and I learned a great deal about research methods, new programming languages, and design. I also had the opportunity to network with others in the research community both at UNCC and at the two conferences I attended. Because of this research experience, I am now seriously considering a Ph.D. Thanks to everyone at the Game2Learn lab for a great summer!!

6. Hours worked.
~48

Rachel Brinkman - Week 9

2009-08-05T09:01:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
- Finish the game
- Write paper
- Make real poster for STARS

2. What was done?
- Made real poster for STARS
- Fixed vector network passing
- Multi-threaded the networking so that the accelerometer could run too

3. Problems encountered?
- The networking code was actually preventing the accelerometer updates from running, because they were both in the same thread. Moving the networking stuff to a separate thread fixed this issue. Unfortunately, the accelerometer is currently not giving us real values.

4. What did you learn this week?
- Learned how to do multi-threading for the iPhone.

5. What's planned for next week?
- Fix accelerometer data, finish code for passing the ball between screens.
- Test game
- Write paper

6. Hours worked.
~47

Rachel Brinkman - Week 8

2009-08-03T13:32:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
- Finish networking, polish game.
- Finish user study and conduct a pilot study.
- Finish research poster and write research paper.
- Give presentation

2. What was done?
- Made poster
- Finished and gave presentation
- Finished user study
- Networking correctly sends level information, devices correctly receive it (reworked array passing)
- Holes display correctly - the positions are correctly randomly generated
- Reworked some of the enumerations to make things easier

3. Problems encountered?
- Art was never finished for the game. :( We had to make some rough substitutes instead.
- Mutable arrays are just pointers, so passing them across devices is a minor disaster, because the memory addresses don't line up. To fix this, we had to encode each object in the array separately, instead of the whole array.

4. What did you learn this week?
- Learned more about the way that mutable arrays actually work.

5. What's planned for next week?
- Finish the game
- Write paper
- Make real poster for STARS

6. Hours worked.
~70

Rachel Brinkman - Week 7

2009-07-27T08:01:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
- Finish state machine and all game mechanics for Table Tilt (hole detection, scoring, timer)
- Integrate my code with Evie's

2. What was done?
- Finished most of the state machine - level loading is still waiting on the packet information from the server.
- Finished hole detection, scoring, and timer.
- Reworked the physics system, did some code cleanup and added more comments.
- Added some of Christie's art assets.
- Wrote rough draft of final presentation.
- Wrote rough draft of user study.

3. Problems encountered?
- The networking is still not quite to the point of integrating with the level loading and ball transfer, but it is very close.
- Some of the art assets need to be tweaked.

4. What did you learn this week?
- Learned about some different containers and array structures in Objective C.

5. What's planned for next week?
- Finish networking, polish game.
- Finish user study and conduct a pilot study.
- Finish research poster and write research paper.

6. Hours worked.
45

Antoine Campbell Weekly Report 7-15-09

2009-07-20T13:31:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
*Run Study with camp students.
*Work on more challenges for heap game.
*Run study with 2215 students or any students willing.

2. What was done?
*Ran Study with Camp Students
*Set up appointment with Souvenir to evaluate Bunny Generals
*Done with heap challenge and almost done with gameplay

3. Problems encountered?
*No students from 2215 have showed or scheduled for the study, I don't think we can offer any incentives, maybe it should sound more fun on our flyer.

4. What did you learn this week?
*More about how the DarkWynter Engine works and how to use it effectively
*Dictionary's are the greatest thing since sliced bread!

5. What's planned for next week?
*Finish Heap Gameplay button drag and drop interface
*Implement terrain mods for swapping of Arrows
*Modify Log Parser for newly implemented in game Pre/Post test(Bunny Generals)

6. Hours worked.
*40+ hours

Rachel Brinkman - Week 6

2009-07-20T08:01:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
- Return the Dance Tool to a stable state
- Help Evie run a user study on the Dance Tool
- Work on integrating Evie's and my work on Table Tilt

2. What was done?
- Helped eliminate some critical bugs - the Dance Tool was stable in time for the study.
- Helped Evie run the user study.
- Worked on the state machine for Table Tilt.

3. Problems encountered?
- Did not really have time to do much integration on Evie's and my work on Table Tilt, due to the crunch on Dance Tool.

4. What did you learn this week?
- The iPhone does not have a state machine system that I can build on, so I will have to write one from scratch.

5. What's planned for next week?
- Finish state machine and all game mechanics for Table Tilt (hole detection, scoring, timer)
- Integrate my code with Evie's

6. Hours worked.
40

Rachel Brinkman - Week 5

2009-07-20T07:32:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
- Go to AIED conference in the UK

2. What was done?
- Went to AIED conference, attended as many workshops and talks as possible.
- Also worked as a student volunteer - loaded conference bags, signed people up for the conference, directed people to the different conference rooms, and ran mics for the keynote QA sessions.

3. Problems encountered?
- None, but there were some near misses at the Chicago O'Hare International Airport. They don't have enough signs.

4. What did you learn this week?
- I learned a lot about the the cutting edge research questions in the area of AI and Education and some of the potential answers to those questions, such as the study of metacognition, empathetic agents, affect detection, and scaffolding.

5. What's planned for next week?
- Return the Dance Tool to a stable state
- Help Evie run a user study on the Dance Tool
- Work on integrating Evie's and my work on Table Tilt

6. Hours worked.
40ish.

Bethany Miller - week 6 - 7/16/09

2009-07-16T11:42:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?

complete more heap challenges
do bunny generals study with high schoolers

2. What was done?

two challenges done in heap game
pre/post test completed for heap game
parser for all pre/post test results
online bunny generals surveys and tests
high school study participants provided constructive feedback

3. Problems encountered?

high school students weren't eligible participants for study, even though they did provide feedback
bunny generals pre/post tests had errors and need to be redone

4. What did you learn this week? (esp. computer science, or anything surprising or interesting)

how to use forms
gained experience in a trial research study

5. What's planned for next week?

get eligible study recruits for bunny generals and implement changes in pre/post tests
create more challenges for heap game
find a way to implement game play within heap game
correct log errors

6. Hours worked.
40

Thomas Phifer - Week 5 - 7/8/09

2009-07-08T12:05:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
-- Work on SNAG project have more features added
-- Work on Dance Tool project, document bugs and fix features

2. What was done?
-- Added points features to SNAGEM
-- Documented bugs and fixed features of Dance Tool such as the file system

3. Problems encountered?
-- Still cannot work on the iPhone project because my Macbook is in use by the GIG
-- Subversioning the Dance Tool is a little confusing.

4. What did you learn this week? (esp. computer science, or anything surprising or interesting)
-- Better time management skills
-- Learned more about PHP and MySQL while working on SNAG
-- Learned more about JavaScript and C# while working on the Dance Tool
-- Better Documentation Skills

5. What's planned for next week?
-- Meet deliverables deadline for week 6

6. Hours worked.
--50

Bethany Miller - week 5 - 7/7/09

2009-07-07T12:24:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
Work on heap game and do study on bunny generals

2. What was done?
Teachers were contacted and we have permission to speak to Professor Goodrum's class to recruit students. Also, we have a summer camp of high schoolers coming for testing bunny generals. The second level of the heap game was also finished and we have moved on to the third level. Pre and post tests have been made and implemented into the game itself. Instructions for the first two challenges are also done.

3. Problems encountered?
Creating the heap took a lot of work. Creating the pre and post tests was very time consuming because of having to actually draw out the heaps to be visually accurate, and then saving each separated picture which gave many files to be used.

4. What did you learn this week? (esp. computer science, or anything surprising or interesting)
I got the best possible review of heaps possible by creating the pre and post tests.

5. What's planned for next week?
- finish testing for bunny generals
- find way to analyze bunny general data
- make progress in other activities for heap game

6. Hours worked.
40

Antoine Campbell Weekly Report 7-7-2009

2009-07-07T12:17:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
*Complete another challenge for the heap sort game.
*Contact professors for class visits.

2. What was done?
*Contacted Professors.
*completed heap challenge
*working on next challenge

3. Problems encountered?
*Takes a little time to find the correct places in code in the DarkWynter Engine

4. What did you learn this week?
*More stuff about how to use the DarkWynter Engine.

5. What's planned for next week?
*Run Study with camp students.
*Work on more challenges for heap game.
*Run study with 2215 students or any students willing.

6. Hours worked.
*40 hours

Christie Week 4 and Week 5

2009-07-07T11:56:00.000-07:00

Reflection

1. What was planned?

* oversee documentation efforts for Dance Tool

* work with Tyler on art Needs for Dance Tool

* create art documentation for the Dance Tool

* create art for Rachel's game idea

* work on xml for the Dance Tool

* comment the Dance Tool

2. What was done?

* documentation

- submitted 3 revision requests for the fdd

*Art requirements:

- created a splash screen for DT

- started art design documentation

- created opening "scene" for Table Tilt (rachel's game)

- work with Tyler to create buttons

*xml

-recursion

-located and removed false code

3. Problems encountered?

When I first heard I had to do recursion I was a little nervous but I have worked through it. I've struggled some with working with code that isn't mine. I value the practice however, as I am beginning to see that programmers are frequently building on top of somebody else's code.

4. What did you learn this week? (esp. computer science, or anything surprising or interesting)

I have learned the importance of comments. Evie also gave a very interesting analogy for recursion which has illuminated the concept. I have learned the importance of a functional design document, and I have learned a lot about project management and working under deadlines.

5. What's planned for next week?

* User Testing for DT

* art revisions (ongoing)

* additional debugging on the DT

6. Hours worked. *80 (40 week 4 and 40 week 5)

Antoine Campbell Weekly Post 6-22-09, and 6-29-09

2009-07-02T12:57:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
* -Review the returned IRB Paperwork
* -Put the finishing touches on Selection Sort
* -Implement Quick Sort or Merge Sort
* -Set some goals for functionality for the first study
* -Implement all tutorial screens
* -Start on Heap game with Amanda
* -Finish a Heap Challenge
* -Make a Program to evaluate logs

2. What was done?
*Revised IRB paperwork and received Approval
*Finished Selection Sort
*Decided no to implement Quick Sort in the prototype
*Finished the Prototype version of Bunny Generals for the study
*Finished tutorial screens for Prototype
*Began Working on Heap Game
*Finished first Simple Heap Game challenge
*Put off Logging evaluator until later
*Finished Selection Sort

3. Problems encountered?
*Coding Quick Sort was very complicated compared to the other sorts
*The Dark Wynter Engine is large and took a while to learn what classes we should be in
*Finals week messed with our plans to run the study, we have to delay a week until classes start again.

