05.23
2011
by Kevin Makice
Although the Wisdom of Play projects fell short of the original vision, we did manage to produce some interesting experiences for Bloomington. A number of these projects wouldn’t have been possible without some financial backing, even in small amounts.
I’d like to extend a personal thanks to the following donors who pledged money to our projects:
- Chris Borland
- Gabriel Recchia
- Mike Trotzke
- Maarten Bout
- Gail Hale
- Craig Harvey
- Allison Cooke
- Bob Molnar
The money raised directly paid for materials to build the Serious Games Arcade facades and the Our Infinite Canvas materials, as well as reimbursing a significant chunk of the expenses incurred by our Human Puzzle coordinators. We had a number of other people step up in our initial Kickstarter campaign, too, who would have contributed money if that effort had been successful.
A special thanks to Mike Trotzke and Sproutbox for hosting our Playing With Wisdom unconference last week. Mike also bought pizza for the participants that day.
We had two volunteers help with our events. Michelle Smith was instrumental in moving the Our Infinite Canvas project around Bloomington, snapping pictures of new panels for Ben Serrette to include in the online version of the project (http://ourinfinitecanvas.com). Betsy Head assisted with the Ignite Bloomington event at the end of Taming the Butterfly and registration—including handing out Human Puzzle shirts—at the unconference. Their help was greatly appreciated.
Our coordinators were the ones responsible for getting the projects off the ground: Ben Serrette (Our Infinite Canvas), Larry Buchanan and Erin Wright (Human Puzzle), Christian Briggs (Taming the Butterfly), and Will Emigh (Serious Games Arcade). I also want to thank Bloominglabs for giving the Toy Boxes project a go. I wish we had the resources to have made that a success during the first half of May.
Sally Meyer did a wonderful job lining up the locations for both the Our Infinite Canvas project and the training sessions for Taming the Butterfly. Having that off of my plate was a huge help.
Thanks to the artists who participated in Human Puzzle: Kurtis Beavers, Barba Bonchek, Larry Buchanan, Zach Rozycki, Raf Cronin and Jack Brubaker. We wish we could have properly funded stipends for your work.
Similarly, thank you to our four game developers: Pete Grogg of WisdomTools’ Health Games (Campus Craft), Sonny Kirkley of WisdomTools, Inc. (AstroEngineer: Moon Rover™), Nathan Mishler of Studio Cypher (San*Go Seasons), and Gabriel Recchia of the Indiana University Cognitive Computing Laboratory and Transformative Gaming & Simulation (Wordbots). The quality of your work got lost in the execution and coordination of the Serious Games Arcade, but I hope the experience at least got you a few users.
Other thank-yous go out to CFC Properties for allowing us to shoot daily videos in a swanky downtown office overlooking the courthouse. They also hosted the Serious Games Arcade and Our Infinite Canvas for the final weekend, at Fountain Square Mall.
05.20
2011
by Kevin Makice
The Wisdom of Play projects concluded on Sunday, May 15, with a successful unconference and delivery of the Human Puzzle shirts. There were a number of challenges about this suite of community engagement projects, and each effort had mixed success.
The alternate reality game run by SociaLens was designed to improve digital skills and strengthen connections within the Bloomington community. Attracting over 70 registrations, the game ran from May 5th through 12th and culminated in an Ignite Bloomington event where players shared their plans for shaping the future of Bloomington. While there was attrition—thanks in no small part to the IU graduation activities during the game—TTB ended up with three active groups and enough feedback to iterate the project. The organizers considered this project a successful pilot for larger versions of the game to be run in other communities and corporations.
The Bloominglabs hackers and builders group made great strides toward completing four of the targeted six geocaching puzzle boxes, to be placed in the Bloomington area in early May. Due to a late start in organizing this project, however, the time frame became too short to complete and place these objects out in the world. The project was cancelled after the Kickstarter campaign failed. However, the group continues to work on the boxes in the hope of making use of them in the future.
One of the speakers at TEDx Bloomington was Charlie Todd, the founder of Improv Everywhere. We have long talked about bringing an IE-style mission to Bloomington, but it has never materialized. Lack of time was the biggest reason we continue to wait, as the Mission:X project was cancelled before ever naming a coordinator.
