It’s been a short week for most of the teams at mediaLAB, but not for us. Yes, we’ve been working since last Friday afternoon. We hacked all weekend long, and have gotten back down to regular business ever since with our fifth (!!!) Sprint. We’ve worked on our Sprint Planning, had a mini team challenge (we’re planning to pitch brand new concepts on Monday), and a business workshop on Wednesday.
Friday: Brainstorms and serious stretching at the Waag Society.
Our hackathon was nothing short of insanely intensive. It was held at the Waag Society (which is an amazing building to hack in, btw), and we got to meet and collaborate with people from FabLab, Europeana and the Sound and Vision in order to research, code and design a prototype over the course of a single weekend. The goal was to use archived data in such a way as to promote and educate the public about cultural heritage. It was like a Sprint in fast-forward times 100.
Creating a video to demonstrating our concept with Director Shreya.
Our concept for the hackathon was to use motion-based sensors in order to reveal archived footage on the screen. It was our first time messing around with sensors, so our technical geniuses had a blast and a half. We also started looking at hooks, or attention-grabbing devices that would spark curiousity in our users and motivate them to look at our screens in the first place. For business purposes, we included an app mockup, to show how our idea could go beyond a large-scale screen experience, to a more personal one. Check out our super video, creds to Shreya. Nailed it.
Final presentation at the Waag Society.
At the end of the hackathon, we were fairly delirious (to the point of eye twitches). But we received some awesome feedback and, even if we didn’t win the competition, we got the chance to try out some new ideas and we’re closer than ever as a team. Or something. Oh, and we also renamed our project: Project Encounter. We also worked on a logo for it. Righteous.
From left to right: Shreya, Atossa, Orlando, Lisanne and Nikhil. LA The Voices.
On Monday (eyes still twitching) we had our Sprint Planning with Gijs to discuss our plan for the next few weeks. Gijs had the brilliant idea (sort of) to divide the team and pit us against each other for a few days to do yet another hackathon. Atossa and Lisanne formed one team, with Shreya, Orlando and Nikhil forming another. We went off to work, scrambling to form new concepts centered around context profiles and hooks. #bringiton
Business workshop happy faces.
Wednesday morning we had a business workshop, where we tried to define our product and service, customer relationship and cost structure (amongst other things). Nikhil rocked the show (life calling, probably) and we gained some insights as to how we can transform our project into an actual money-making business. Cha-ching.
Preview of Atossa and Lisanne’s visuals: Archived footage + high impact phrases.
Although we’re planning to pitch our concepts on Monday, we’re all about #sneakpeeks so we thought we’d give you a brief overview about what we’ve been working on. Atossa and Lisanne came up with a solution that takes data from current weather sources, social media platforms and/or news headlines in order to render videos and texts that are reflective of certain moods of different landmarks in Oost. Shreya, Orlando and Nikhil split up their team so they’ve got three different concepts they’re working with.
Shreya’s concept: Using natural footage within a city setting.
Orlando is working in extracting data from the OBA Linneaustraat, such as how many books are being checked in and out, and then translating this into visuals. Shreya’s concept uses video footage from Artis Zoo in order to transport pedestrians outside of the cityspace and into a more natural environment. Nikhil is looking at visualization the data surrounding Science park such as lectures given, newsletters and Twitter activity. In short: we never don’t have ideas. It’s wild.
Shreya’s excited face. Barcelona’s gon be epic.
Now we’re onto yet another long weekend, with some of our team headed to Barcelona and some of our team volunteering at this year’s Fiber festival. Also: shoutout to Felipe and Gijs, who had birthdays this past week. Party on.