4. What did you learn this week?
*Heaps
*Dark Wynter Engine stuff

5. What's planned for next week?
*Complete another challenge allowing students code to modify the heap level in real time
*Contact professors to recruit students and get permission to visit the classes

6. Hours worked.
*80 hours(two weeks)

2009-07-01T22:15:00.000-07:00

Thomas Phifer - Week 4 - 6/29/09

1. What was planned?
-- Work on SNAG project have more features added
-- Work on iPhone project, get an app to transfer
-- Work on Dance Tool project, organize and delegate tasks
-- Low Ropes Course

2. What was done?
-- Successfully figured out how to transfer an app to the iPhone (which is no small feat)
-- Successfully organized and delegated tasks for all projects and gave leaders and subordinates for each task and set weekly goals and deliverable
-- Cleaned Dance Tool code and improved functionality
-- Went to Venture's Low Ropes Course and improved teamwork skills

3. Problems encountered?
-- Still cannot work on the iPhone project because my Macbook is in use by the GIG
-- Apple's App transfer process is excessively tedious

4. What did you learn this week? (esp. computer science, or anything surprising or interesting)
-- Better time management skills
-- Learned more about the iPhone SDK and Objective C while working on the iPhone project
-- Learned more about PHP and MySQL while working on SNAG
-- Learned more about JavaScript and C# while working on the Dance Tool

5. What's planned for next week?
-- Meet deliverables deadline

6. Hours worked.
--60

2009-07-01T22:14:00.001-07:00

Thomas Phifer - Week 3 - 6/24/09

1. What was planned?
-- Work on SNAG project have a prototype ready for Charleston
-- Work on iPhone project
-- Work on Dance Tool project
-- Go to Charleston to present about research

2. What was done?
-- Made progress with SNAG by adding poster voting system and registration system
-- Made progress with the Dance Tool project by documenting more bugs and keeping up the functional design document
-- Went to Charleston and presented SNAG

3. Problems encountered?
-- Cannot work on the iPhone project because my Macbook is in use by the GIG
-- Server problems with Codendi, got them fixed though

4. What did you learn this week? (esp. computer science, or anything surprising or interesting)
-- Learned more about what STARS is especially during the Charleston trip.
-- Learned more about the iPhone SDK and Objective C while working on the iPhone project
-- Learned more about PHP and MySQL while working on SNAG
-- Learned more about JavaScript and C# while working on the Dance Tool

5. What's planned for next week?
-- More organized goals for all the projects
-- Get an iPhone App transferred to my iPod

6. Hours worked.
--60

Bethany Miller - week 4 - 7/1/09

2009-07-01T09:35:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
Finish up Bunny Generals and begin working on the heap game

2. What was done?
All bugs were fixed on bunny generals. There is now a working version ready for testing. Teachers have been notified, but recruitment will not be able to start until next week because of exams. First activity of heap game has been created and I did the dialog for instructions.

3. Problems encountered?
Publishing bunny generals did not work as planned, as well as recruitment. We didn't realize it was exam time, so this hindered our schedule in finishing testing this week.

4. What did you learn this week? (esp. computer science, or anything surprising or interesting)
I became more familiar with XML files and learned the importance of searching for bugs before actually showing the completed project to others.

5. What's planned for next week?
- start testing for bunny generals
- find way to analyze bunny general data
- make progress in other activities for heap game

6. Hours worked.
40

Rachel Brinkman - Week 4 - 7/1/09

2009-07-01T07:10:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
- Learn about the capabilities of the iPhone accelerometer and build a limited prototype of the table tilt game (by this Friday)

2. What was done?
- Worked on table tilt prototype - got the app working in landscape mode, found an alternate way to draw using the CoreGraphics framework, and got simple ball physics working on one iPhone.

3. Problems encountered?
- Making a multiple-view application in landscape mode is actually not possible. There is a key that can be set in the Info.plist for the project that is supposed to force the orientation to whatever you choose, but it does not seem to have an affect unless each view controller also gets instructions. Even then, only the primary view will change, and not the secondary view. After searching around for a while, I discovered that landscape mode for multiple views and view controllers is not actually possible. Applications that appear to be this way are actually just faked - one or more of the screens is just an image that makes the user think that the screen has rotated. This is different than in-app rotation by the way - it is very possible to take a portrait app and rotate to landscape when the user turns the iPhone. However, this was not what I needed. I ended up creating a landscape splashscreen view and a portrait game view, but the user will assume that it is still in landscape, and so they will still hold it that way.

- Another problem that I had was with drawing, although the fact that the device was not drawing was actually indicative of a larger problem. Basically, the flow of control for the program had entirely disappeared, and the timer that I had created within the main thread of execution was never being called. I discovered that when using .nib files (so basically any time you are using multiple views), all of the objects are archived inside the .nib, and so the initWithFrame method is never called. This method contained all of my timer initialization code, and since it never ran, nothing was happening in the program. The fix for this is to use the awakeFromNib or initWithCoder methods instead.

- DEPLOYMENT. Deploying to an actual device was a nightmare - Apple has a lot of different certificates that you need as a developer before you can deploy your app, and even when you have created all of them, there are lots of little things that can go wrong along the way. Thanks to Evie and Thomas for helping me get that working!

- The accelerometer is also a problem right now. I can access the data from the three axis correctly, but am running into trouble with the math that ties the readings to the physical movement of the ball.

4. What did you learn this week? (esp. computer science, or anything surprising or interesting)
- Learned a lot more about views and .nib files
- Learned an alternative way to draw on the iPhone
- Learned some about the accelerometer on the iPhone
- Learned more about Objective C

5. What's planned for next week?
- Finish the prototype by this Friday
- Go to the AIED conference!

6. Hours worked.
40

Bethany Miller - week 3 - 6/24/09

2009-06-24T07:34:00.001-07:00

Bethany Miller- week 3 - 6/24/09
1. What was planned?
- complete logging
- add quicksort
- fix tutorial

2. What was done?
- new tutorial screens
- fixed bugs
- IRB approval
- contacted teachers and posted flyers for study

3.Problems encountered
Quick sort has been more difficult than we thought. Other problems were encountered during game play that had to be fixed so it put us a little behind on working with quick sort.

4. What did you learn?
We had to review quicksort in order to be able to implement it.

5. Whats planned for next week?
- finish up Bunny Generals
- conduct study with participants
- announce to classes
- start on next game

Antoine Campbell Weekly Report 6-22-09 & 6-29-09

2009-06-24T07:34:00.000-07:00

Christie's Week 3 Reflection

2009-06-24T06:11:00.000-07:00

Reflection

1. What was planned?

* complete iPhone tutorial

* brainstorm about the STARS game

2. What was done?

* iPhone app

- merged views

- objective C tutorial

* updated website

* Paper and Game review

3. Problems encountered?

I am becoming more familiar with Objective C within the iPhone framework, however I found the interface builder to be a bit confusing. Working with Eve helped me become more comfortable using this tool.

4. What did you learn this week? (esp. computer science, or anything surprising or interesting)

This week I learned a lot about our team from spending time together at Charelston which was nice. I am constantly learning more about the iPhone from working with it so much. Also, planning for the STARS Conference Game has given me insight into project planning and project management.

5. What's planned for next week?

* Finish iPhone Tutorial

* Maya tutorial (personal)

* Planning/Coding for the STARS game

6. Hours worked. * 40

Rachel Brinkman - Week 3 - 6/23/09

2009-06-23T14:06:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
- Finish the iPhone tutorial
- Build a prototype of the conference game (this week and next week)
- Begin work on the Dance Tool?

2. What was done?
- Worked on iPhone tutorial - added 3D transitioning views, multi-touch zooming, and a single tap changes the color of the cube. Also added a light source.
- Developed and pitched an iPhone/iPod Touch game idea for the conference. The working title is Co-op Table Tilt Game. The pitch and screen mockups will be posted soon to the Codendi Game Ideas Wiki.

3. Problems encountered?
- Ran into trouble with registering multiple touches on the iPhone - wasn't sure if it was an error with the simulator or the math. The simulator seems to register the first touch as the origin and then calculates the second touch as a distance ratio based on the first touch's position. This led to wrapping issues near the edges of the window, and unexpected behavior when not zooming on a diagonal from the origin. The math for determining whether to zoom in or out simply takes the two touch points and runs them through the distance formula, and depending on whether the distance between the two points is growing or shrinking, the image is scaled up or down, respectively. However, when we deployed the app to the iPhone, the problem was actually exacerbated, so it probably isn't a problem with the simulator. The math seems sound, so it must have something to do with the registration of the touch positions. Perhaps using the distance formula is the wrong approach, given the way touches are registered?

- I originally planned to have each face of the cube be a different color, and when the user tapped a face, it would change that face's color. Unfortunately, although I could get the screen coordinates of the tap, it is not possible to select a particular pixel and get its color on the iPhone. Unless I cast a ray and intersected it with the face, I wouldn't be able to determine the location of the tap. Since ray casting seemed like overkill, I opted to just make the cube one color, and tap on the cube to change the entire cube's color.

- Lighting was very problematic, mostly because the iPhone does not allow most of the typical OpenGL methods for drawing. I enabled GL_LIGHTING, a light, and set the shader model to GL_SMOOTH (as opposed to FLAT). I calculated all of the surface normals and set the material properties, but the cube was still in grayscale. After a lot of hunting around, I found that I had not enabled GL_COLOR_MATERIAL! After that was set, lighting worked as expected.

4. What did you learn this week? (esp. computer science, or anything surprising or interesting)
- Learned about the touch interface for the iPhone
- Learned a lot about lighting in OpenGL, and some of the limitations of the iPhone's implementation of OpenGL
- Increased familiarity with Objective C

5. What's planned for next week?
- Learn about the capabilities of the iPhone accelerometer and build a limited prototype of the table tilt game
- Begin work on the Dance Tool

6. Hours worked.
~46

Antoine Campbell Weekly Report 6-17-09

2009-06-17T07:16:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
* -Finish IRB Paper Work and submit
* - IRB applications with pre and post test
* - include player logging
* - list player sequence of operations
* - add instructional screens
* - include other sorting algorithms
* - analyze number of steps and Big Oh notation

2. What was done?
* -Finish IRB Paper Work and submit
* - IRB applications with pre and post test
* - include player logging
* - list player sequence of operations
* - include other sorting algorithms

3. Problems encountered?
* -Selection sort was a little tricky to program

4. What did you learn this week?
* -Good tips to giving a good presentation

5. What's planned for next week?
* -Review the returned IRB Paperwork
* -Put the finishing touches on Selection Sort
* -Implement Qucik Sort or MergeSort
* -Set somes goal for functionality for the first study

6. Hours worked.
* -40

Christie Thornton's Week 2 Reflection

2009-06-17T06:41:00.000-07:00

Reflection

1. What was planned?
* complete iPhone tutorial
* brainstorm about the STARS game

2. What was done?
* iPhone app
- created a 3d cube
- completed a tutorial on switching views
- working on a tutorial to merge views with the cube
* updated website
* Paper and Game review

3. Problems encountered?
I am unfamiliar with Objective C so working with the code on the iPhone app proved to be difficult. After completing some online tutorials I am becoming more familiar with the syntax of the language.