Ben Serrette‘s local art and storytelling project made a tour of Bloomington for the first two weeks of May, inviting people to add panels to an organically-grown comic. The low-tech display still had too many constraints of physical space to properly honor Scott McCloud’s notion of an infinite canvas, but several dozen panels were created and are being scanned into a site Ben made to explore them online (http://www.ourinfinitecanvas.com/). Some artistic license had to be invoked to connect the panels together, in some cases, but overall this was a great iteration on Ben’s capstone project from a year ago. We have high hopes that the online version will continue to develop, adding social dynamics and letting people upload new panels to the story lines collected this month.
The weekend of TEDx Bloomington included an exhibition of four local game developers of playful games with serious benefits. The three-day show was fraught with difficulties, including technical and material needs that didn’t fully support the project. The construction of the facades was delayed by financial and time constraints, and the final structures were not in place until mid-afternoon on Friday. The killer blow, though, was the absence of an announcement from the TEDx Bloomington stage, which kept the exhibit invisible to hundreds of attendees just a block away. We are grateful to Fountain Square Mall for hosting these exhibits and providing internet access.
The Serious Games Arcade lacked traffic
Local artists were recruited to create scenes that spread across multiple t-shirts. Worn individually, the hand-crafted designs are interesting, but when recombined, the set of shirts recreates the full scene—like a human jigsaw puzzle. Our initial plan was for 7 or 8 such puzzles, each with 10 shirts. We only managed four complete puzzles, as well as a number of individual shirts, but that was sufficient to distribute shirts to the crowd at “Playing With Wisdom.” It was neat to see the shirts moving around Bloomington after the unconference, as well. This is definitely a project worth doing again. The cost of the shirts was a significant part of our budget, however, and had to be covered in advance by the coordinators. Generous donations allowed for some of that to be paid back, but we had hoped to support both the material costs and artist stipends.
Following the full day of short talks on May 14, we targeted a group of 70 people to participate in an afternoon unconference on May 15 to process what we heard that day, as well as discussing the experiences from Taming the Butterfly. Because our initial plans tied this event to the TEDx Bloomington experience in Buskirk-Chumley, recruiting became an issue. Instead of selecting participants from a pool of a couple hundred, we had to scrounge. In the end, we ended up with half of our goal, but more than enough to have multiple small-group discussions about topics like education reform, permaculture, and access to government data. Sproutbox was a gracious host for this event and an ideal location for an unconference of this size. The goal of an unconference is to turn insights into actionable task items that can live on beyond that afternoon, so the biggest measure of success will be our ability to re-engage these topics in the coming months.
We have a number of people and organizations to thank for helping Wisdom of Play to exist. That will come in a special blog post tomorrow.
05.20
2011
by Kevin Makice
05.15
2011
by Kevin Makice
Today is the final day of our Wisdom of Play events. Four community engagement projects wrap up in the post-TEDx Bloomington afterglow. (For more on that event, spend some time browsing through the #tedxbtown Twitter stream.)
At Fountain Square Mall, from noon until about 5p, four local game developers have their recent work on display:
Wordbots—Race against the machines, guess the secret words, and advance real-world cognitive science research in this fast-paced word game. Presented by Gabriel Recchia, Indiana University Cognitive Computing Laboratory and Transformative Gaming & Simulation
Campus Craft—A serious game designed to educate, engage, entertain and empower college students in dealing with common health-related issues they face during their years in college. Presented by Pete Grogg, WisdomTools’ Health Games
AstroEngineer: Moon Rover™—AstroEngineer is designed to help students learn to solve problems like an engineer in the context of building Moon rovers to solve various challenges. Presented by Sonny Kirkley, WisdomTools, Inc.
San*Go Seasons—A word creation game that helps build the player’s vocabulary and
strategy skills. Presented by Nathan Mishler, Studio Cypher
Each game is in it’s own old-style arcade facade and is motivated by some learning opportunity. It is worth spending some time in the mall today.
Also making its final appearance this month is Our Infinite Canvas, the community storytelling project. Panels collected from the boards will be visible online at http://ourinfinitecanvas.com.
