Booth Meeting/ Evaluation

Date: 24th April 2004 (Saturday) Time: 11am – 3pm Attendance: Jiexiang, Dianne, Letch, ZhiJian, Justin, Kevin, Teng Ji, Xinyu, Ning Sung, Ai Qi Venue: Winthrop Apartment 1 Agenda:

• Evaluation of Spring Carnival 2004

Important Dates:

• Early November, late October Carnival committee should be out
• 1st meeting and theme should be out
• Get ready by then!

SSA:

• To follow up on the cage’s stuff:
• Working area
• Storage area
• Take 3 prompt effort: SSA, ASA, TSA
• See the school administration in person and press them on

Quarter Master/Stock:

• Sort out nails and screws
• Screws are good
• Fasteners use for walls
• $50 budget for QM to organize tools
• Things to buy:
• 2 Cordless Drills
• Key for drills
• Circuit breaker? Earth leakage
• Extension cords
• Strippers (Electrical)
• Electrical equipments (TJ and Xinyu to help next electrical I/C)
• Tool box, table and shelves (consider using crates)

Decor:

• Materials:
• Don’t know what materials are available and their prices
• Concentration was on 2 ½ D
• All glued together so can’t leave a space between object and wall
• Not “real” enough (not as good as expected)
• Should use different distances from the wall
• Bad:
• Usage of space was not good enough
• Too much focus on use of plywood
• Too sparse
• Too much focus on details and stanzas (should still focus on details)  took up too much time and inefficiency
• Décor put up too late (due to walls being put up too late) therefore realization of sparseness of rooms was also late
• Painting of floors and kicking of things
• Trying to make it too nice
• Good:
• Focus on details
• Idea of confused rhymes (but others might not find it so)
• Did 2 D layering work?
• Yes if more layers of 2D
• But time and effort spent was huge
• Tools matter
• Images are better than text
• 3D better than 2D
• Technical vs understanding what the booth is at FIRST GLANCE. (good e.g. Apple, Sigep Sesame Street)
• Things to consider for next year:
• NEVER use markers on plywood as the color runs
• Use liquid nails (very fast and saves time but a big no-no for environmental)
• Use ready-made things
• What kind of aesthetic you want (this year was cartoon effect)
• Use other types of materials such as cotton for stuffing
• Use fabric and stuffing (plastic bags and cotton)
• Use 3D stuff to block your way
• Have a path
• Get opinions from others (non-décor people) and talk to outside people
• Perspectives: build 3D model
• Always consider the time taken to do the thing vs effect expected
• Don’t build what people don’t see
• Have something memorable (2003’s flying worms)
• Impact and overall impression
• Progression important to for experience
• Vision: what we want people to see
• Practicality: Get people to see what we want them to see
• Cute image if there’s not enough fun and manpower
• Focus on both kids and adults
• IMPRESSION: 1st 2 seconds of impression counts
• External floor space: consider using walkway and more décor
• Size of rooms (visualization): Use programs to help visualize

Electrical:

• Good:
• Fast progress
• Better with 2 people working together
• Bad:
• Trips (don’t know the reason)
• Power switch doesn’t help (To ask others for usage of power switch)
• Consider using natural lighting (not boxed up like this year and previous years)
• Consider using tubes of light (rope light: e.g. tree house)
• Modify roofing such that electrical could be build into structure (during prefab period)
• Build birdcage before move on (to protect the main circuit)
• Need more extension cords
• Do NOT tell the carnival committee to get back electricity during power trips
• To get new equipments such as strippers: Teng Ji and Xinyu to get with the next electrical I/C next year.
• Servo (good):
• Got Mark to help building it
• Servo (bad):
• Didn’t test it ahead of time (even if it is simple)
• Should have taped it up
• Should not have let anyone touch it
• Should have stated “fragile” on it
• Problems with getting power through
• Consider using pieces of metal
• Do not get too much electronic stuff
• Keep moving parts simple
• 1 person to be dedicated to do electrical stuff (ask friends for help)

Game:

• Fire effect was not important
• Lights were too far away and don’t correspond to the game board
• Placement of “fire”
• Not worth the effort
• It would be easier without the lighting
• Possible modification to the game that could be made: Have a wooden stick with “flame” sliding at the end/edge
• Reduce complexity of game
• Changing of game and design issue (communication between game, décor and structure)
• Bad:
• Did not think enough about game (left to games people only)
• Players felt “underwhelmed”  no sense of achievement felt
• Game design started too late (partly due to change of game)
• Too much time spent on the blocks
• Good of mechanical: more involvement (deals with psychomotor)
• Last year’s game was good (dropping of ping pong balls)
• Things to note for next year:
• Think about the game earlier in d brainstorming and planning process
• Place more emphasis on game ( it is after all a Games Booth)
• Note the area of focus of the game: on the part you’re working with
• Focus on game play
• Simplicity
• Focus
• Consider just movement and velocity
• Charging of game
• Precision within range
• Make it rewarding
• Make it not too simple
• Game design should start early
• Good games: shoot the cookie to cookie monster

