Odyssey
Odyssey is an interactive children’s exhibit that encourages the exploration of nature.
Want to know more about the design and development process? Check out the Odyssey website!
ROLE
Tech Lead
TEAM
Aubrie Stromberg (Project Manager)
Emily Sawyer (Tech Lead)
Avery Burns (Design Lead)
Callie Hanna (Illustration Lead)
DURATION
Fall 2023
15 weeks
PROJECT OVERVIEW
By bringing the awe of nature to kids through immersive technology, we hope to activate their imagination, ignite their interest in exploring our physical world, and foster a deep appreciation and understanding of our environment.
TYPE
Interactive Exhibit
TARGET AUDIENCE
Ages 5 - 10, Parents and Teachers of Kids Ages 5-10
DELIVERABLES
Interactive Globe, Illustrated Backgrounds, Posters, Project Website, Brand Book & Guide
INTERACTIVE FEATURES
Motion Tracking, Sound, and Rotating Globe
UX DESIGN
MY ROLES AND CONTRIBUTIONS
Conducting a Public Survey & Analyzing Results
Crafting User Personas & Empathy Maps
Visualizing the User’s Journey
Drafting and Developing the Globe
Designing the Project Website
CONDUCTING A PUBLIC SURVEY & ANALYZING RESULTS
At the beginning of our project, we created a survey and posted it on social media as well as sent it to our friends and family. In our survey, we asked participants questions about interactive and sensory learning and gauged our audience’s interest in exploring different natural environments. We wanted to gauge their knowledge on different types of learning and what topics kids are interested in.
We surveyed young children, and parents and teachers of young children. Here are some statistics from these surveys:
57.3% of parents and teachers have experience with interactive learning
91.5% of parents reported that their child is interested in exploring new environments
Parents reported that the top three types of environments that their kids are interested in exploring are oceans, forests, and cities.
90.7% of teachers have a positive view of children’s museums
90% of children like exploring nature
CRAFTING USER PERSONAS & EMPATHY MAPS
After analyzing our survey results and conducting more research about interactive and sensory learning, I crafted three different user personas for our exhibition.
April is a 33 year-old 1st grade teacher at her local elementary school. She is having a difficult time keeping her student engaged during class and is looking for new educational activities that she can introduce to her classroom. Her goals are to increase student engagement and performance.
According to recent research conducted by the University of Southern California:
Student engagement and performance has declined considerably after the pandemic and has not recovered
According to the results of our survey, 26% of teacher respondents teach 1st grade.
Odyssey is a good fit for April because it allows students to experience different environments in a new way that appeals to multiple different styles of learning. Because the images are projected onto a wall, kids are less likely to touch the wall instead of a screen, making Odyssey a more sanitary and less fragile activity than others. Odyssey could be an exhibit somewhere local such as a children’s museum or library for a class field trip or set up in the classroom as most classrooms have a projector. The only required piece of technology would be a camera, which some computers or classrooms have (ex. ladybug) In the classroom, it could be utilized as one of many stations around the classroom during class time to limit the amount of kids using it at once as 79.1% of teachers in our survey have class sizes of 25 students or less.
Susanne is a 27 year-old stay-at-home mom with two elementary-age children. She has run out of activities to keep her kids entertained at home and is looking for educational activities to take her them to and get everyone out of the house.
According to our survey results, 84.5% of our total respondents were parents
Odyssey is a good fit for Susanne as it allows kids to experience different environments in a new way that appeals to multiple different styles of learning. The different types of environments cater to different interests and create longevity for use of the product. The animations, color scheme, and audio are all calming and avoid over stimulating the kids. Because the images are projected onto a wall, kids are less likely to touch the wall instead of a screen, making Odyssey a more sanitary option.
Stephen is a 7 year-old in 2nd grade. He loves exploring new places and environments, however, North Dakota does not offer him much diversity. He learns best through kinesthetic learning.
North Dakota is the state with the least amount of forests (2%) and has no oceans.
According to our survey:
30.5% of kids are highly interested in exploring new environments
62.2% of kids are interested in nature and animals
Flourish would be a great fit for Stephen because it could be implemented in a local public library, school, or children’s museum. All of these places are local to any city/town and have adult supervision. Odyssey provides a kinesthetic aspect that would appeal to Stephen’s learning process. It also explores different types of environments that he does not have access to from his state.
VISUALIZING THE USER’S JOURNEY
After finalizing the project’s design, I created a flowchart to represent the user’s journey while using the exhibit.
DRAFTING AND DEVELOPING THE GLOBE
I started with a sketch of how I intended for the globe to function and the necessary components.
Then I focused on getting the code to work. I coded the Arduino board to continuously read the input from the potentiometer and output it as a percentage.
After successfully coding the Arduino board and potentiometer, I focused on constructing the globe itself. The globe is made out of an 8” plastic floater ball used for plumbing that was painted with acrylic paint to look like a simplified Earth. The plastic floater was originally black, so I had to sand its’ surface and paint a white base layer in order to achieve an opaque final product. After the white layer was dry, I sketched each continent in pencil and proceeded to paint over it with blue and green acrylic paint.
A 4-inch screw is screwed into the bottom of the globe, where the top of the screw is embedded into a wood block which is connected to a potentiometer knob. The potentiometer is secured to the bottom of a wooden box that encases and protects all technical elements of the globe. The potentiometer is wired to an Arduino board that is coded to transform the input from the globe into usable data for the Touchdesigner file to interpret. The Arduino board is connected to a laptop that houses the Touchdesigner file.
DESIGNING THE PROJECT WEBSITE
Once the project was finished, I began constructing the project website. The website walks through our entire process of researching, designing, developing, and implementing Odyssey.