Finally, the “Playing With Wisdom” unconference takes place today from noon to 3p at Sproutbox. Doors open at 11:30a, and the first 57 people will get a t-shirt made by local artists as part of the Human Puzzle project. There are four complete 10-piece puzzles and 17 individual shirts
05.14
2011
by Kevin Makice
Although it has been difficult to tell from this blog, much has happened with the Wisdom of Play projects since the start of the month. Here is an update on the five activities that survived:
Taming the Butterfly
The alternate reality game attracted about 70 registrations, with about half engaging with the game in some way. Three small teams presented short talks at Ignite Bloomington 5 on Thursday night at City Hall, sharing their visions for the future of Bloomington. The premise of the game involved a time traveler from 2036, Dorthea Nie, who had developed the “Time Rope”—a means of sending digital messages back in time. Players were sent on scavenger hunts, online and offline, while reflecting on current issues that might lead to the problems in Dorthea’s time.
Our Infinite Canvas
Ben Serrette’s thesis work has been iterated into this community storytelling project. Throughout the past two weeks, a traveling exhibit has encouraged locals to add cartoon panels to expand a storyline in any direction. These panels are being scanned to include in an online version of the narrative. The exhibit is finishing its tour of Bloomington with a three-day stay in the lobby of Fountain Square Mall, through Sunday May 15. Go draw something to add to the story.
Serious Games Arcade
Four local developers have included games on display in kiosks in the Fountain Square Mall lobby. This exhibit will be available for the public to explore through May 15. The game developers are expected to be on hand to explain their designs during the lunch break at TEDx Bloomington on Saturday, approximately 12:30p to 2:00p. The submissions include MoonRover, CampusCraft, WordBots, and San*Go Seasons.
Human Puzzle
Local artists used a series of t-shirts as their canvas, creating elaborate designs that span 10 shirts. In the end, four complete puzzles were made, with 17 additional individual shirts to give away at the Sunday unconference, “Playing With Wisdom.”
Playing With Wisdom
After all of the presentations and gaming, Bloomington has to figure out what to do with all of the new information. Sunday’s unconference—a self-organized small group discussion intended to identify tangible actions we can take—will attempt to help start the process of turning ideas into action. Bring your experiences and passions, as well as a willingness to engage others in a specific topic of discussion. The unconference is limited to 70 participants, gathering in Sproutbox from 11:30a to 3p.
05.3
2011
by Kevin Makice
In addition to the financial assistance to make this a success, Wisdom of Play also needs help with human labor. There are a few volunteer opportunities over the next two weeks in support of our various projects:
Curator for Our Infinite Canvas [Taken]—This traveling exhibit will need to be moved from place to place during the week, as well as periodically checked for new content. Most of the setups are in the morning and take-downs in the evening, lasting just a few minutes each. We also may need someone to be with the exhibit for the Farmer’s Market on Saturday, May 7.- Curator for Serious Games Arcade—We have a scaled-back version of the facades for the four serious games entries. These facades need to be built and decorated prior to the Friday, May 13 opening at Fountain Square Mall. The lightweight displays will need to be taken down each night and put up the following day, something that the curator will need to confirm during the 3-day exhibition.
- Technical Support for Taming the Butterfly—We need someone to setup and man the UStream video for the 11:30a-1p training sessions during the week-long ARG, as well as help the facilitators manage these midday events.
Event Assistant for Taming the Butterfly and Playing With Wisdom [Taken]—There are two Thursday evening events during the week-long ARG. The first is the Kickoff on May 5 at Monroe County Public Library auditorium, and the second is the Ignite Bloomington “Solution Summit” on May 12 at City Hall. We could use some assistance checking people in and supporting the ARG coordinators. In addition, we will need someone to assist with the unconference scheduled for Sunday afternoon, May 15, at SproutBox.
Each of these volunteer assignments will be rewarded with a $20 discount to TEDx Bloomington on Saturday, May 14. If you are interested in assisting in any of these, please email kevin@makice.net to express interest and claim one of the above assignments.
05.2
2011
by Kevin Makice
Despite drawing the attention and action of a couple dozen backers, our efforts to raise money through Kickstarter failed, falling about $700 short of our $2000 goal for Sunday. We thank those who pledged money to the cause, as well as those who helped promote our campaign.
