DAT 301 ~ Lie Detector / Polygraph Technology

A polygraph test, more commonly known as a lie detector, is a way of measuring certain reactions of the body. Commonly used sensors in polygraph tests are a persons breathing or respiration rate, pulse or heartbeat, blood pressure, and perspiration.

The polygraph produces graphs on paper, which the person who is running the polygraph machine can get information from, however they are open to interpretation. The tests are able to be 'tricked' and cannot be one hundred percent accurate. A significant change in the areas / vitals being looked at can indicate lying.

DAT 303 ~ Pig Sketches

Here are some pig sketches for later 3D modeling. The coloured one shows shading and particle effects.

DAT 301 ~ Obfuscation Sensing Device

The Obfuscation Sensing Device, or OSD, is a complex piece of equipment which utilises various sensing modules to enable the user to detect lack of truth from a person. The making of this piece of equipment is the outcome of many years of research and work from the team at OSD Industries.

The equipment works by the use of various sensors - first of all, there is the Galvanic Skin Response module, which is found in the core of the helmet. This device does not directly measure the mental state of a person, but the effects of their mental state on the body. The GSR's mechanism of action is through the electrical resistance of skin. By looking at the electrical resistance of the subject we can determine weather or not a question, for example, induces a state of arousal in the brain - this can be an indicator of weather a certain subject is cause of concern to the person being asked.

The next module which the OSD utilises is the Mindwave. The Mindwave is a device which is capable of sensing the brain waves of a subject. While alone the Mindwave is not able to detect lies, it is able to when combined with our GSR. The Mindwave is able to monitor attention levels, which can then be interpreted.

DAT 303 ~ Logo / Splash Screen

This is a prototype of the game logo / splash screen - the name may change.

DAT 303 ~ Making Music

Pikachu made in Photoshop

This week I have been working on understanding how to use Milkytracker, an 8 or 16 bit music making program. After some fiddling about and making my own sound waves in the program, I was able to come up with a little tune. Ideally I want to learn to make or find some more interesting sounding samples. I did make a really nice sounding wave with the editor but it doesn't load for some reason. So I just stuck to a basic wave.

The files Milkytracker puts out are in .xi format, and I think that they can also be put out in .wav but I haven't figured out how to do that yet. [Edit: I figured it out.] I also have spent a while looking at LSDJ (Little Sound DJ) but it seemed to have a very steep learning curve and ideally I'd like to use it with the hardware it was built for (Game Boy) but the cards are no longer for sale and buying a blank card to put the purchased software on is a bit pricey.

Anyway, here is the little tune I made. It doesn't sound exactly as I intended because it get's pretty confusing figuring out which musical notes relate to the letters on the keyboard (for example, x on the computer keyboard is a D). But I'm pretty happy with it as the first thing I've made properly using this software.

It's certainly not Anamanaguchi but it's a start.

DAT 303 ~ The Story Behind the Game

GET OFF MY LAND

You have recently inherited a farm which was passed down to you by your Mother. The time is set in the present, though as your farm is in a remote location and quite small, you do not have access to modern day large machinery.

While preparing your field for crops, you dig up an artefact. Seemingly useless, you place this artefact in your pocket for later. Little did you know that this artefact, once held in your hands, will become the bane of your existence.

Once activated, or held, this artefact creates a rift in time.

With the rift in time activated, periodically your ancestors from the past will attack your farm under the belief that it still belongs to them. Even your loyal animals will turn against you if they’re touched by the ancestors.

Your job is to defend your land, or the farm will turn to ruin, and the village you live in will be destroyed.

DAT 301 ~ Pixel Art and Animation

Our 301 project is group work - our group consists of Antonino, Jamie, and myself.

My part in the project was creating the pixel art and animations / films in which the lions appear. The first step was creating the pixel art. I did this using Photoshop, following an image of a lion for inspiration and reference. I initially created a larger lion, but realised animating it would be a bit too complex for myself who has never done any animation before, and creating the original image took a long time on its own. Here is an image of the original lion before I stopped:

As you can tell I did not finish before moving onto the simpler version.

The pixel art which will be used in the project started out like this:

For each lion version that I created I made five leg animations, which I later trimmed down to three so the lion would appear more streamlined.

I then created six different lions for the genre of music which the lion would represent, each initially with the five leg animations, then trimmed them down to three.

60's Lion - Tie Dye Rainbow Shirt

Country Lion - Cowboy Hat

Jazz Lion - Sunglasses

Opera Lion - Viking Helmet

Rock Lion - Leather Jacket with Studs, and Piercings

Trance Lion - Glowsticks and Face Paint

I re-sized each image a few times to get them looking right without distorting the pixels.

The next step, after the pixel art and animations were created was to use Flash to animate them. For this, I decided to have the lion enter the screen on the left then dissapear to the right, then appear on the right and disappear on the left. You can see this in the video below:

Dissertation

Blog

This blog is going to record the process of my dissertation. The title of my dissertation is “Can Gaming be Used as an Effective Teaching Tool?”. I’m interested in this subject as I want to be able to help people who find traditional teaching methods difficult to understand, and also help all students to make education more enjoyable. I have found through my own experience that it’s very important to make education engaging and exciting – games can be a pathway to more enjoyable education.

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So far I have around three thousand and five hundred words – the boundaries for the dissertation are six to ten thousand, with ten percent either way. I want to do the best I can on this dissertation as I enjoy the subject area and also writing and researching.

I’ve now updated my question to talk about mainly the motivation and engagement properties of games.

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I’ve now finished writing my dissertation, and it was a really interesting experience. I have learnt a lot throughout the time I spent writing it. I feel like it was a big challenge, having not written an essay in a while, let alone an essay / dissertation of this length and depth. As for my question, I decided to change it to focus on motivation and engagement about half way through the writing process. This section from my abstract describes it:

This dissertation will focus on the subject of educational gaming. It will be investigating the question of “can gaming be used as an effective teaching tool to enhance and promote motivation and engagement within education?” Ideas which will be explored include; what impact gaming has on education, and how different learning styles can be helped by gaming in education. These questions will be investigated as some people have found educational games to be helpful with learning. It will also look at this area in depth to determine whether or not gaming can be used as an effective tool to help students’ education to be more engaging and motivational. It will look at the link between gaming and education, the experience of play, combining work and play, and how play helps children understand the world around them. It will also look at the use of technology to support individual learning styles, and discuss the concept of the Net Generation, otherwise known as Digital Natives, and explore the effect that games have within education. Hopefully this dissertation will show that gaming can be an important part of education and that it can make education more enjoyable, motivating, and engaging.