Tag Archives: design

Rolling Twenties

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After talking to a developer, I’m switching to a turn-based format for Deme. I probably should have done this to begin with, and my reasons for not doing so earlier owe a lot to my own misconceptions about myself.

I don’t think of myself as a turn-based game fan. When I find out a computer game is turn-based, I tend to stop reading the description and look for something else. Somehow, this notion of myself as a real-time game guy persists despite my whelming affection for several turn-based games. These include computer games and tabletop games alike. Of course, many tabletop games are inherently turn-based.

The new concept I’m pursuing is fairly simple, drawing mechanical inspiration from games like Battle for Wesnoth and Heroscape. These games, likewise, are derived from other systems (turn-based tabletop strategy games, in general, have an interesting genealogy that includes H.G. Wells). One benefit of a turn-based system is ease of balancing and modification. Real-time games require finer simulation, which means more complexity. I want people to be able to modify Deme in the future, so this process should be as painless as possible. Initial development will also be much faster and simpler.

Another big bonus is the ease with which the game can be prototyped and balanced on pen and paper. I have hauled out my 20-sided die for this purpose, just in case. Fortunately, HMSC is a pretty good place to find nerds, ecologists, biologists, computer geeks and gamers. I only learned recently that my minor advisor is an Age of Empires fan. At some point I may have to pit him against my wife, whose historic conquests in that game’s campaign mode have filled many a night with the din of clashing steel.

Meanwhile, I have rejoined the husbandry team. I’ve switched gears a couple of times to focus on one area of my career or another, so it’s interesting to walk between worlds. I find I miss the FCL Lab when I’m working on aquarium systems, but I miss the animals when I work on interpretation and design. I think—or rather, I hope—this is a good thing. I want to do everything. I find it very motivating, but it could become paralyzing without the proper focus.

Some last thoughts (for now?) from Diana

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Our Summer Scholars’ time is drawing to a close at the end of the month, so we’re hearing some final words, at least for the moment, from some of them, starting with Diana:

“These past weeks have been filled with things that I never thought would happen and have surprised me in the most spectacular ways.  First, I went on vacation to Vancouver, BC and Seattle, WA which was a memorable experience.  I was able to see behind the scenes tanks and animals at the Vancouver Aquarium and even got to see Leonardo Da Vinci’s works in person as well as King Tutankhamen’s burial chamber items.  This vacation was a nice break from the craziness of the visitor’s center and refreshed me for another few weeks as an education intern.  The moment I returned many volunteers and other workers at Hatfield were asking about my vacation.  Even this little thing made me feel fully welcomed into the Hatfield family.  One of the first things that occurred when I returned was that many unannounced summer camps came into the visitor’s center which is always an experience.  Yet, one of the most progressive things I did was creating new signs for me shoreline erosion tank.  This time one of my mentors Mark Farley and I created 2 different signs compared to one long sign.  One sign said “The Erosion Problem” with photos of me showing how to use the paddle to create waves and see the erosion of the sand.  The second sign said “The Erosion Solution” and gave the visitors a chance to try 1 of 3 different protective strategies for beach/shoreline erosion.  These new larger signs seem to be working well for now.  I can already see a difference in the behavior of children and families when they come to wave tank; instead of sand castle building, they actually read the sings and follow the directions.

The visitor’s center also had some crazy moments.  We had Micro A and Micro B tanks overflow into the VC overnight and leave a lake in the surrounding area an inch deep.  That lake was an interesting mess to clean, but created a wonderful learning moment.  I was able to watch the aquarists and learn how to put on new filter bags as well as rework the tanks.  I was challenged to follow the pipes and figure out where the water went such as the outflow and inflow pipes.  Other crazy moments that occurred were people trying to put their whole hand inside of anemones or trying to crawl inside of the touch tank to touch the different fish.  While all of this was going on I also got to have some spectacular moments in the VC.

