Sorting out the money

We had decided to discuss the money right at the end of the project and sort out who owes and who is owed money. We did this today. We calculated our total expenses (making the tree, light box, testing paints etc) and figured out that $26 from each person covered these making it fair. Since some of us had bought more materials than others we calculated how much each person needed to pay or be paid from this. 

We paid each other or got paid according to what money we had or hadn't contributed to the project. On top of this we made a $4 profit from tokens (even though we didn't charge any!) and $100 from selling our tree to Tina. That meant we each got paid $20.80 at the end. So we didn't end up making a profit but we thought spending only $5.20 on a uni project each was a success and probably our cheapest yet which was one of our aims right at the beginning! 

Facebook Group

Hey tutors reading our blog atm MESSAGE FOR YOU HERE

Heres a link to our facebook group so you can give it a look through and see us chatting away and making decisions about many things and posting what we have been up to of recent.

Selling our tree

On the day of the market Tina Downes came to us asking if she could purchase our tree! At first we weren’t even sure if she was serious because we were honestly so shocked she liked it that much that she would want to keep it. After having a group meeting and discussing the idea we decided that it would be a great idea to cover costs and give our tree away to someone that wanted it for we didn’t have anywhere to store it and there was only two trees but five of us so splitting it up would be difficult. We worked out the cost of the tree first to make a decision on the selling price ($56.20) then contacted Tina via email explaining the costs stating we had decided to ask for $90 for the two trees and all the pieces with it. She accepted this offer and the very next day I went to take her the tree and all the pieces and she gave us $100 instead. Tina is now the proud owner of our tree wanting to keep it on the end of her kitchen bench for display.

We had thought along the making process about how cool it would be to produce and sell our tree as we all wanted one for ourselves however we never expanded on the idea and thought that it could happen until Tina asked about it. As a group we will talk about potentially marketing the tree in the future however its so timely to make that it might be difficult, it would also be hard to market and sell ourselves so the idea would need to be sold off.

Market Day

 The market day was a success for our group. We had many people coming to our stall curious about what our tree was about. Some people dug straight into the shapes and started building while others stood back and admired the structure. After a little prompting though everyone who came to our stall had a turn at building. It seemed that all ages (from young children to adults)could enjoy playing. We had several people returning to our stall throughout the market day to have another go at building. The popularity of the game resulted in some exciting tree-building innovation, however at times when we felt it was getting so big that there could be a danger of it falling we removed a lot of the parts and put them back down for people to stack up once again. Pulling down the parts also helped show that it was an interactive structure as when it got too big we saw that people tended to touch it less as it seemed a bit daunting and more like a work of art than a game.

  Some people got creative and came up with other ways of joining the pieces than using the slots. We thought this was great and encouraged this!

 Overall it was a great day and we are all pleased with the outcome!

Our Pitch

Before the market we all had to pitch our stall to the market. Our group didn’t so much want to over re-herse ours and make up a spiel about the tree for that wasn’t what our tree was about. Our tree was an installation for leisure activities and we wanted to how the teachers this. We decided that we would ask the teachers to play with the tree and get a feel for it so they could see for themselves what you can do with the tree (and what each other were doing with the tree) while we explained our idea and how we got to it on top of them. We all wanted to pitch in and make it very casual so there was a relaxed feel to our pitch and stall while the played around for 90 seconds.

While the teachers played with our tree and some listened this is what we told them (in general, not word for word obviously):

From the beginning our team Building Branches wanted to play with recycled mdf and card. We also were looking at creating many 3D shapes and forms, at the time that students could turn from 2D to 3D and take home with them. At one point we were asked how we were going to display these pieces which is where we introduced the tree. Eventually the tree developed and we had a lot of fun playing with it and added pieces turning it into a puzzle tree. Or a 3D doodling tree as we call it. This tree can be used however you want but the tree main ways people use it is either 1. Mindlessly placing pieces on the tree just for the fun of joining peices 2. Making stories out of the characters and creatures they find and place on the tree or 3. Trying to stack as many pieces on as possible without it falling over.

Setting up the Stall

Today We started setting up for the market tomorrow. This took longer then expected for we had to co ordinate with group 33 to make sure that we were both considerate of each others space and needs. We had previously made sure our stall astehtics were the same so our stall would look like one big joined stall rather then two sperate stalls in one big space. We decided to cover our stall in cardboard and brown paper from the fashion department to match the card and mdf we both had in our stalls. We also set up our logos and tree up on our new lightbox which looked great. Tomorrow we will bring in the laptop with our movie playing on it for people to watch so they can get an idea with how people interact with the tree so they won’t be intimidated to play with it.

Photo by Laura

Picture by Chris

lightbox construction

Testing the lightboxes frame before I add the mdf facade and plywood top

Frame ready for facade and light 

Laser Cutting

Today I went and cut out 2 shapes pieces of MDF and three more for the tree so we have a full extra tree incase our first breaks.
I then stained all of these like perviously so now we have many more shapes to work with, almost a whole supermarket bag full.

I have also booked the laser cutter for later if we decide we want more.

stopmotion

Building Branches from Chris Maunsell on Vimeo.

A video we created today that we will loop on a screen at our stall to give our audience an idea of how to interact and to also realise the potential of our product.

...on later viewings I feel the frame rate is quite fast, something to discuss as it may be too jumpy/fast paced to have playing for a long time.

view of our space in the palace 

Vinyl + Laser cutting

 I took the resolved logo created by Joseph and rendezvoused with group 33s skipper Finlay to print the logos for our finished stall.