4. What did you learn this week? (esp. computer science, or anything surprising or interesting)
This week especially has given me some practice in going to the web and using what others have provided to "teach myself." I am learning Objective C. I have also learned a few tips about presenting from some of the graduate students.

5. What's planned for next week?
* Finish iPhone Tutorial
* Begin work on Dance Tool or iPhone App
* Planning for the STARS game

6. Hours worked. * 40

Thomas Phifer - Week 2 - 6/17/09

2009-06-17T05:53:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
--Turn in IRB Completion Certificate
--Finish iPhone tutorial
--Get Dance Tool started
--STARS Networking Game meetings/brainstorming/prototyping
--Read paper, review game

2. What was done?
--Completed IRB and turned in the paperwork
--Made progress with the iPhone tutorial; got cube spinning + views switching
--Evie and I got Codendi's "engine" back up and running with some PHP/MySQL and a lot of elbow grease and Chinese food. The Dance Tool is now on Codendi and I have started documenting bugs and helping Evie with the Technical Documentation.
--Our group met with Josh and Dr. D to discuss STARS SNAG Project ideas. We all brainstormed and came up with some good concepts.
--I was able to build a functioning prototype of a conference game where you text someone to "SNAG" them. To make the full connection with the person they must "SNAG" you back. You gain points for each person you connect with. I also created an automatically updating leaderboard page. Link: http://infd.birdnest.org/~phiferm3/STARS09/index.php (will be demoing this in today's meeting)

3. Problems encountered?
--iPhone: Drawing the Cube: I ran into the same situation as Rachel- "Forgot to turn on the depth buffer for rendering the cube, and then when I did turn it on, I forgot to clear it."
Changing the Views: Rachel and I had the same problem here as well; I had the cube view working and I had the switch view working, but when I tried to merge them together rips in the space time continuum occured and everything stop working. Having multiple XIB files is the answer.
--Dance Tool: Evie wanted the Dance Tool project to operate on a centralized location with a project management system. She has had Codendi for a while(a PMS by Xerox) and was unable to use it because of all kinds of network, permission, forgotten passwords, and a broken framework(Codendi is open source). Evie and I worked together to override the password for admin on the server, hacked the source files of the program to fix some errors and finally created a project and moved all the assets to the system. We are proud to say Codendi is online!

4. What did you learn this week? (esp. computer science, or anything surprising or interesting)
--Refreshed a lot of my MySQL and PHP skills.
--Middle school kids are a great source of inspiration.
--Basics of the Objective C programming language
--Basics of the Apple iPhone SDK
--Learned about Codendi; how to use it, fix it, break it
--Learned how to take cell phone texts and take the message and put it into PHP variables in order to do some "text" enhanced web development
--Chinese is also good for breakfast
--Working together is 11.5 times better than alone

5. What's planned for next week?
--Start diving into the Dance Tool with Condendi; documentation, bug fixing,
--Finish the iPhone Tutorial
--Polish the STARS Conference Game Prototype and create the Research Poster Voting System Prototype.

6. Hours worked.
--58

Rachel Brinkman - Week 2 - 6/16/09

2009-06-16T14:38:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
- Submit final IRB paperwork
- Finish iPhone tutorial
- Begin work on either the Dance Tool or the iPhone app

2. What was done?
- Turned in final copy of IRB paperwork
- Worked on iPhone tutorial - created the cube, worked on integrating Views into the project.
- Brainstormed with the team for conference game ideas, we came up with a cool and achievable concept

3. Problems encountered?
- Forgot to turn on the depth buffer for rendering the cube, and then when I did turn it on, I forgot to clear it, so I was looking for non-existant near clipping plane issues.
- VIEWS. Not all Views are created equal, or play nicely together. EAGLViews, which must be used in conjunction with OpenGL code, do not seem to behave the same as UIViews. They inherit from UIViews, but do not interact with the view controller in the same way. I tried many different ways of integrating the ViewController based project with the EAGLView project, and kept hitting walls. However, Evie found a solution that uses multiple .xib files! It hadn't occurred to me to use more than one, but as I'm working through it, it makes sense. Thanks Evie!

4. What did you learn this week? (esp. computer science, or anything surprising or interesting)
- Some OpenGL commands (they have all the man pages on their site, which is really convenient)
- Became somewhat familiarized with Objective C
- Learned a lot about View Controllers and different kinds of Views

5. What's planned for next week?
- Finish the iPhone tutorial
- Build a prototype of the conference game (this week and next week)
- Begin work on the Dance Tool?

6. Hours worked.
~50

Bethany Miller - Week 2 - 6/16/09

2009-06-16T13:42:00.001-07:00

Bethany Miller - Week 2 - 6/16/09

1. What was planned?
-Separate classes for level logic
-Add different sorting
-finish pre/post test and submit final IRB paperwork
-figure out logging for players actions
-instructional elements

2. What was done?
-Separate classes for level logic
-Selection and insertion sort implemented
-Different level maps
-Logging of player's moves and time
-Turned in final copy of IRB paperwork

3. Problems encountered?
Mapping went well until the end. The tiles and map size were suddenly resized so the map wasnt coming out the way it should have. After we realized how to fix it the problem was solved, however this was after creating the same map at least 3 times. We wasted some time, but at least the problem was fixed and we have nice new level maps to show for it!

4. What did you learn this week? (esp. computer science, or anything surprising or interesting)
I had never done any type of level map editing. I learned how to create the level and actually implement it into the game. It became one of my favorite things to do. I really like the creative side of computer science and hopefully I can do more of it!

5. What's planned for next week?
-Complete logging
-Add quick sort
-Fix tutorial

6. Hours worked.
full 40 hour week .

Antoine Campbell Weekly Report 6-10-09

2009-06-09T14:10:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
- help Bethany with XNA Basics
- complete IRB tutorial
2. What was done?
- help Bethany finish Space Pong
- IRB tutorial completed
Bunny Generals
- Informed Consent
- IRB Protocol Application
- Professor Recruitment
- Recruitment Poster
- Demographic Survey
3. Problems encountered?
*The physics of the ball bouncing in pong proved to be more difficult than expected
Pre and post test questions for only bubbleSort are hard to think of, however we will also be implementing other forms of sorting as well so questions will come easier when that is finished.
4. What did you learn this week?
*Some more Vector Math, and paperwork requirements for IRB.
5. What's planned for next week?
objective: complete bunny generals
- IRB applications with pre and post test
- include player logging
- list player sequence of operations
- add instructional screens
- include other sorting algorithms
- analyze number of steps and Big Oh notation
or at least most of that stuff
6. Hours worked.
*44

Week 1 - Brinkman

2009-06-09T12:49:00.000-07:00

Reflection Questions
1. What was planned?
- Build familiarity with Unity by completing a tutorial

- Build familiarity with iPhone SDK by completing a tutorial

- Complete IRB Certification
- Read one research paper
- Review one game

2. What was done?
- Completed IRB

- Completed Unity tutorial, posted finished game on website

- Read "Experience with serious games for learning foreign languages and cultures" by Johnson, W. L., Wang, N., and S. Wu

3. Problems encountered?
- Steeper learning curve with Unity than expected - the project took considerably more time than originally planned
- As a result of that, I have not started the iPhone SDK tutorial yet

4. What did you learn this week? (esp. computer science, or anything surprising or interesting)
- I learned the basics of Unity and javaScript, and became somewhat comfortable with the Unity API
- I learned about IRB certification
- I learned about the Tactical Language and Culture Training System (in the paper above)

5. What's planned for next week?

- Complete the iPhone SDK tutorial

- Begin work on the Dance Tool and/or the iPhone app

6. Hours worked.
43

Christie Thornton's Week 1 Reflection

2009-06-09T09:29:00.000-07:00

Reflection

1. What was planned?

* become familiar with Unity(JavaScript) by completing a tutorial.

* become familiar with iPhone SDK by completing a tutorial

* IRB Certification

2. What was done?
* Completed IRB Tutorial

* Constructed a 3 Level Maze

- Created a game timer

- Scripted to animate various items

- Added audio

* created website

* Paper and Game review

3. Problems encountered?

The Unity tutorial was very mind boggling at first. It was was very difficult because of my unfamiliarity with Unity as well as JavaScript. I struggled when trying to script certain objects to move.

Time management - balancing working on the Apple project and the Unity project. I haven't gotten to the iPhone tutorial yet.

4. What did you learn this week? (esp. computer science, or anything surprising or interesting)

I learned some basics about javaScript. I learned how to navigate my way through unity. I am also getting valuable practice in reading and navigating APIs

5. What's planned for next week?

* Finish iPhone Tutorial

* Begin work on Dance Tool or iPhone App

6. Hours worked.
* 42

Bethany Miller Week 1 blog 6/9/09

2009-06-09T08:14:00.000-07:00

Bethany Miller - Week 1 blog
1. What was planned?
- learn basics of XNA C# through creation of pong game
- complete IRB tutorial
2. What was done?
- finished pong game in order to learn XNA C#
- IRB tutorial completed
Bunny Generals
- Informed Consent
- IRB Protocol Application
- Professor Recruitment
- Recruitment Poster
- Demographic Survey
3. Problems encountered?
The physics of the ball bouncing in pong proved to be more difficult than expected
Pre and post test questions for only bubbleSort are hard to think of, however we will also be implementing other forms of sorting as well so questions will come easier when that is finished.
4. What did you learn this week? (esp. computer science, or anything surprising or interesting)Be sure to cite any resources you used (e.g. online tutorials, etc).
I had never worked with XNA C# before so I gained experience with it and also created my first real game that is actually presentable.
5. What's planned for next week?
objective: complete bunny generals
- IRB applications with pre and post test
- include player logging
- list player sequence of operations
- add instructional screens
- include other sorting algorithms
- analyze number of steps and Big Oh notation
6. Hours worked.
full 40 hour week

Thomas Phifer Weekly Report 6/9/09

2009-06-09T07:28:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?

*Complete Evie's Warm-Up Projects. Hello Unity! and Hello Cube!

*Create website/blog

*Complete IRB

*Review Game and read paper and create PowerPoint

2. What was done?

*Hello Unity! is completed and it is on my website: http://arena.uncc.edu/REUStudents/tphifer/

*I reviewed the game "Infamous" and read the paper on Wu's Castle. I will present my PowerPoint tomorrow (Wednesday.)

*Completed the IRB today.

*The iPhone app project was a little ambitious for our deadline(even the second one) so I think Evie is going to go light on us. I started the SDK and become familiar with the different applications. I was unable to meet all the requirements in time but I got started.

3. Problems encountered?

*Not having the necessary software installed on machines. (Did not have photoshop, illustrator, ...etc)

*Not having enough macs exclusively available for iPhone Development (We need three Intel Based Macs made availible to us. We have 2. There are extra MacBooks but they are being used in testing.)