These spectacular moments occurred when the Aquarists took me under their wing and showed me some impressive things.  First, I got to see a fish necropsy which was highly informative and taught me new dissections skills.  I was also taught how to kill invasive coral apitasia with lemon juice.  I was able to inject a few micrometers of lemon juice into each invasive apitasia, which kills it almost instantaneously.  The apitasia tries as a defensive mechanism to spit its own guts out, but the lemon juice is too acidic.  I also learned through this process how to siphon a tank and change out the water while balancing the acidity in the water with baking soda, thus making the seawater more neutral.  Yet, the most spectacular thing I learned with the aquarists was how to feed all the animals in the Hatfield Marine Science Center.  I learned how and what to feed each animal except the octopus in the visitor’s center, which took a long time but was completely worth it.  The amount of knowledge I learned during that time was amazing and I will not forget anytime soon.  This entire summer has been a learning experience, but definitely a fun one that I shall remember for the rest of my life.”

 

Preparing for crowd management – Tsunami Tank Exhibit

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This follows Nick’s post on “preparing for a different type of Tsunami”, when he discussed initial challenges of the tsunami tank exhibit, especially in terms of the Lego activity and resources used.  Nick pointed out some mechanical/ physical challenges already encountered during initial prototyping but nevertheless said he was confident that the exhibit will be fun, interesting, and popular among Hatfield visitors.

POPULAR without a doubt! I have done some observations and brought in some groups to test the Lego activity at the tank and already can tell you Nick, the tsunami tank will most certainly be very popular. As a consequence, challenges to the exhibit are not only related to the resources used in the activity as you pointed out and whether it works or not, but also brings up issues of crowd management, flow and accessibility to the tank area and interactions among visitors.

 

In sum, here are some main points that surfaced from my short prototype:

a) The Lego activity and concept for the tank seem to generally work, apart from a few glitches already being addressed such as computer malfunctions and the sanding of Lego blocks so that they don’t stick so strongly together causing poorly constructed structures to stay firm after a potentially strong tsunami wave.

b) There is a need for establishing some rules for building structures so that participants won’t just build a solid square block that will stand still no matter what. The rules during the prototype were that each participant gets a cup full of Legos and have to build a structure of whatever shape but that will not surpass eight blocks tall to survive a tsunami wave. However, a few malfunctions were observed. As an example, the cup idea did not work well as most groups will go to the activity table and search for parts they want to use that were not in their cups.

c) Groups, especially children will spend a long…long time at the tank, which is good and challenging at the same time since crowds accumulate around and things can get really chaotic pretty fast. Creating clearly defined stations for building structures, providing a set of steps to be followed (through a facilitator or signage) and reinforcing time management can address the issue. Although I am afraid there isn’t really a definite solution for that, and at some degree we will have to rely on the visitors themselves (especially parents) to make good judgments and facilitate the process.

d) Visitors have LOTS OF FUN, interact and participate in shared learning.  After all, isn’t that the important aspects to cultivate if we are trying to facilitate learning?

Other subsequent observations were also made when the tank was opened to the public for a day with no facilitator and all my initial speculations were confirmed that crowd management will pose a huge issue, and while some creative solutions are on the making, the exhibit will need constant prototyping through time and even after it is completely opened to the public in order to minimize the problem.  Should I even call it a problem in the very sense of the word? Maybe I should say it is a good problem to have.

The exhibit has all the potential to foster active prolonged engagement (APE) and promote meaningful interactions. Humphrey and Gutwill (2005) importantly point out that APE exhibits are empowering to visitors as they can take pleasure in “observing, playing, investigating, exploring, collaborating, searching and speculating”. That is what I just saw groups starting to do at the tsunami tank.

(Humphrey, T., Gutwill, J. P., & Exploratorium (Organization). (2005). Fostering active prolonged engagement: The art of creating APE exhibits. San Francisco: Exploratorium).

 

 

 

Wave energy device progress report

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Since we last heard from him, Summer Scholar Brian has made progress on his wave energy device model, but that progress has in turn revealed more work to be done:

“With the successful design of the ”Pelamis” prototype it’s now time to reconstruct it using materials that are more durable and can stand up to the wear and tear of public use.  The next step for me is to actually incorporate a working public-friendly version of the Pelamis into the wave tank.  The first design used wood to attach the hinges to and after a few weeks in the water the wood has started to mold and disintegrate.  This upcoming Tuesday I hope to find a replacement material such as PVC or aluminum that won’t corrode in water.  Another material that I have to replace is the pipe insulation foam inside the PVC that keeps the whole thing afloat.  I have noticed that the foam is getting more and more saturated with water so the buoyancy of the entire device is decreasing.  Luckily for me ping pong balls bit perfectly in the 1 ½ in pipe so I am going to try and use those for floatation because they will hopefully never lose their buoyancy.