We set up an illustrator document to print both of our logos the same scale onto matte white vinyl. 2 large ones each for the front of the stall and then smaller ones for our token boxes and various other elements surrounding the stall.

In our smaller logos it became apparent that our logos text was two small and some minor details were lost. this is not the end of the world as our larger logo printed well. (picture to come)

text too small

The skinny nature of some pieces has led to broken limbs - we have looked out for this whilst creating more pieces and have a large amount of backup pieces so casualties on the day should not be an issue

- Extra pieces being cut - 

Staining the Tree

Before and after

Today we spent studio time staining the tree with die (food colouring). We painted using brushes and sponges. To make sure there weren't any stain makes or drips after we painted them we wiped them  down (this also made them dry faster). We painted the tree a very dark brown and then the pieces varing different shades of lighter browns both warm and cool colours. This meant that the tree now looks more 'completed' and less like cheep MDF. The shapes are also much more definable from each other and the tree itself. The texture of the MDF now cannot be seen and is covered from the stain so the pieces are easier on the eye. We still need to create more MDF pieces so we shall be staining more later. The tree now looks much more sophisticated and professional rather then a cheep child's play game. We want the public to be excited by the shapes and pieces however we didn't want them to think they were too old and mature to play with the tree.

LOGO

After talking with the team I made a near final with their developments

After feed back from the group I constructed more design on their specifications

They chose #2 below

Logo Design

We thought it was important to give our stall a brand and image, therefore a logo was needed. At first I started looking into more illustrated work with gestural lines as our stall gave a very hand crafted vibe. I however decided that because this was a logo it needed to be well refined and simplistic to be remembered so I started working on minimal imagery.

Moving to the computer I created these to images for my group to look at:

After further discussion we decided we liked the first one the best so i moved forward making more iterations with the feedback being that the tree needed to represent the game more and look like a game/puzzle.

This was the next iteration.

After further chat with the rest of the group over facebook we came down to this. We decided the circle around the logo functioned to frame the logo and define it. It also matched the group we are collaborating with so we look unified/ a collaboration. The tree needed to be a lot more refined though so i passed the bat over to Josepth to give logo design a try as he had the skills needed.

Having a go at logo design

Experimenting with using the shapes that make up our tree for our logo

Ambassador meeting week 9

At the ambassador meeting, a lot of things were confirmed, which makes our job easier from here on in. It should go smoothly from now until the day.

Some things to note from the meeting -

Tech (team 2):

• We will need to talk to these guys about the light box that we plan to have

Promo (team 4):

• will be displaying promotional materials around campus over the next two weeks

Teams 5 & 9:

• are creating uniforms for the facilitator groups to wear so they are recognisable

Branding( teams 12&7):

• if we want to use the logo on a textured material (we were thinking about laser cutting the logo onto an MDF poster) we need to get it signed off by these teams before we use it.
• there are other rules to follow when advertising the event and using the logo.

Cleaning(group3):

• a list of rules will be given out to each team on the day
• we are responsible for any mess we make.

Stall design:

• Will be made out of mesh panels and is customisable to fit what we need
• Tables will be provided by the facilitator groups

Financial:

• Tokens will be used as currency, 1 token = $1
• 5 tokens will be allocated to each person at the door
• The tokens from each stall will be added up at the end and the money that it converts to can be kept for the amount that we have spent so that we are not out of pocket (but we have to provide receipts, and we haven't been keeping them)
• The left over money could be given to the facilitator groups, or donated to charity

• Along with the 5 tokens at the start, everyone will get a voting token to go towards their favourite maker team and favourite facilitator team.
• these teams will get a really cool mystery prize :) 

Decisions made as a team:

• We will be collaborating with the team next to us to create a really interactive space where people want to hang out (See Chris' post)
• Our stalls will be opened up to create an almost completely open space.
• We should try and come up with a logo or some branding for our stall so that we can make stickers and posters

Trying out colour

Our group thought that colour could make the tree more interesting and fun to play with. We decided that spray painting would be the easiest and quickest option. The colours we chose for the trial were bright along with black and silver because we thought that the colours could work well together, or possibly separately. The colours were also supposed to give definition to each piece of mdf so that people could identify the pieces they added to the tree.

After painting the tree and leaving the pieces to dry for a while, we started putting the tree together and realised that the tree looked very juvenile, confused, and not so fun. Mostly, I think, this was because of the bright pink and yellow. The black and silver were less intense and juvenile, so we added them in with the MDF pieces to see if it would be an option to have parts of the tree dark.

We thought that the black pieces stood out and had definition over the other pieces, but we think that this could be more effective to have the tree defined within all of the pieces so that the builders could see what parts were added on and which parts were part of the tree. Up close, the black spray paint looks a bit patchy on top of the mdf, and we thought it would be cool to still have to wood feeling and look, so we thought of using a black stain instead of paint. We will test out staining the tree in the next couple of days

Staining the tree

Today I trialled a stain on one of the mock up trees that had broken. I used food colouring because it is a lot cheaper than wood stain. On one of the sides there is always a blotchy pattern around the edges where it has been cut. The stain doesn't seep into it straight away but once I worked it with the brush a little it became even.

The first one I did came out a little uneven because I watered the stain down near the end to see what it would turn out like. The stain goes over more evenly when watered down a little, as you can see in the second photo below.

I like the lighter colour better than the dark but I think it could be somewhere in between. The photo below is a trial of a medium red-ish brown which I like best. I even think that we could stain all of the small cut out pieces as well because it really makes them look tidier and shows that time has gone into making and designing the whole project. I think the tree will look good a darker colour than the rest of the pieces even if we do stain them all so the next trial is to stain a full sized tree and see how the pieces look on it all together.