4. What did you learn this week?
*The Unity Game Engine is extremely flexible and versatile. It can be used in iPhone Development, Wii Games, PC, in the web browser and much more. I love Unity. Tutorials, forums, and IRC chats are useful in learning a new software. Better time management. The IRB standards for research on human subjects.

5. What's planned for next week?
*Finish the iPhone Warm-Up project for Evie. Start work on the Dance Tool and the real iPhone app.

6. Hours worked.
*43

Papers that can be used for presentations

2009-05-19T13:46:00.001-07:00

Amory, A. Naicker, K., Vincent, J., and Adams, C. 1999. The use of computer games as an educational tool: Identification of appropriate game types and elements. British J. of Educational Technology. 30, 4 (1999), 311-321.

Bayliss, Jessica D. and Sean Strout. Games as a "flavor" of CS1, Proceedings of the 37th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education, March 03-05, 2006, Houston, Texas, USA Becker, Katrin. Teaching with games: the Minesweeper and Asteroids experience, Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, v.17 n.2, p.23-33, December 2001.

Bierre, K., Ventura, P., Phelps, A. & Egert, C. (2006). Motivating OOP by blowing things up: An exercise in cooperation and competition in an introductory java-programming course. ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, Proceedings of the 37th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education SIGCSE '06, 38(1).

Dalton, David W. A Comparison of the Effects of LOGO Use and Teacher-Directed Problem-Solving Instruction on the Problem-Solving Skills, Achievement, and Attitudes of Low, Average, and High Achieving Junior High School Learners. Presented at the Annual Convention of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (Las Vegas, NV, January 16-21, 1986). Accessed April 14, 2009. http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/contentdelivery/
servlet/ERICServlet?accno=ED267761

Delwiche, A. Massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) in the new media classroom. Educational Technology & Society, 9 (3), 160-172, 2006.

Garris, R., Ahlers, R., and Driskell, J.. Games, motivation, and learning: A research and practice model. Simulation and Gaming, 33 (4), 441-467, 2002.

Gee, J. P.. What Video-games have to Teach us about Learning and Literacy. New York, USA: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

Jenkins, Henry, Eric Klopfer, Kurt Squire, and Philip Tan. "Entering theEducation Arcade." Source Computers in Entertainment, Volume 1, Issue 1. (October 2003): 17-17. ACM Digital Library. ACM Portal. J. Murrey Atkins Library. August 27, 2006. https://connect2.uncc.edu/

Johnson, W. L., Wang, N., and S. Wu, "Experience with serious games for learning foreign languages and cultures," in SimTecT Conference., Australia, 2007.

Jones, Randolph M. Design and implementation of computer games: a capstone course for undergraduate computer science education, Proceedings of the thirty-first SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education, p.260-264, March 07-12, 2000, Austin, Texas, United States

Maloney, J. H., K Peppler., Y Kafai, M. Resnick, N. Rusk, Programming by choice: urban youth learning programming with scratch, in Proc. of the 39th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, pp 267--371, Portland, OR, 2008.

Moser , Robert. A fantasy adventure game as a learning environment: why learning to program is so difficult and what can be done about it, Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on Integrating Technology into Computer Science Education, p.114-116, June 01-05, 1997, Uppsala, Sweden

Mullins, P, Whitfield, D., and Conlon, M. 2008. Using Alice 2.0 as a First Language. To appear in CCSC 24th Annual Eastern Conference 2008 (Hood College, Frederick, Maryland, October 10 and 11, 2008).

Parberry, Ian, Max B. Kazemzadeh, and Timothy Roden, The art and science of game programming, Proceedings of the 37th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education, March 03-05, 2006, Houston, Texas, USA

Parberry, Ian, Timothy Roden, and Max B. Kazemzadeh, Experience with an industry-driven capstone course on game programming: extended abstract, Proceedings of the 36th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education, February 23-27, 2005, St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Shaffer, David, Kurt R. Squire, Richard Halverson, and James P. Gee. Video Games and the Future of Learning. Academic Advanced Distributed Learning Co-Lab. December 10, 2004. August 3, 2006. http://www.academiccolab.org/resources/gappspaper1.pdf

Squire, K. Video games in education. International Journal of Intelligent Games & Simulation, 2(1). 2003. Last retrieved March 20, 2009. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.100.8500&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Yee, N. “Motivations for Play in Online Games”, CyberPsychology and Behavior, 9(6), 2006, pp. 772-775.

REU Summer Reading List

2009-05-14T12:01:00.000-07:00

Required Reading for REU Students - Not to be presented but you must read them

Barnes, T., E. Powell, A. Chaffin, H. Lipford. Game2Learn: Improving the engagement and motivation of CS1 students. ACM GDCSE 2008.

Barnes, T., H. Richter, A. Chaffin, A. Godwin, E. Powell. (2007). Game2Learn: Building CS1 Learning Games for Retention. ITiCSE2007: 121-125

Barnes, T., H. Richter, A. Chaffin, A. Godwin, E. Powell, T. Ralph, P. Matthews, and H. Jordan. (2006). Game2Learn: A study of games as tools for learning introductory programming. Submitted to SIGCSE2007, Kentucky, USA, March 2006.

Barnes, T., H. Richter, A. Chaffin, A. Godwin, E. Powell. (2006). The role of feedback in Game2Learn. Submitted to CHI2007, San Jose, CA, April 2006.

Eagle, M. and Barnes, T. 2008. Wu's castle: teaching arrays and loops in a game. In Proceedings of the 13th Annual Conference on innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (Madrid, Spain, June 30 - July 02, 2008). ITiCSE'08. ACM, New York, NY, 245-249. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/ 1384271.1384337

Youngblood, G. M. 2006. Engaging Students in Advanced Computer Science Education Using Game Segments. Journal of Game Development. Vol. 2 Issue 2. 2006 pp. 33--45.

General References -

ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Curriculum Task Force. Computing Curriculum 2001. Accessed February 13, 2008. http://www.acm.org/education/curric_vols/cc2001.pdf

Beaubouef, T., and Mason, J, 2005. Why the high attrition rate for computer science students: Some thoughts and observations. ACM SIGCSE Inroads Bulletin, 37(2), 2005, 103-106.

Prensky, M. Digital Game-Based Learning. New York: McGraw Hill, 2001.

Vegso, J. Continued Drop in CS Bachelor's Degree Production and Enrollments as the Number of New Majors Stabilizes. Computing Research News, Vol. 19, No. 2, March 2007.

Antoine Campbell Weekly Report 4-22-09

2009-04-23T08:01:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
*Finish implementing components for Bunny Generals Prototype
*Implement a way to script player actions for tutorial purposes

2. What was done?
*Fix some bugs with Bunny Generals Prototype, HUD, Selection Boxes, Dynamic Swapping, Error Checking
*Reorganized the code to make it easier to work with
*Added some boxes similar to Wu's castle to the HUD for dialogue

3. Problems encountered?
*Scripting the sort sequence so a player can watch it is very tricky.
*End of semester means lots of work on all fronts, only 3 projects simultaneously

4. What did you learn this week?
*I love creators club forums the ultimate resource. You have a problem, someone else has probably already cried about it.
*uber OOP code is not too bad, just annoying

5. What's planned for next week?
*Have a better demo ready for Dr. Barnes, I guess for Tuesday or Wednesday

6. Hours worked.
*About 10

Evie's Weekly report

2009-04-22T10:49:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
finished fixing problems with for loops
codebase clean up
visually enhanced dance tool
finish implementing xml schema
add survey to the dance tool
get timeline working
get durations implemented

2. What was done?
finished fixing problems with for loops
codebase clean up
visually enhanced dance tool

3. Problems encountered?
Class assignments flared up again...

4. What did you learn this week?
a clean codebase is a happy/ more understandable codebase

5. What's planned for next week?
make some more miracles happen via another code clean up

6. Hours worked.
Alot... lets see... i was here till 3am every day last week. i think that was an extra 30 hours than usual. prolly 70% of that was dance tool time.

Yoo-Shin's Weekly Report 4/15 - 4/21

2009-04-22T08:26:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
I need to make the timeline icon.

2. What was done?
I made an icon with Su-Hyung but I cannot set on timeline box.

3. Problems encountered?
I cannot set an icon where I need and I could not get a plenty time for project because I had many homework and test in my class at last week.

4. What's planned for next week?
I need to finish making timeline icon.

5. Hours worked
5 hours.

Acey's Weekly Report 4/15 - 4/21

2009-04-21T17:31:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
Using the game itself at outreach rather than the old version with paper puzzles.
Get the high score saving working.
Hopefully fixing the lag problem through the use of goal puzzle images overlayed on top of an empty grid.

2. What was done?
Got high score saving working

Implemented unlocking system

Fixed the rounding errors on position

Added a way to get color by clicking on bead

Created the code to reduce lag

Fixed logging bug

3. Problems encountered?
Had a bit of trouble designing the save system file structure but after a few tries I came up with a system that works well.

Due to time constraints at outreach the CSDT portion had to be cut from the schedule this week.

4. What did you learn this week?
All about the problems of blind casting. The rounding error was due to casting doubles to ints before rounding them. This made it cut off any fraction even ones over 1/2. By replacing this code with some rounding the grid now correctly shows the positon of the beads.

5. What's planned for next week?
Take pictures of all the puzzles and fit them into the game. Use these to reduce the lag from huge numbers of beads being on screen at once.

Outreach with the game.

6. Hours worked 18

Antoine Weekly Report 4-15-09

2009-04-18T11:12:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
*Implement the suggestions received from Dr. Barnes and everyone at the gamelab meeting.
*Link up with Katie at some point a create a preliminary GDD, and sitdown and get her up to speed on the code so she can work on it easily, (I probably should clean up the code).

2. What was done?
*Added most of suggestions to the code, still need to find better art that scales up well.

3. Problems encountered?
*Dr. Barnes and myself have conflicting schedules so having time to meet up is proving difficult.
*A GDD for Bunny Generals may have to wait for now, the end up the semester is bringing lots of work.
4. What did you learn this week?
*Using game library's and registering services in XNA( Ketih, and creators.xna.com)

5. What's planned for next week?
*Completely Finish This Bunny General sample(all positive feedback) and implement a logging system for when studies are done.

6. Hours worked.
*About 8 hours.

Acey's Weekly Report 4/8 - 4/14

2009-04-14T07:02:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
Put finishing touches on Custom GUI elements then work on the save system.
Find Easter Eggs.

2. What was done?
Found Easter Eggs

Finished the custom GUIs

Implemented High Score Loading

Game now logs all the players actions while playing the game

3. Problems encountered?
Still dealing with lag issues on more complex puzzles, but I think I have found a nice fix for it.

4. What did you learn this week?
Learned a bit about logging data.

5. What's planned for next week?
Using the game itself at outreach rather than the old version with paper puzzles.

Get the high score saving working.

