Category: Projects (Page 2 of 4)

Featured Project : Suzi in South Africa for her honours project

Suzi working with some of the learners at the school

Fourth year Digital Media and Interaction Design student Suzi Cathro is currently undertaking a collaborative project with young disabled learners at Mason Lincoln school in Umlazi township, South Africa, a school she has had a relationship with for many years.  Together they will produce an animation exploring the cultural traditions of the Zulu people.

Suzi has been running workshops teaching children the basics of animation and storytelling to facilitate the creation of their own culturally relevant story.   She is using motion capture technology to accurately record movement that can be incorporated into the animation.

You can follow the project and see how the animation develops here – https://honoursprojecttrip.travel.blog/suzis-blog/

Suzi hopes that the young people she collaborated with use this experience to showcase their stories and culture and gain a sense of pride in their achievements.

Ideas sketches for characters created by the pupils.

Many thanks to Suzi and the young people of Mason Lincoln Special school for sharing their project with us.  The project is funded by the Edinburgh Napier University student Mobility grants.

Playful Interaction :fun, playful, physical computing

Paper aeroplanes with ideas written on
Playful ideas captured by the students on the Playful Interaction module

Something new for you to follow on Instagram @playfulinteraction – this is the home of the year 2 Playful Interaction module.

Lecturer Denise Milne says  ‘What we’re doing in the practical classes is applying the skills learned each week in fun and creative ways. We are taking the circuits off the breadboard and turning them into something playful. The module is about creating playful interactions and to do that I think it is essential that we re-experience the joy of play which will aid us in creating successful and effective playful opportunities for users.’

The posts below show some of the projects created in the very first session.  You can see how the work develops by following @playfulinteraction on instagram or checking back here –https://www.instagram.com/playfulinteraction/

Many thanks to Denise Milne and the students on the Playful Interaction module for allowing us to share your work.  The Playful Interaction module is taught by Dr. Tom Flint and Denise Milne.

Featured project : Disintegration by Rocio Camacho

Rocio from year 3 Digital Media and Interaction Design  created this motion graphics piece on the theme of disintegration.

She says “I decided to explore what disintegration suggested to me personally, and landed on a theme of our current view of events. Through the eyes of Social Media we can see what happens in the world almost in real-time but ironically this detaches us from the events greatly. We become spectators and have come to a point where posting a picture or changing your profile photo seems like an active participation in solving some of the world’s biggest problems, and where we also get to choose which ones to represent and which to not. I felt that I, as much as people around me, have fallen into the false perspective that this is doing enough and how this is quite nonsensical. “

Her characters are carefully designed to be simple yet show emotion and she has integrated live action and photographs with the animation.

You can see more of Rocio’s work in her portfolio here – https://rcpds.weebly.com/

Many thanks to Rocio for allowing us to share her work. The  Motion Graphics module is run by Dr. Richard Hetherington and Andrew McKelvey.

Featured Project : Impending by Andrew Watson

Andrew Watson, one of the year 4 Digital Media and Interaction Design students created this piece for the Visual Effects Storytelling module.   Students were asked to pitch ideas using pre-vis created in Unreal Engine to demonstrate how their ideas would work.  Andrew then chose to shoot live action footage and add visual effects based on his pitch to create the finished piece you see here.

Many thanks to Andrew for allowing us to share his work. The Visual Effects Storytelling module is run by Dr. Richard Hetherington and Andrew McKelvey.

Featured Project – Macbeth by Frida Lindblad

This piece was created by year 4 Digital Media student Frida Lindblad for the Visual Effects Storytelling module. Frida chose to create a title sequence for Macbeth, integrating 3d objects and live action footage.

Many thanks to Frida for allowing us to share her work. The Visual Effects Storytelling module is run by Dr. Richard Hetherington and Andrew McKelvey.

Featured Project : 12 Labours of a Time Traveller

In this project by Ashley, Eli, Khloe, Molly and Zak the user plays the part of a time traveller, learning about significant moments from Edinburgh’s history as they take part in an augmented reality location based game on their mobile device. The story is inspired by the 12 Labours of Heracles – some of the work from the group’s concept book showing how the story was developed can be seen below.

