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TITLE: 7th Floor Media
MENTOR:
Dennis Smith/Eric Bin
MENTOR contact:
dennis@7thfloormedia.com/ebin@7thfloormedia.com
URL: 7thfloormedia.com
OVERVIEW:
Established in 1987, 7th Floor Media, a part of the Office of Continuing Studies at SFU, has a national and international reputation for the development and prototyping of outstanding new media applications for education and culture.
One of our current projects is with the Bow Habitat Station in Calgary, a visitor centre built to help educate students about the environment, including fisheries, water usage and conservation. The installation includes 10 computer interactive exhibits that highlight various aspects of the Alberta environment.
The key exhibit is a touch table in the shape of the province of Alberta. The touch table uses Potion Design’s multi-user touch technology to provide users with a wide range of educational opportunities. Run off 3 computers and shown via 2 HD projectors over a surface measuring 9’x4.5’, this table will enable students to learn about the various industries and regions of Alberta.
The actual motion detection system is being created by a company in New York, called Potion Design. Our responsibility will be developing the content, visuals and interactivity.
PROJECT or Industry Area GOALS:
The main goal of this project is to develop innovative and effective ways to communicate educational content using a multi-user touch table. The table will have to provide users with the ability to control their own space while still maintaining a consistent theme across the whole table – the overall information architecture must be clear and easy to learn by the target audience of 8-12 year old students.
PROJECT or Company DESCRIPTION:
The Map of Alberta is the first interactive station that Bow Habitat visitors will encounter and the Map of Alberta will offer up two types of interaction for users. Interpreters will be able to take control of the Map while providing guided tours of the exhibit before allowing users to then use the Map in its multi-user mode.
Visitors will be able to “throw/push” tokens focused on specific themes onto the map that will trigger changes to the entire map and activates various hotspots with which users can interact to learn more about the token’s theme.
IMAGE[s] or URLs that exemplify project concept or research area
Potion Design – potiondesign.com (see WWI Issues Table under Projects)
Second Story – secondstory.com (see WWI Issues Table under Projects)
DELIVERABLES:
The project is due to be complete at the end of March 2009. Deliverables include weekly status reports, complete design mockups, interaction design document, and a completed functional version of the system ready for deployment at the Bow Habitat Station.
SPECIAL SKILLS REQUIRED:
A team with exceptional design skills and strong flash animation and programming skills are needed for this project, the team will need to be able to build a Flash player that can communicate over 2 computers via an open XML socket. The final result will be the key exhibit which will be located in a space with bold, graffiti-style art on the walls for the Bow Habitat Exhibit and we are looking for an innovative, highly polished final product.
Project management, creative direction and copy writing will be provided by 7th Floor Media but all other aspects of this project are open to student management and development (visual design, interaction design, Flash development).
RESOURCES
Reference sites:
http://www.obscuradigital.com/ (see work for HP and GM Greenbuild)
http://blog.lookorfeel.com/index.php/2007/06/04/hp-multi-touch-interactive-canvas-launched-at-d5/