However, we still have expenses to cover the material needs of some of these art projects. In an effort to raise something to pay for t-shirts, wood, electronics and other components of these art pieces, we’re switching to donations through Pledgie.com to help defer costs.
We may no longer be able to afford the previous rewards for backing our project (e.g., framed panels from Our Infinite Canvas), but some rewards may still be possible as incentive to sponsor our community projects. In addition to the Pledgie campaign, we’ve created a form to allow donors to select from a menu of potential perks still available to us. Only known donors will be eligible for these incentives.
Due to the lack of advance funding, we are scaling back some of our plans. The most notable casualty is Mission:X, which has low overhead but high time investment that is now going to be spent scrounging for materials. The Human Puzzle and Toy Boxes artifacts are going to be limited as well, but otherwise all of the remaining projects will be attempted starting this week.
Any financial help you can provide will help reimburse the project coordinators who have already invested money and time to bring you Wisdom of Play. Please donate what you can this week.
04.29
2011
by Kevin Makice
Developer-and-Artist Ben Serrette has been working hard to get ready for the Wisdom of Play, which opens around Bloomington next week. His project, Our Infinite Canvas, features both a website and a traveling display aimed at collecting illustrated panels for an ever-evolving, multi-dimensional story.
A screenshot from the Our Infinite Canvas website
The project is an extension of Ben’s capstone thesis from last year. His research site was left up for one week, generating about 75 panels with relatively low-traffic. For Wisdom of Play, there is an offline component to gather the panels. The public collaboration will be exhibited at various area locations, inviting anyone to contribute to a living narrative. The new panels to the story are physically placed on a board in the store, and then scanned in regularly to be available online.
“If this is put up in a higher traffic place and left for two weeks,” Ben predicted, “I can see potentially hundreds of panels created.”
The Wisdom of Play exhibit isn’t the end of Our Infinite Canvas. A digital replication of the physical kiosks will allow artists and storytellers to easily participate online. “The current iteration does combine the idea of an expanded canvas for social storytelling,” says Ben, “but to be truly infinite, it needs to be originally created for a digital canvas rather than the physical canvas currently provided. Only a digital canvas can truly eliminate borders.”
There are social elements planned for the website, too. Ben wants to add a system that allows users to interact with each other and foster a community around the project.
Our ability to support this and other Wisdom of Play projects is tied to the success of our funding campaign. Please consider becoming a backer right now, to help us reach our goal by Sunday.
04.27
2011
by Kevin Makice
The BloomingLabs group released a few photos from their early work constructing the devices that will be hidden around town in the Toy Boxes project. With help from local geocachers, the boxes will challenge locals not only to find them but to complete puzzles and other activities in order to see what is inside.
Toy Box #1: A Lego Maze
Installing the display on the Reverse Geocache Toy Box
Among the planned boxes:
- The Lego Maze Puzzle box is a waterproof see-through container filled with Lego pieces. To unlock this box, you have to move the ball through the maze.
- The Reverse Geocache is a wooden box with an LCD panel in the top. An old Gamin GPS unit may become a component of the device.
- The Magnet Art box is a large metal ammo container. It will contain a camera and a bunch of magnets to arrange and capture digitally.
- The Monkey Puzzle box is built out of PVC pipe and will contain a hidden lock and key inside that will need to be moved around to get the device to open.
Others may be possible, but we need to reach our funding goal this week—we’re only halfway there—in order to have the resources to make additional puzzle boxes. If you know anyone who can help with a small donation, please let them know about our Kickstarter campaign, which ends one way or another this weekend.
04.11
2011
by Kevin Makice
Since this is the first Kickstarter campaign I’ve managed, I didn’t realize that a video was all but required. I fought through a bunch of pre-existing hurdles to find the time to pull something together to explain what we’re doing with Wisdom of Play. Video editing always seems to take 10x as long as you think, so it wasn’t until about 3a that I finally was able to upload the 5-minute file to Kickstarter.
It was an interesting and helpful exercise to have to describe our projects in a formal way. Since the timetable was tight, I leveraged YouTube heavily to find clips that could illustrate what I wanted to say. That is a rabbit hole from which I safely returned. If we do this next year, we’ll have an entire DVD filled with material to update this first effort and reflect the actual projects we are asking you to fund.
Take a look at the video on Kickstarter. What do you think?