Hopefully fixing the lag problem through the use of goal puzzle images overlayed on top of an empty grid.

6. Hours worked
18

Antoine Campbell Weekly Report 4-8-09

2009-04-09T08:26:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
*Demo with Dr. Barnes for feedback
*Work with Katie on Bunny Generals
*Modify Bunny Generals from feedback

2. What was done?
*Modified Bunny Generals from student feedback, to make more intuitive
*Demoed with Dr. Barnes, got lots of feedback
*Katie showed the game to gamelab students and Dr. Youngblood, even more feedback.

3. Problems encountered?
*Katie apparently has a busy schedule and I work all the time and it'll be hard to work together in the same room at the same time. But their is always email and what not.

4. What did you learn this week?
*There is a lot of potential in this concept and the Prototype seemed well received and everyone was very helpful with their feedback.
*Iterative Game Development is preferred when developing a game like this, previous games were more for myself than anything and a development process not based on analysis and testing would not be ideal since this prototype is not for me, but for students.
Be sure to cite any resources you used (e.g. online tutorials, etc).

5. What's planned for next week?
*Implement the suggestions received from Dr. Barnes and everyone at the gamelab meeting.
*Link up with Katie at some point a create a preliminary GDD, and sitdown and get her up to speed on the code so she can work on it easily, (I probably should clean up the code).

6. Hours worked.
About 16 hours.

Katie's Weekly Report 4/8/2009

2009-04-08T09:05:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
-Sixth session with Citizen Schools, student game development will continue
-Absolutely need to have a study design or proposal for Creativity and Cognition
-Tapia 2009 (aka Samantha & Katie's Oregon Trail Adventure) in 1 week, need to finalize paper and plan our session with STARS
-Have a playable Bunny Generals prototype in 2 weeks

2. What was done?
-6th and 7th Citizen Schools sessions
-Tapia Poster and Tapia Presentation
-Playable Bunny Generals Prototype, and Bunny Generals Presentation

3. Problems encountered?
-Citizen Schools outreach is going much slower than expected, we'll have to intervene heavily to get student games completed
-Flying is terrible, terrible, terrible
-Not having a lab computer is mildly irritating. I wish Megaman wasn't dead.
-More focus needs to be put on Bunny Generals in order to have a solid basis completed by Summer

4. What did you learn this week? (esp. computer science, or anything surprising or
interesting) Be sure to cite any resources you used (e.g. online tutorials, etc).
-Tons of great stuff at Tapia about other schools/research/presentations/etc.

5. What's planned for next week?
-Creativity & Cognition?
-Focus on Bunny Generals -> Integrate code and pass counting in order to clarify the link between the game and the CS concepts being taught
-Citizen Schools intervention, we'll be assisting in the completion of student games this week
-Revisit EleMental -> Do a comparison of 2D v. 3D, design a study to track long term learning gains, improve upon the compiler and use of student code

6. Hours worked.
(Since 3/25, including Tapia) 60+

Evie's Weekly Report 4-8-09

2009-04-08T07:16:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?

Get Max dancing. Get the bug with loops fixed. Finish IRB. Get evaluation stuff built into tool. Dance Tool paper... get some of that fleshed out.

2. What was done?

Max dances. One bug in loops fixed but in process found a different bug (time stamping problem) should be able to fix that in an hour. IRB draft complete but still need to do informed consent and supplement documents. XML schema completed. Did 8 reviews for the GHC. Assisted in getting delete functionality into dance notes and currently debugging some xml problems.

3. Problems encountered?

Just the simple problem of not having enough hours in the day.

4. What was learned?

XML schemas are good for more than just looking pretty. Now the key is finding a tool for the mac that turns my schema into magic.

5. What's planned for next week?

harrass teammates some more on completing their IRB tutorial. Wrap up eval stuff by Thursday. Create pre and post test and user survey.

6. Hours worked?

32 hours

Acey's Weekly Report 4/1 - 4/7

2009-04-07T22:03:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
Get the remaining puzzles in.
Begin Work on Saving System

2. What was done?
With the help of Hugh I got all the puzzles in and working. However after getting feedback from various people I worked on improving the user interface and getting a puzzle selection menu working rather than working on the save system.

Added Puzzle Selection Menu (Displays High Score and Medal)
Added a new custom color selection menu
Did a small amount of optimization for menu actions

3. Problems encountered?
Only problem was realizing it takes a lot longer than I realized to create GUIs. All the GUIS before the selection menu had been just minor edits to existing menus or menus with less than 10 buttons. This one required a lot of design and time to implement. I thought this would take just a bit of my time this week but it ended up taking a good chunk of it.

4. What did you learn this week?
Learned a lot about making GUIs from scratch. Hurray GUIs!

5. What's planned for next week?
Put finishing touches on Custom GUI elements then work on the save system.

Find Easter Eggs.

6. Hours worked
18.5

Acey Weekly Report 3/25 - 3/31

2009-04-01T15:36:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
Get at elast one puzzle in and provide feedback to player

2. What was done?
I got in half te puzzles and provide feedback to the user.
I also got some feedback from my fellow G2Lers on additional feedback options

3. Problems encountered?
Found a few more bugs and am starting to see some slow down in the run time. The bead size ne shouldnt be too hard to fix but I might have tostart optimizing the original code to speed it up soon.

4. What did you learn this week?
Storig moves is better than storing beads. So much smaller.

5. What's planned for next week?
Get the remaining puzzles in that can be done and begin work on the saving system.

6. Hours worked
18

Antoine Campbell Weekly Report 3-30-09

2009-04-01T08:06:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
*Add some stuff to Bunny Generals from feedback
*Get some feedback from Dr. Barnes
*Work with Katie on Bunny Generals

2. What was done?
*Added some helpful features based on Acey's feedback, still need a better outcome from wrong answers rather than a complete reset.

3. Problems encountered?
*I have a lot of homework right now for some reason.
*I wasn't able to meet with Dr. Barnes to show last week, there was no meeting

4. What did you learn this week?
*Quaternions, abstract math elements, that turn your mind into pudding.

5. What's planned for next week?
*Meet with Dr. Barnes, get feedback, meet with Katie get feedback
*We should probably get to work on some sort of documentation, aside from pitch doc.

6. Hours worked.]
*About 8

Evie's Weekly Report 3-31-09

2009-03-31T14:57:00.000-07:00

What was planned?

Finish fixing enough bugs in the dance tool to run a study. IRB draft. Write a DanceTool paper. Go to the GDC.

What was done?

ForEach and ForEachTill Loops no longer crash the system. IRB draft started. Presented at the Graduate Research Fair. Presented the tool to middle school students. Wrote a schema for the XML save files. These files will be used to save dances as well as evaluate users.

Problems encountered?

ForEach and ForEachTill break conditions are broken. Dance Elements do not know when to stop applying more dance instructions besides the end of the dance. Also, nesting these types of danceElements was tricky, but I think that part of the problem has been resolved. Email issues: Josh didnt get the XML email I sent so I'm a little worried about the implementation being what we need. I'll send that email again after I finish this blog entry.

I had a lot of trouble working on the IRB draft because of this being such a high stress, deadline oriented week. I've done 3 presentations (one remotely, while at the GDC) and 3 projects within GDC week and half a week before I left.

Fatal Error bug took up a large amount of development time last Thursday. A windows error caused the app to hangup up and crash whenever we ran it. Unfortunately, the compiler gave us no indication of where the problem area was...

Max wont dance. I think I know why so I'll see about resolving that this evening.

Windows problems. The delete option of dance notes not implemented yet. Critical.

What did you learn this week?

A lot of people know about game2Learn. A lot of people from the GDC were familiar with our research. Neat...

What's planned for next week?

IRB draft by mid week. Continue cleaning up the tool. Make scenario to do study on. Experiment Design. Timeline. Write paper.

Creativity stuff

I hate that I had to rewrite this part, considering I think I wrote it much better an hour ago.

When I first learned to play the piano, I played by "ear". During that time, my technical ability grew slowly. Much slower than time spent in formalized learning environments, however, my creative ability, to hear things that sound "good" or my ability to discern relative pitches grew tremendously. My early years learning to play proved invaluable.

While formalized learning has its own was of interpreting creative learning, I think the practice of doing mundane tasks for the sake of learning every possible permutation is a very creative process in which the user is learning something that is not easily taught and allowing the user to grow their skills into something that is specific to the user. This type of data, I fear, is being waved away as attempts to "game the system" or guessing. I'd like to look this metric and at more ways of interpreting this type of behaviour as creative growth.

I'll go into formalized learning and measuring creativity next week.

Evie's Weekly Report 3-31-09

2009-03-31T14:06:00.000-07:00

Mike 3-25

2009-03-25T08:49:00.000-07:00

What was planned?
Work on the effect size paper.

What was done?
Created a presentation for the Grad Research Fair. This included added quite a bit to the original submission. I had to do a little research to make the background etc better.

I did more research on the effect size paper as well. There are a few examples of other people suggesting similar changes across different fields. These are good examples of how to write this type of paper.

Problems encountered?
I have received cold reception to Level Up at SIGCSE and the Grad Research Fair. I'm starting to feel like it the combination of game research and educational research is in two areas that have low research standards and that makes Level Up unappealing. People currently doing 'game research' don't like it because it threatens their research practices, and people not interested in games or education are not going to become more interested because of it.

What did you learn this week?
More random stuff about different study problems etcs. Have a better understanding of the research practices in the feild.

What's planned for next week?
Work more on the effect size paper. Try to write it as if it is for game2learn students in the future. Finish it and see how it is recepted; if it is good then do a more detailed version about 'advanced' techniques.

Creativity Stuff
My thoughts of games and creativity...
Normal computer science classes, that is, non-graphical terminal based programming assignments etc, feel limiting to creativity. While problem solving is a creative skill, it doesn't 'feel' like creativity.

While doing my undergraduate degree I often felt the need to get out and away from CS. That is why I got a undergraduate degree in International Studies too. This is because normal CS does not seem creative. Most assignments do not require creative solutions, and there is only so much that can be done with a blank terminal screen.

With games you have a graphical solution, that is automatically better than a terminal program. Designing the game-mechanic requires thinking about the user and needs creative solutions to be fun.

Games also give you something that CS normally doesn't have, the ability to show some of your work off. You can show a game to people reguardless of their major and people will be impressed, or at least interested. This type of feedback prompts harder work and more passion with your work.

I recall having Art Major friends always showing off their work and getting feedback. No one ever ever ever wanted to see my linked list or my auto balancing trees.