One of the character diamonds, with colour and backstory information
Items that users must locate within the augmented reality game
Concept images showing some of the different “Labours”

Designs showing some of the augmented reality and location based game elements.

This work was created for Digital Storytelling, one of the year 3 modules on the Digital Media and Interaction Design course.  The module is run  by Dr. Tom Flint and Fiona Stewart.  

Many thanks to the group for allowing us to share their work.

Featured Project: Interactive Oz

As can be seen from the pitch video, this project is a cross-media adventure that brings the Wizard of Oz bang up to date.  Toby, Alex, Darren and Ryan created media across several different platforms, encouraging their users to explore and piece together what has happened to the characters.

The images below show some of the media used to tell the story – sketches made by Dorothy, which were hidden within the records on website of the Emerald City hospital where she is being treated and a page from a diary.

Image from the Emerald City hospital website.
Sketches drawn by Dorothy, one of the characters in the story.
A page from the diary, allowing users to learn more abut the characters.

This work was created for Digital Storytelling, one of the year 3 modules on the Digital Media and Interaction Design course.  The module is run  by Dr. Tom Flint and Fiona Stewart.  

Many thanks to the team for allowing us to share their work.

Featured project: Murder on the Mile

The celebration of our student’s work continues with “Murder on the Mile” a concept created by Emma, Kirsty, David, Luis and Sean for their Digital Storytelling coursework.  Based on the story of Burke and Hare, the cross media adventure encourages users to explore Edinburgh whilst solving a murder mystery.

The team designed the interface to allow users to interact through their mobile devices.
One of the character designs, showing personality traits as well as visual design.

This work was created for Digital Storytelling, one of the year 3 modules on the Digital Media and Interaction Design course.  The module is run  by Dr. Tom Flint and Fiona Stewart.  

Many thanks to the team for allowing us to share their work.

Guest post: Lab Stars Design Sprint by Celina Mctavish

The Week 16 team showing off the lab before the sprint

The Week 16 team showing off the lab before the sprint – the lab that needs the added sparkle!

This event is one of the “Belonging” projects at Edinburgh Napier University, where students are encouraged to get involved in developing their community.

On the 15th of May 2019, Celina McTavish (3rd year DMID student) conducted a design sprint to gather students` ideas on what “belonging” means to them and how we can use these ideas to bring a sense of community to our lab. The session was organised in four steps  with eight students who regularly use the lab.

We began with an  ice-breaker followed by a 20-minute brainstorming session where students were asked the following:

  • How would you describe “belonging”? (Write this)
  • What does “belonging” look like to you? (Draw this)
  • What are some objects that could create a sense of comfort and inclusion in a room? (draw or write)
  • What can enhance students` connection with the university? (draw or write)

Capturing ideas on what "belonging" means

Capturing ideas on what “belonging” means

Some of the ideas – it’s going to be tricky to please everyone!

Students engaged with the brainstorming session by writing and drawing their thoughts on post-it notes. To try to encourage more interactions with this session, everyone came up to the front of the room and helped organise the post-it notes into sub-categories. Grouping the ideas helped to reveal keyword answers to each question.

Celina and Wilf collect everyone’s ideas

Following this brainstorming session,  prototype sketches are being created that will be used to develop  real solutions for the lab. The design sprint is focused on collectively designing an environment that emits a sense of belonging to a community with a goal of enhancing student connection with the university.

Celina works with the group to identify key areas for development.

Celina works with the group to identify key areas for development.

Thanks to Celina Mctavish for writing this post.  There will be a follow up showing the detailed plans for the lab soon.  

Featured Project: Dancer by Karissa Lane

This gorgeous 2d animated piece has been created by Karissa Laine for the 2D animation module.  As you can see from the sample of her storyboards below, a lot of time went into ensuring the movement of the creatures was just right. You can see more of Karissa’s work here https://klaine.myportfolio.com/

This work was created for the 2D animation module run by Dr. Richard Hetherington.  Thanks to Karissa for allowing us to feature her work.

 

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