Structure:

• Do NOT buy plywood
• Consider buying Particle board instead
• Good:
• Structure is similar to last year’s
• Standard is there
• Choice of cornet plot is good even though there are more facets to do (more space to use)
• Bad:
• Partly restricted by re-use of doorways
• Pitched roof could be better
• Leaking of roof
• Things to note for next year:
• Don’t use blue ink for labeling (cannot see at night)
• Consider using color code, duct tape for labeling
• Choose near Blitz booth and corner plot (plots are not too important)
• Number of rooms (reduce? To be considered during design stage. More surface area to be covered
• Do not drill too deep for fasteners etc
• Precision: could be less precise
• Use fabric ceiling instead of OSB
• Fabric ceiling is cheap and easy
• OSB is heavy
• Use tar paper, duct tape and fabric to prevent leakage of roof

Overall impression:

• Idea of walking through is good but not pushed far enough
• Fire room not different from the rest enough (feel was low)
• First three rooms are about the same
• Look at the awkward angles in the walls and wrong levels. Just have to feel comfortable
• Narrowness of path to make you feel enclosed and the sense of urgency
• Number of rooms depends on type of booth you’re building
• Space organization is important
• Design and usage of things
• This year’s design is too precise and squarish: limited by design of house
• Things to consider next year:
• Do not need to be too detailed

Presentation and Judging:

• Not everyone could squeeze into the booth
• Things to consider next year:
• Enter the booth before the judges
• Elaborate on the booth and details
• Judges mark the interior then the exterior: Show best point of view after stepping out of booth
• Get someone passionate about booth to present
• Present best points only
• Script: Note what could have gone wrong and think of what to say

Organization:

• Always email about what’s happening to boothbroth
• State the meeting agenda and send to wiki
• Booth Chair and department ICs
• Do we have the manpower to have so many ICs?
• Consider Chair, secretary, electrical, structure, group of décor as opposed to 1 décor
• Take on different roles before and after move-on (e.g. electrical chairs)
• One person does one thing vs working in pairs
• Integration
• Both chair, graphics chair, games chair should integrate so that style continues
• 1 person to keep everything synchronized
• Commitment of time
• Miscommunication results in time wastage
• Booth chair to lead the committee and ask other people for help
• Delegation of work: results might be different from expected outcome
• Group mechanics is important
• QM to come down once every 3 hrs to keep stock of equipment (dependability)

Logistics:

• Use milk crates to store tools etc and label them

Manpower:

• Shortage
• Too few freshies, upperclassmen were too busy
• Call and not just email
• Upperclassmen do not know the situation
• Call friends for help
• Bring them into booth and work together
• Ensure that help from sophomores is gathered and is followed through the following years
• SSA committee:
• Should put in the effort to ask for help
• President should give personal emails to SSA
• Balance (committee members should cover up for each other for duties)
• Midway watch: call for help personally
• Getting people to bring food for a while could “attract” them to stay longer to help
• If there’s too bad a manpower shortage, downsize what you’re doing
• Treasure people who came down and not who’s not around
• Take initiative, be nice and pushy
• Organize people, talk to them arrange the time per week and man hours available for working
• Plan out work schedule and stick to it
• Make things easy for people who are down to help
• Delegation of work and manpower during midway should be noted

Important things to remember:

• Be Prepared not to do booth in 2005
• Project the right image to the juniors (not a freshies thing)
• Live by example
• If we do not do booth, do something else in replacement of it
• INSPIRE the new batch

Why do we do booth (as a group):

• Build it because we know that it’s good
• Adversity
• Attitude

Miscellaneous:

• Frames, plywood and game frame to be moved away, disassembled and stored
• Extra plywood to be thrown away
• Could email everyone about the game and ask for opinions
• Entertainment value could be increased (Policeman example. Role play)
• Themed (down to clothes and speech for person manning booth)
• Draw excitement curve of the booth (EXPERIENCE: spread out of excitement)
• As you walk through the booth there should be a high, low, high, finish level of excitement
• Organization: should place more emphasis on game (at least 30% of competition)
• Having a mascot helps
• Have a very good MASCOT and very good GAME
• Get more manpower
• Impact and overall impression is important (Jack is a little weak)
• Usage of DIFFERENT MATERIALS
• It is the process that counts