The final way games induce creative solutions, when you are programming a game you have a very defined goal for your program. It isn't directly for a grade. You want to make your code run faster because it Must run faster. This motivates programming in a differnt way than offered in a typical CS class.

ijo desu

Yoo Shin's Weekly Report 03/25/2009

2009-03-24T21:28:00.000-07:00

Yoo Shin's Weekly Report 03/25/2009

1. What was planned?

*to solve Dancenote problem and make Dancenote delete button

2. What was done?

* I installed Unity Windows version at Window machine. At that time, I encountered cross-platform problem. So I solved some of this problem with Josh by changing a DanceGUI and TimeLineGUI

3. Problems encountered?

*Cross-platform problem between Mac and Window

4. What's planned for next week?

*To solve Cross-platform problem and if it is finished, I would like to solve Dancenote problem and make Dancenote delete button

5. Hours worked

*16 hours

Katie's Weekly Report 3/25/2009

2009-03-24T21:23:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
-Fifth session with Citizen Schools, student game development will begin this week
-Bunny Generals Prototyping
-Tapia 2009 (aka Samantha & Katie's Oregon Trail Adventure) in 1 week!

2. What was done?
-Fifth Citizen Schools Session
-Bunny Generals work continuing in XNA
-Starting proposals for Celebration

3. Problems encountered?
-Getting laptops for Citizen Schools is getting increasingly difficult
-My workstation is still dead
-Short notice on Celebration proposals
-Still no solid plans for Creativity and Cognition

4. What did you learn this week? (esp. computer science, or anything surprising or
interesting) Be sure to cite any resources you used (e.g. online tutorials, etc).
-Nothing particularly exciting this week

5. What's planned for next week?
-Sixth session with Citizen Schools, student game development will continue
-Absolutely need to have a study design or proposal for Creativity and Cognition
-Tapia 2009 (aka Samantha & Katie's Oregon Trail Adventure) in 1 week, need to finalize paper and plan our session with STARS
-Have a playable Bunny Generals prototype in 2 weeks
-Get my Creativity reflection finished

6. Hours worked.
15ish

Antoine Campbell Weekly Report 3-23-09

2009-03-24T20:39:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
*Add a hud/console to bunny generals
*familarize myself with more Joomla! and php stuff

2. What was done?
*Try to use Joomla! using xampp instead of wamp
*Managed to break and then fix bunny generals prototype by adding a weird console,
the console was definately meant for an fps or something, it understood commands,
not what I wanted.

3. Problems encountered?
*Probably need to build a hud/console from scratch, or use Amanda's
*xampp is not a problem
*Wamp made like 10 services on my home machine stop, and break

4. What did you learn this week?
*Being a professional IT admin guy would not be cool, I'd rather program.
*some php, server stuff, how to break stuff using phpMyAdmin
*I'm an excellent debugger, especially fixing other people's errors

5. What's planned for next week?
*Show prototype to Dr. Barnes, hopefully get a lot of feedback on what I should add, I know
there is tons.
*Add some another type of sort puzzle to Bunny Generals(and maybe even a bunny),
work with Katie to make it more..........creative.

6. Hours worked.
About 12.

Josh's Weekly Report 3/16-3/22

2009-03-24T15:36:00.000-07:00

What was planned? finish the project class. finish xml exporter

What was done? The project class now holds all of the danceElementList. I had to make changes to DanceGUI, Project, SuperArray, and TimeLineGUI to accomplish this, so that they reference the danceElementList in the Project object created when the game starts up. Changing songs through the drop down menu now changes the songInfo variable in the current Project object. TimelineGUI.js is fixed now. Windows was crashing because of being able to drag the timeline to a particular place in the song. You can't do that anymore, but Unity doesn't crash in windows now. This broke the animation blending in windows (but somehow not on Mac...stupid windows)

Problems encountered? unity 2.5 has problems with windows. It was crashing on startup, and now the animations are not blending. Neither of these things occured on Mac.

What did you learn this week? That cross-platform programming is often annoying. More C#-script was also learned

What's planned for next week? trying to fix unity problems with windows. Finish up being able to save and load dances. Possibly find some (legal) music for the dance tool.

Hours worked? 15 hours

Su Hyung's Weekly Report 03/24/2009

2009-03-24T12:35:00.000-07:00

Su Hyung's Weekly Report 03/24/2009

1. What was planned?
- making all of animations for Max
- make function for max's move
- Icons for each parts, for example, head, arms,and legs

2. What was done?
- Made all of animations for Max by using Maya 2008
- attached Icons for head, arms, and legs on the left side.
- Unity code for separated Max's move 35%
- Made layered face image.
-> Basic face has only face outline and nose.
-> The file can provide changing position of eyes,eyebrows, and mouse, and change the each particular eyes,eyebrows and mouse.

3. Problems encountered?
- Nothing special.

4. What did I learn this week?
- Unity code for GUI, I tried to make tabbed pane, but I couldn't do that. Unity does not provided the function. So, I searched other functions. and I divided the windows for dancer node.

5. What's planned for next week?
- finishing max's movement, maya's movement separately.
- fix the warning problem. there are some warnings when I run the dancing tool.
- install svn client server on Arana server for backup.

6. Hours worked
- 20 hours

Acey's Weekly Report 3/18 - 3/24

2009-03-24T06:56:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
Find a way to store puzzles.

2. What was done?
I found a way to store the puzzles that does not involve 41x41 points of data. Hurray! It only requires at most 2 x number of moves to complete the puzzle. This will make coding and storing the puzzles much easier.

Fixed a few bugs with the array representation of the puzzle.

Allow the second graph to display the puzzles based on the stored puzzles data.

3. Problems encountered?
No real problems other than realizing I was outputting my array in the wrong order. I thought I was storing it wrong; nope just system.outed in the wrong order.

4. What did you learn this week?
If your tester is wrong it is really hard to find the problem. I spent more time than needed looking for a bug that did not "really" exist because my toString method was reversed.

5. What's planned for next week?
Get at least one puzzle in (likely more but need one to do next part).

Be able to check current progress against goal image.

Provide feedback to user about which points are wrong.

Save High Scores. (May be pushed to next week)

6. Hours worked
20

Creativity:
Creativity is basically doing something completely new or making a tweak to an existing idea that has not been done in that way before. Creativity in games is becoming harder and harder as more and more is done. This is one of the most interesting aspects of creativity: what is and is not creative is constantly evolving. What would have been extremely creative even 3 years ago is now boring and mundane. This is a result of another interesting property of creativity: it varies based on ones personal experience. I'll explain with a story.

As a child I was in Odyssey of the Mind. This program sought to foster creative thinking in students by having them find a "solution" to a given challenge. There were different categories students could enter but I always entered in the acting one. Basically given a prompt we had to come up with a creative and humorous play. In addition to the play all costumes, stage, and props had to be made by the students, take up a small amount of space, and be made under a certain price value. This forced the students to think creatively to meet all these requirements. Over the many years I did OM me and my group slowly picked up "creative" tricks. However we started using these tricks year after year. Beyond the first year of their use were the tricks creative? To us using them no we had used them all (well a lot of them) the year before. But to the judges who had not seen last years competition it was all fresh and new and extremely creative. I also remember watching one performance by another group and just being blown away by their script. It was extremely creative and funny. After it was over I talked to my Mom (who also watched it) about how great I thought it was and it turns out it was almost punch line to punch line from a TV show I had never seen. This is really the heart of the phenomenon of creativity. It completely depends on past stimulus.

This extends to games as well. If someone had been in a coma for the past 40 years woke up and made Super Mario Brothers without any outside input that would be amazingly creative... to him. Everyone else would have seen it and been unimpressed (with the game not the fact he coded super Mario brothers after a coma). No matter how creative a person is they MUST have a breadth of knowledge about whatever they are working on. Otherwise an amazing idea they come up with might have already been done before. It also helps as a spring board to creative ideas. Changing a winning formula in a way that has not been done before can be creative if it varies enough. Majora's Mask was BASICALLY Ocarina of Time with the time system expanded. Even the most popular titles must change something and do so in a new way or eventually they will die off. This is of course a challenge to keep those core elements that the fans know and love while still making creative and positive changes.

The only exception to this needing to change to be creative I can think of in recent history would be Mega Man 9. Although it added nothing "new" in the main game the very fact it was so uncreative made it creative. Who would even think of developing a new NES game for the Wii. And the inclusion of the NES graphical glitches, now that was creative. Of course if they do it again with 10 then it WONT be creative any more. I would even go so far as to say if they tried the same thing with the X series and SNES graphics it would not be creative at this point. That is not to say I will not buy it and love it, it just will not be creative. I guess that is the entire point of this long rant. Things can only be creative AT MOST once maybe twice if you wait long enough. More often than not things will be creative ZERO times especially if you did not realize it had already been done before or if your change was not different enough from the preexisting baseline.

Josh's Weekly Report 3/2-3/8

2009-03-18T11:47:00.000-07:00

This is for the week before spring break. I was out of town over spring break and did not get any work done...

What was planned? Creating and implementing the Project class and the XML structure for storing Dance's. Also, setting up a more efficient sort method in the SuperArray class

What was done? Fixed the sorting algorithm. It is now Insertion Sort instead of bubble sort. I chose insertion sort because it is particularly efficient with data that is already partially sorted (seemed like a good choice to me since people will probably choreograph the dance in order). Also, this fixes the problem of the last move added being played when an overlap occurs. Now the first move of that type will be played. Project, SongInfo, and XMLWriter classes added to the project. They don't do much yet. Made the fileGUI "Save" button create a project and save it to a text file. right now it just saves some sample text. Also, added Song enum to the GlobalEnums to represent songs in SongInfo class (works like controlInfo).

Problems encountered? Javascript does not support writing to files. I had to start using c# script for that

What did you learn this week? Some C# script! Found a tutorial on www.csharp-station.com

What's planned for next week? Spring break! After that, finishing up the project class

Hours worked? 20 hours.

Evie's Weekly report

2009-03-18T09:15:00.000-07:00

What was planned? Project class. Finish wrap up fundamental programming functionality.

What was done? All blending functional. Moved code base. Etc.

Problems encountered? Sometimes blend commands "bleed" to the wrong layers causing unintended results.

What did you learn this week? Not much... I've just been coding.

What's planned for next week? Playtesting and paper

Hours Worked - 23 hours

Katie's Weekly Report 3/18/2009

2009-03-18T09:05:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
-Go to SIGCSE
-Finish Sandbox paper (yay for submission extensions)
-Finish EleMental Study
-Third and Fourth Sessions with Citizen Schools
-Continue research for the Creativity and Cognition paper, look into proper Likert Scale design and game evaluation methods.
-Begin forming a study design for the Creativity and Cognition paper, form a solid hypothesis and determine what data is needed to support this hypothesis.

2. What was done?
-SIGCSE
-Continued research for the Creativity and Cognition paper
-Third and Fourth Citizen School's Sessions
-Prototyping of Bunny Generals in XNA
-Finished Sandbox Paper

3. Problems encountered?
-Driving to Chattanooga was one of the craziest trips of my life (RIP big bird thing)
-Scheduling for the Third Citizen School's session with 3/5 members at SIGCSE
-My lab workstation died :(
-Fourth Citizen School's session did not result in lots of student artwork, we may have to alter the schedule slightly in order to allow students enough time to make art.

