Capstone Reflection

I learned a few things from the couple of the capstones that I looked at. I learned a lot from Even Roberts, who did the concept of the iFridge. I thought the idea was so cool, but it wasn't just that. It was also how he presented it, especially the new knowledge that Apple had come out with an app that helped you make an ebook. I thought it was so cool what you could do in it, not just words but also pictures and animations as well. It's $5.00 if I found the right thing at the App Store so maybe I can play around with that a bit for my own capstone, though I'm not totally sure for what or why. He also taught me some things the iPad can do, I had just recently gotten one and was still pretty new to its features and uses.

I also learned from Samantha Tarkington, the presenter that did a comic. She was the only one that asked me what exactly I was doing for my own capstone when I asked her the last question about advice. Like I'm planning to do she worked on a story that was old, and dear to her heart. Because of that it made things harder, especially getting things up to the expectations that you have for something so dear to you. I might not have as much of a problem that she had since I'm using words to describe things, which is open to interpretation, while her drawings are not, they simply are what they are.

I also went to see Zachary Paquette’s, he was in my capstone group and had an idea somewhat similar to my own. Seeing how he presented his gave me an idea how I could present mine without having to worry constantly about someone coming up and taking my stuff, because I would need to at least include my or a computer for display as well as my iPad, since I have every intention on making my website interactive so it switches well between at least computer and tablet.

Capstone Interviews

Interview Questions

1.      Why did you choose this for your capstone project?

2.      What are some of the changes that you had to make between your original  idea and what you are presenting today?

3.      What is your opinion of the timeline for your capstone? Was it helpful or a waste of time? Why?

4.      If you could change anything about your capstone, what would that be?

5.      What advice would you give me in planning for my capstone?

Even Roberts (iFridge concept book)

1.       Health is a big thing in his life, and he believed that the kitchen centered around the fridge, so making a fridge that would've made it easier for someone to eat healthy was the way to go.

2.       The original idea was centered around the new ability to make ebooks for the iPad, messing with the new technology to see how it could be used in real life and his job.

3.       He thought the timelines were a good idea, they can keep you on track or show how far behind you are.

4.       He would've actually liked to have built a prototype of the iFridge instead of just a concept book.

5.       Find something you like and enjoy doing, so it doesn't feel like work and you don't get tired of it.

Samantha Tarkington (comic The Gem Caller)

1.       At first she wanted to do an animation but she didn't feel confident in her abilities to make it great so instead decided to go with a comic.

2.       She had to cut down the size of her comic down to one chapter, as well as just doing a comic instead of doing the comic with a short animation at the end.

3.       A timeline is a good idea, if you follow it. She had a timeline but had a bad habit of not following it.

4.       She would've liked to go back over a few of her comic panels and work on making them better quality than she believed them to be.

5.       Be careful with working on stories near and close to your heart, it's really hard to make your work meet the expectations of it that you have in your head.

Saviss Mahmoudi (A Tutorial on an Optical Finer - Cylinder Machine)

1.       He worked for LensCraft and believed that something was missing when it came to learning how lenses were made.

2.       He wanted to originally do a lab with a lot of models.

3.       Believed that the timeline was a good thing even though he didn’t follow it 100%, but they were mostly just a couple missed deadlines and stuck mostly to it.

4.       He believed that the lighting in the animation was too light or too dark at certain points and would like to go back and fix those parts.

5.       Start as early as possible, don’t wait to start until after you’ve taken classes, stick to the timeline.

Capstone Changes 3

Because of circumstances that are neither the fault of myself or Charles we are no longer working together unfortunately. Which means my idea of an independent study doing a card game is out the window as well. It sucks but fortunately my capstone did not rely heavily on that card game. And it gives me more of a chance to work on writing the actual story that the website I'm working on is hosting. I'd still like to do a kind of character cards as a sort of "give away" at the capstone presentation but we'll see what happens.

Also because I'm no longer doing the card game, and need the illustrations next semester, I know have time to commission someone I know to do some work. I was reluctant to do so before because I was afraid of how long it would take for her to finish them, and if they would get finished on time. It'll be expensive (about $30 per stand alone person) but its good quality and I can use them for the give away bio cards and possible a cut out (which will cost me more I'm sure).

Capstone Timeline

Doing my timeline was a bit tricky because my capstone isn't going to be until the next fall, I took this class a semester early. So I figured that during the rest of this semester I would try to get many of the story elements of my website done, such as profiles, descriptions, character maps and such. I also would like to secure my capstone mentor early which, depending on their advice on how to structure and code my website, might change the last couple of weeks of my timeline for this semester.

The next semester is focusing almost solely on doing a major part of my, and my partner Charles', capstone which is a card game. Through advice from Beth I'm doing it as an independent study so I had to make a timeline for it anyway. Its possible that during the winter break I might do most of my research on other card games, which will give me an idea of where to go with this one since I'm not a big player of card games.  By doing this I can bump up my independent study schedule by one to two weeks.

Capstone Changes 2

The major fear I had for the moment when it came to working with someone else on this has been realized! There was a bit of miscommunication between myself and Charles about when the other was going to graduate. He will be doing his capstone in the spring. I won't until next fall.

Luckily it seems that using the content of someone elses capstone isn't frowned upon as long as you have permission and do something yourself, not just take theirs and say its yours too. So after talking to Beth I have a course of action! Next semester I'm going to do an independent study with her, focusing mostly on getting the card game together but also maybe dabbling in a small website and possibly making some tweaks to my story.

I love this idea because not only does it give me a sorely needed 400 lvl class but it also takes the stress of figuring all that out off of Charles. I was going to help of course but having this as a "class" gives me the time to focus on it instead of just helping, so now he can just focus mostly on the art he wants to draw. I don't know much about card games but I guess I'm going to learn!

Capstone Changes

Over the past couple of days I've made some big changes to my capstone. Following the advice of Beth I've teamed up with Charles Morgan, who will now be doing most if not all of the artwork needed for the website. Also, based on a comment left on an earlier blog about bribing people to our station, we first thought that character cards would be a cool idea. But then that evolved to doing a card game! And possibly a cutout after seeing how awesome the ones Power showed were. So the capstone, which I had first thought wouldn't be that expensive, now suddenly got a big budget! I don't mind though, it all sounds awesome and I'm glad to be working with Charles.

Because of the addition of the card game, and the pages it will add to the webiste, its possible that I'll strike the idea of putting videos on the profiles and descriptions all together. It seems a little unnecessary now because of the extras going into it but if I have the time they still might make it in there.

Capstone support group

My capstone fits under the category of web development.

The things I'm going to use are HTML, CSS, Javascript, JQuery, JQuery mobile, and possibly After Effects for some video work.

If I can't handle coding everything myself I might use Wordpress.