I am really impressed with the way the model moves in the water right now and I am hoping that the new materials won’t impede or hinder the movements seen with the first prototype.  This model does not actually create any energy from the motion of waves. The idea behind the whole design is that the public will be able to create waves in the tank and see how this particular WEC captures the energy of the waves through the snake-like movement.  As long as the motion is consistent, it should be fairly simple for anyone to understand how energy is captured.”

Duplicating Wave Energy Small-Scale

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Today our HMSC VC Intern Brian Verwey gives us an update on his work for the summer:

“This summer the Visitor Center is working on opening three new exhibits explaining three separate aspects of wave energy on the Oregon Coast.  Part of our internship for the summer is tackling these new displays and making them “public friendly.” Diana is working on erosion due to wave action along the beach.  Nick is creating tsunami proof structures.  I am designing wave energy converter (WEC) models. Tuesday is our project day at the Visitor Center so instead of working on the floor we spend most of the day in the new wave energy section of the VC (closed to the public for now).

The idea behind the WEC exhibit is to demonstrate how energy is created from waves.  To do this we are simplifying a working WEC design called a point absorber.  A point absorber works by moving a magnet through as coil of wire that then creates an electromagnetic current.  It’s a pretty basic concept that has proven very difficult to show in our wave tank in the VC.  The most challenging part of the exhibit so far is getting our version of the point absorber to create electricity that can be displayed on a computer monitor and in turn will be easily recognized and understood by the public. As of yet it isn’t easy to understand. So for now I’ve focused my efforts on creating other models of WECs that don’t actually create energy but give the public an idea of how they work [such as the one below].

 

 

Last Tuesday I worked on creating an attenuating wave energy device similar to the Scottish “Pelamis.” It’s about 36” long and fits perfectly in one of our wave tanks.  It works pretty well and for the next few project days I will be working out some kinks in the design. The main kink is creating an anchor system to attach it to the tanks so it doesn’t float away when waves are produced, and the other big kink is somehow orienting the model so when waves hit it, it doesn’t flip onto its side.”

Same old changes

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Note: This will be my last post as a regular blogger, though most of you will have observed that Katie has taken over as Your Friend and Humble Narrator in recent weeks. You’ll still hear from me. I have much work to do on my project—work that will warrant intermittent updates within the physical context I am studying. Otherwise, I will be working with the animals again due to my appointment as Visitor Center aquarist.

“Who the f*** knows and who the f*** cares?”

The words were on a pin. The pin was on a boonie hat, among many other pins endorsing various causes. The boonie hat was on an old man—an Alaska Native, by my reckoning—riding the Number 3 bus through downtown Anchorage.

“Who the f*** knows and who the f*** cares?”

I thought about that pin for several minutes before I realized why. Those two questions, though glib in intent, inform much of our work. If you ask them of yourself, sincerely and urgently, you might detect some familiarity in them.

Along with several of my colleagues, I spent last week in Anchorage at the National Marine Educators Association conference. We mingled with fellow educators (formal and informal), remembered Bill Hastie (whom I never had the good fortune to meet), explored the city’s FCL facilities and shared research.

The sharing is really it, isn’t it? I think the reasons for exchanging knowledge freely and graciously are more immediate than we tend to recognize. I hear a lot of talk about protecting resources for the future and making the world a better place than it was. I think it’s simpler than that.

Our world has also faced problems. Problems and their solutions change over time. Creation and destruction are not discrete chronological points. They are continuous, ever-present processes. When we exert ourselves toward the preservation of the things that matter—to us or to someone or something else—we save the world. We’re not saving it from the past or for the future, but right in that place at that moment—not a step toward a final goal, but a valuable act in itself. That’s the way it’s done. It’s the way people have always done it, and we’ll never be finished.

“Who the f*** knows and who the f*** cares?”

Let’s find out. Go save the world today.