4. What did you learn this week? (esp. computer science, or anything surprising or
interesting) Be sure to cite any resources you used (e.g. online tutorials, etc).
-I love SIGCSE (and conferences in general) more than anything in the whole wide world
-Not all birds fly well
-There are some phenomenal options for outreach that are less scheduling-intensive. I really want to explore these options for STARS Alliance.

5. What's planned for next week?
-Fifth session with Citizen Schools, student game development will begin this week
-Continue research for the Creativity and Cognition paper, will be researching how creativity can be defined and measured
-Absolutely need to have a study design for Creativity and Cognition by next meeting!
-Tapia 2009 (aka Samantha & Katie's Oregon Trail Adventure) in 2 weeks!

6. Hours worked.
Counting SIGCSE....a lot. Probably...50ish for two weeks

March 18th - Amanda's Weekly

2009-03-18T08:56:00.000-07:00

What was planned? Finish Thesis, parse the data, work on updating Thesis presentation slides, start the Grad Fair slides, and run studies

What was done? Ran studies, worked on updating Thesis presentation slides, started the Grad Fair slides and finished thesis up til the almost final edit

Problems encountered? Excel hates me.

What did you learn this week? See above comment. Oh, and apparently I am that idiot who cant figure out how you are supposed to wear the hood for graduation...

What's planned for next week? Thesis review with the Grad school (Thursday), final edits on thesis, clean up Sandbox paper and add in new data, finish Thesis presentation slides, finalize thesis and Grad Fair powerpoints, give Grad Fair presentation (2PM on Saturday, if you are interested), and then hop a plane to San Francisco for the GDC!

Hours Worked - something insane like 70 hours over two weeks

Yoo Shin's Weekly Report 03/18/2009

2009-03-18T06:40:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?

*to install Unity and Maya at Mac book for work because my Unity’s code was expired

*to solve problem which is Dancenote difficulty moving upwards in dance notebook

*to make Dancenote delete button

2. What was done?

*reinstall Unity and Maya at March 5

*I would like to solve Dancenote and making Dancenote delete button but I finish it.

3. Problems encountered?

*Installing Maya in Mac book was done at March 5 late afternoon by UNC Charlotte and last week was Spring Break so I did not have plenty working time.

4. What's planned for next week?

*to solve Dancenote problem and make Dancenote delete button

5. Hours worked.

*About 10

Mike 3-17

2009-03-17T14:07:00.000-07:00

What was planned?
Go to SIGCSE, continue work on the effect size paper. Make a poster and paper presentation for SIGCSE on the Wu's Castle Paper and on Learning Curves in game data.

What was done?
Went to SIGCSE and presented a poster and a paper. Continued to think about the best direction for the paper.

Problems encountered?
There is a lot of information and unless it is shown right, the paper wouldn't be well accepted. Now is the right time for this kind of paper to be produced; I'm working on a narrowed scope paper dealing with mostly effect sizes.

What did you learn this week?
This was really more of a week of presenting and conference travel. Did not learn much.

What's planned for next week?
Work on the next draft of the effect size paper.

Su Hyung's Weekly Report 03/17/2009

2009-03-17T12:04:00.000-07:00

Su Hyung's Weekly Report 03/17/2009

1. What was planned?
- Animations for Max
- Delete dancenote function.

2. What was done?
- All of max's head and arm animations

3. Problems encountered?
- Nothing special.
- Spring Break
- I tried to apply only animation from maya to max, I couldn't do that

4. What did I learn this week?
-

5. What's planned for next week?
- I'll make all of animations for max by Thursday
- make function for max's move
- icons for each parts, for example, head, arms,and legs

6. Hours worked
- 20 hours

Acey Boyce March 17

2009-03-17T10:28:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
Create a second graph that the user can not change and add in counters.

2. What was done?
I was able to create a second graph that the user can not change but shows the coordinates of where the mouse is when they hover over it.
The game now keeps track of how many moves the user does including undo and redo. The user can also reset the counter by starting a new game.
Added a game menu to the original software. This menu is used to log in to the game and change from free play mode to game mode.
Added a game mode with all of unwanted functionality and windows removed. It also changes the layout of the screen for more optimal playing conditions (2 graphs side by side for easy comparison). This mode can be exited to return to the original free play mode.
Added interfaces for all future needed functionality including log in, puzzle selection, and high scores.
Added a few missing code segments to the Output Code window. This needs to be worked on and finalized later on though.

Also during Spring Break me and Katie went to Citizen Schools and did more Bead Loom and Bead Loom Game testing. Even though they have only had a few minutes each week they are already showing big improvements. One student even solved the Example8 using a series of rectangles rather than simple brute force. They also seemed to generally be having a good time playing the game even if it was only a paper/old system prototype. Best of all when I showed them how to reach the solution in only 6 moves they were really amazed. At least half the students then went on ad used that solution to recreate the goal. Each week the puzzles are getting more challenging and I feel by the end they will be really good at these types of puzzles and problem solving. It feels good to know this game should actually show powerful gains AND the kids seem to enjoy it.

3. Problems encountered?
The only real problem was discovering that the very nice idea of an output code window was not fully or even accurately done. I do not feel that the current code output accurately represents what is going on. Once the game is up and running I will need to go back and fix this.

4. What did you learn this week?
I have not worked with the Java GUI components in a long time so it was a good refresher course on doing things like text boxes, drop down menus, and other basic user interface stuff.

5. What's planned for next week?
I need to find a good way to store the puzzles themselves in the game. I feel it should be possible to store them as a set of moves, convert that to the array and use that for testing if their solution is correct. If this can not be done I will have to hard code in the solutions. That is 41 x41 points of data per puzzle (except where null but most puzzles have few empty spots). I REALLY hope it does not come to that but if it does I will seek the help of my fellow GameCATS.

If my theory of move storing works I should have a few puzzles ready along with a selection system. If not I will get the selection system ready and begin the task of code monkeying.

6. Hours worked
19

Antoine Campbell Weekly Report, 3-9-09 and 3-16-09

2009-03-16T07:03:00.000-07:00

1. What was planned?
*Mainly finish Bunny General Prototype
*Add a HUD or console to keep the player informed of objectives
*Set up Joomla! on my home machine to test it out

2. What was done?
*SPRING BREAK!!!
*finished the prototype minus the HUD/console
*I've got Joomla! installed and starting to play with it/the deployment on the server may be a little different I assume

3. Problems encountered?
*I need a way to easily script player actions for bunny generals to show players what to do, and an event system. Not necessarily for the prototype but it would be nice.
*Testing Joomla! on my machine may not work the same on a server I imagine, maybe I'll try to use some virtual server software to do the testing

4. What did you learn this week?
*Setting up Joomla! (joomla.org)
*Re-Using XNA tile engine Event system(creators.xna.com)

5. What's planned for next week?
*Complete a HUD or console and begin playtesting of Bunny Generals Prototype
*Get Joomla! running properly on a Virtual Server

6. Hours worked.
*In the two weeks about 26

7. How has Creativity been a part of my CS projects, what helps to increase/decrease
Creativity?
*Basically the entire process of creating the Bunny Generals Prototype has been a creative process. Getting the game working with the minimum requirements as to not waste too much time with a game that does not help students. I think just having some constraints increases creativity, total freedom of design would be too open to focus on anything.

Mike

2009-03-03T09:57:00.000-08:00

What was planned?
Writing a paper for Sandbox, looking up information about the Creativity in IT conference.

What was done?
I wrote some stuff for the sandbox paper, did a few literature reviews.
Read a massive amount of information about creating and evaluating scales for psychometrics. Also read about some interesting ways of applying MRC to this type of data. It is all complected, but.. it could be a good angle to get some well cited papers.

Problems encountered?
Massive amount of information to hold on to. I also had trouble focusing on the sandbox paper and often got lost looking up information. This is better for the paper overall, but not for the short term as we didn't get the sandbox paper out.

What did you learn this week?
100% of the game studies I read had some large flaws in their design. The ones with smaller design flaws tended to have large flaws in the claims they made after doing their paper. This is leading to many papers stating negative results about games when either the study design was bias, or the statistical results were not reported correctly.

For example, one paper failed to find statistically significant results and thus claimed that "games do not teach better than a paper assignment." We could run a large meta review on game papers... it might be good to simply call people on on it..

What's planned for next week?
SIGCSE!! maybe some more work on the Sandbox paper.

Amanda's Weekly Report (for two weeks)

2009-03-03T06:41:00.000-08:00

What was planned? Work on Thesis, Sandbox papers, run study participants

What happened? Worked on Thesis, and ran study participants, crunched log and survey data, finished Sandbox paper, worked on figuring out improvements for the game.

Problems? None, now that I have study participants

Next week? Finish thesis up to the point where all I have to do is throw in the numbers to change the tables. Start planning the changes to Elemental.

New stuff learned? I can write papers?

Hours? 32

Creativity Musings - Sorry this is going to be disjointed...

In creative writing, I do best with a slight constraint - a small word count and a one word prompt to get the juices flowing is enough to send me off to the computer. By the same token, however, too large a word count leads to garbage when going off a single prompt. When working on my novel, however, I am only limited by what I can imagine and I am only confined by the setting and characters already established...so one could say that I am always constrained...it's a question of external or internal constraints.

When designing a game (not a G2L game), I go for what I think is fun and entertaining. Some of them have been complete and unabashed rip offs of other games, others have fallen well short of the fun marker, and some are more fun than they should be, considering. More to the point, however, designing a game is supposed to be fun, not work.

When designing a G2L game, half the time I feel stiffled by being crammed into such a small area with so many issues to think about that I cant get anything done at all. The other half, I am super creative. The problem with that is that the super creativity tends to sneak into code and we all know that creative code is no substitute for a good design.

As far as the classroom goes, you want creativity, you take the English courses...and not many of them are creative. The teachers get highhanded with constraints and the students, half of whom are taking it for an easy A, are lifeless, regurgitating the same trite styles that they think is the surest path to an A. The screenwriting course, on the other hand, we were given free rein on everything but the format...that was brilliant. It also emphasized 'show' not 'tell' which, as a game designer, is going to come in super handy someday.

Most of my CS projects outside of the games courses have not had creative content. Some of my games courses have had too much constraint on creativity...I can give you one, maybe two, major constraints but no more than that or you will get garbage for a game. Some of the games are sooooo constrained that there is no possible way for them to be fun, which totally defeats the purpose of making a game in the first place...

Eh, rant.ramble.off

Katie's Weekly Report 3/2/2009

2009-03-02T15:43:00.000-08:00

1. What was planned?
-Get IRB approval for Creativity and Cognition paper study
-Finish Sandbox paper (yay for submission extensions)
-Get study participants somehow...possibly kidnapping, no...definitely kidnapping
-Second session with Citizen Schools this week, pre-test for CSDTs needed
-Continue research for the Creativity and Cognition paper, look into proper Likert Scale design and game evaluation methods.
-Begin forming a study design for the Creativity and Cognition paper, form a solid hypothesis and determine what data is needed to support this hypothesis.

2. What was done?
-Finally got study participants
-Read log files (ew.)
-Continued research for the Creativity and Cognition paper
-Formed more definite plans for a study
-Second Citizen Schools Session
-Concluded RPG Prototyping of Bunny Generals

3. Problems encountered?
-I'm always underestimating on how long things will take (like pretests)
-Students don't catch on to CSDTs as quickly as we expected
-Logging doesn't make clean, pretty files

4. What did you learn this week? (esp. computer science, or anything surprising or
interesting) Be sure to cite any resources you used (e.g. online tutorials, etc).
-Looking into Flow and Creativity by Mihaly Csikszent for the Creativity and Cognition paper
-I have a much better understanding of how to write an effective conference publication

5. What's planned for next week?
-Third session with Citizen Schools this week, work with CSDTs will continue
-Continue research for the Creativity and Cognition paper, look into proper Likert Scale design and game evaluation methods.
-Finish forming a study design for the Creativity and Cognition paper, form a solid hypothesis and determine what data is needed to support this hypothesis. Get IRB approval for the study
-Begin full development on Bunny Generals, have a playable full-prototype by the end of Spring Break, integrate in feedback from Dr. Barnes on the GDD

6. Hours worked.
20

Su Hyung's Weekly Report 03/02/2009

2009-03-02T12:43:00.001-08:00

Su Hyung's Weekly Report 03/02/2009

1. What was planned?
- I wanted to change some animation lists because I cannot make finger animation, and feet animation. I didn’t make finger bones and feet bones. We (I and Evie) will discuss about that.
- Fix boundary with Yoo shin.
- Separate maya and max animation.

2. What was done?
- Set up new SVN server.
- Installed maya 2008 myself because I could not wait department’s install.
- Added jump, Run, Hurdle, leg shake, curl, and mowing animation.
- Fixed maya’s leg texture.
- Rearranged animation list
- From head, arm, hands, legs, and feet
- To head, arms, left arm, right arm, legs, left leg, and right leg

3. Problems encountered?
- Nothing special.
- We don’t have assets server.

4. What did I learn this week?
- Blending animation
- Unity 3d code
- Set up SVN

5. What's planned for next week?
- Animations for Max
- Delete dancenote function.

6. Hours worked
- 20 hours

Yoo Shin's Weekly Report 03/02/2009

2009-03-02T10:35:00.000-08:00

1. What was planned?

*Solving problem related to dance dialogue box to go over boundary

2. What was done?

*Finishing dialogue box problem

3. Problems encountered?

*I needed to solve more GUI problem in Dance Tool and most it was made by Windows version Unity’s so most Problem does not carry over to Mac platform. However Windows version Unity’s code was expired so I cannot check this problem on Windows machine.

4. What's planned for next week?

*To solve GUI problem and Unity’s code
(My windows machine’s Unity’s code already was expired)

5. Hours worked.

*About 18

Antoine Campbell Weekly Report 3-1-09

2009-03-02T09:00:00.000-08:00

1. What was planned?
*Finish the first puzzle for Bunny Generals
*Work on the playground website

2. What was done?
*Finished the first puzzle for Bunny Generals
*No website updating will be done until he have a content management system, so I'm look into Joomla!

3. Problems encountered?
*Not really any problems with Bunny Generals it just takes time.
*Never worked with any sort of content management software for a website.

4. What did you learn this week?
*A little bit about Joomla! from some tutorials at joomla.org

5. What's planned for next week?
*Refine the Bunny Generals first puzzle to include lots of dialogue so the player will know exactly what to do without asking any questions, and add a console or hud where the player can review previous instructions and objectives.

6. Hours worked.
*About 14

Acey's Weekly Report 2/22 -3/1

2009-03-01T18:39:00.000-08:00

1. What was planned?
Combine the Layers into one 41 by 41 array.
Outreach

2. What was done?
Managed to get the array created and it is always an accurate representation of the layers.

Also managed to run the outreach with MLK.
3. Problems encountered?
We had a little less time than we really wanted for the CSDT part of the outreach. This is because we thought the surveys would take about 3 minutes. They actually took about 15 minutes. Never underestimate how long it will take a younger audience to do paper work.

One other problem this week is that I discovered the new bead loom tool does not have a color iteration tool. This is because it operates in layers and each layer holds only one color. This will be a major thing to change because unlike the original tool which goes bead by bead the new one goes layer by layer. I will have to either change this or redesign some puzzles but I feel I need to get the basic game working first.

4. What did you learn this week?
Learned a lot about middle schooler students this week. As noted above in latter outreach we will definitely give more time for surveys so it does not eat into CSDT time.

Also learned a bit about how to first expose users to the bead loom game. They were asked to solve the triforce puzzle. Although most understood that it could be solved with 3 triangles all but one student could not figure out how to create a triangle. They were given a small amount of time (5 minutes because of the survey issue) to familiarize themselves with the tool. I do not think this was enough time and in the future I would like to give them more time before throwing them into the game. The other improvement I would make is starting with the tutorials. This would give a more guided introduction to the game and how to make basic shapes. I thought with some free play time students would learn these basics on their own but without some sort of guide only a few students took the time to experiment and learn the tools.

I also got some great feedback on my presentation to the lab. I will be able to use it to improve my existing presentation for the grad fair.

5. What's planned for next week?
I will not be getting a lot done this week because of 3 exams, homework, and a conference but I am going to begin working on creating a second graph that will display the puzzle but not allow the player to add or remove beads from it. Once this is done I will add in the move counters. I am sure this will roll over into spring break but I will definitely have it all done before Spring Break is over. If the 2nd graph proves easy enough I may even have one puzzle ready and implemented. Finally I will start looking for some side tasks for my fellow GameCATS to help me with. So far possible tasks include coding the puzzles in or solving the color iteration problem.

6. Hours worked.
17.5

Josh's Weekly Report from 2/23 - 3/1

2009-03-01T11:38:00.000-08:00

What was planned? Getting the linked list and SuperArray classes implemented in the tool, allowing each body part to check itself for overlaps with dance moves of the same type.

What was done? Got the SuperArray class working with the linked list. Got all of my code to Evie and integrated into the project. Helped design the project class (for storing Dance's to be played, saved, and loaded) and wrote a document about it - which was added to the Tech Design Document. Got the drop down menu working (it actually allows you to choose songs).

Problems encountered? Not much to report this week. Still having trouble with the GUI on the windows platform.

What did you learn this week? As Evie said, Debug.Log is incredible. It allows you to write debug messages to the console.

What's planned for next week? Creating and implementing the Project class and the XML structure for storing Dance's. Also, setting up a more efficient sort method in the SuperArray class

Hours worked? 15 hours.

Thoughts On Creativity in Programming:
Measuring creativity is definitely a difficult endeavor.
I would definitely say that I feel most creative when I am in an environment that lends itself to creativity. The Global Game Jam is a good example of this; I was not present on campus, but I worked with my group remotely writing music and creating sound effects. It was alot of fun, and I felt very creative while doing my part (especially writing the music). I think was due to the open ended topic (i.e. not much restriction on what we had to do) and the severe time limit.
I also feel more creative when I am doing something creative, which may sound kind of circular. What I mean by that is that, if I am struggling with coding or designing a game or part of a game, I will play the imrovise some melodies on the piano, or sketch abstract pictures. When I return to the code, I am often inspired.
Coming up with a way to measure this feeling of creativity is tricky. Asking for a subjective measure of the person's feelings doesn't seem too effective (i.e. "on a scale from 1-10, how creative did you feel while...").
My first thought would be to ask a test participant who just played a game questions like, "how difficult was it for you to beat this level?", or "What thought process lead you to try your solution?" Similar questions could be asked of a game developer solving the problem of writing a particular method. Analyzing and categorizing the answers would be tedious and may not lead to siginificant results, but it's a thought.
That's all I've got. Hope it helps a little.

Evie's Weekly Report 2/28/09

2009-02-27T13:39:00.000-08:00

What was planned? More documentation, finish merging code. fix the gui problems on windows platform.

What was done? Got the remainder of Josh's work integrated with the tool. Drop down, linked list, super array, etc., now not only exist in the codebase as proof of concepts but are actually present in the dance tool project. Updated the dancetool gui with some image buttons. fixed the blending issues on maya. when she "compiles" she now blends all the animations together... except when instructions are added to existing notes.

Worked with Josh on understanding some of the more difficult to understand classes.

Problems encountered? recursion + unity = very bad. i know i've mentioned this before but testing for logical errors with a recursive solution in unity is truly a nightmare. most languages throw a stack overflow error or something simple like that. Unity crashes, closes itself down, and forcibly removes the class from the project (regardless of how many other classes use it), ultimately destroying any and all functionality of the project until you realize what happened, fix the class(blindly) and reimport the class into the project.

there have been other issues, mostly with the gui and windows.

svn issues as usual. Scott Wood came by to help today, but in a stroke of bad luck, some satellites went down an hour before he got here, rendering him useless until they are back online. unfortunate.

What did you learn this week?Debug.Log(). Joy. now I have console messages, warnings and errors outside Monobehaviour classes. Thanks Josh, for researching this.

What's planned for next week? more proof of concept stuff brought to life. fix the design of dance elements and the algorithm used to resolve the elements into a danceInstruction SuperArray.

Josh has started working on the Project class and has added some documentation on the class into the TDD. This class allows us to create new projects, open existing projects, save projects to uml, etc.

Yoo Shin is working on more GUI problems.

Su Hyung is setting up the new svn. He's also redoing some of the dance moves and reorganizing them.

Try to Squeeze a sandbox paper out of something i've done in the past by sunday.

Hours worked? 28 hours

-Evie
www.eviemakesgames.com

Josh's weekly report from 2/16 - 2/23

2009-02-23T10:13:00.000-08:00

What was planned? Implementing the linked list data structure used to create Dances in the tool

What was done? I have been through the code, commenting and understanding the flow of control between each of the classes and carefully documented it. I have also estensively tested the linked list class I recreated and it works (the first one was lost).

Problems encountered? The code-based was larger than I expected. The process of getting the classes figured out has taken much longer than expected has taken alot longer than I wanted it to. Also, I had two tests this week, so that messed up my schedule

What did you learn this week? I learned that it is hard to understand someone else's code, but that is the way it is going to be in the work-force, so I should get used to it

What's planned for next week? Actually getting the Dance's working. Once that it done, it will be easy to save and load Dance's.

Hours worked? ~10 hours