weBlimp!

weBlimp! from BdotQ on Vimeo.

weBlimp is a social, crowd controlled flying airship. It conceptually miniaturizes participants and places them inside the gondola of a remote controlled blimp.

Project Team:
Andrew Thong,
Brian Quan,
Nathan Waddington,
Anna Wu

IAT312 Last Project

Ticket to Ride is a strategic supply collecting trip where adventurers take a train from their start location and collect territory and supplies along the way. The player with the most money at the end of the game wins, and the game ends when a player’s city no longer has any demand for supplies. This is a cut throat business where sabotage and intrigue are around every corner.

Game Board
Rules
Mission Cards

In play testing in class we found that our game has a strategic challenge that our guest player seemed to enjoy. After going though the rules and starting the game our guest players were discussing different strategies very early. The Mission cards may need to be balanced some with respect to the board distances as some missions favor a specific starting point over others (we may need to play test as is more to determine exactly how this may be changed, or if it needs to be changed). The guest players noted that the game is a very long one, and though they were having fun in the early rounds (the game got cut short due to the end of class), they expressed concern that there were situations where players may want to stop but the ending conditions weren't met, and so they didn't know how to count up the points.

If we had the opportunity to revise the design we may include some other form of recording points (as points are used to purchase goods and services in the game (such as new trains, and saboteurs)).

Project Team:
Bruce McLavy
Nathan Waddington

IAT 312 Game Blog

I have set up a gaming blog for my IAT 312 course.

The intent is to critique 2 games for a semester. I will be critiquing World of Warcraft for the PC, and the Nintendo DS' Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.

I'm looking forward to this class... playing video games is my homework :)

Well hello again everyone!

It's been about a year since I posted last, and it's been a busy year. Most of my course work has been getting ready for, participating in and following up on the Italia Design Field School 2007.

www.sfu.ca/italiadesign/2007 (and here is my bio page)

What a fantastic trip, it's not often that one gets to participate in an ongoing research project as an undergrad, let alone an ongoing research project in Italy!

I'll be updating this site a bit more in the near future (I have some portfolio pieces that I'd like to get online).

Cheers,
Nathan.

The Drawers of Perception

The drawers of perception is an attempt to bring the experience of the Urban Exploration (UE) subculture to the main stream without falling into the trap of commoditization or adversely affecting the subculture itself. We followed the ideals track from subcultural instance to the cultural ideal arm in our Culture, Organization, and the Value of Knowledge model.

We intended to highlight the UE ideals (specifically the thrill of discovery, earning the experience, doing something that you aren't allowed to do, and experiencing something historical) by proposing the drawers of perception. The drawers themselves can be interacted with, some would be locked, some open. Some would have building infrastructure exposed when opened, others might have video feeds of office spaces or other entirely unrelated locals. People would be able to leave things in the drawers, or take souvenirs. The interaction hopefully would largely be dictated by the people using the drawers. The installation would hopefully bring the ideals of UE to the broader public, without the broader public necessarily knowing what UE is, or what it is about.

The project team was:
Greg Polvi,
Rob Innes,
and Nathan Waddington
for IAT331 Interaction and Reception.

IAT313: Letters

I’ll be alright, don’t worry. Get everything ready and follow me as soon as you can. I will write to you when I get there.

With a brick shuddering rumble, the machines in the depths of the factories came alive. The steady pulse of the heaviest machines shook the flimsy, corrugated steel walls of the shack in which Kailie had been sleeping. Snarling in annoyance, Kailie burrowed as deep as she could into the nest of rags and blankets that served as her bed. It was only a token defiance however, and she soon gave up and crawled her way out of the bedding and made her way to the door. As she stepped out of the shack, the last shreds of the dream she had been lost in, slowly disintegrated and faded from her mind, leaving only the last words her sister said to her before the airship left. Scuffing her bare feet through the layer of ash that had fallen during the night, she stepped out to the edge of the roof that her shack clung to and peered out through the morning fog at the street below. Moving along below, slowly, the shifting crowd made its way towards the factories, called by the deep, growling song that signaled the beginning of another work day for the majority of the residents of the surrounding tenement.

Read the rest of Letters.

Written by:
Paul Brokenshire,
& Nathan Waddington
for IAT313 Narrative and New Media.

Hebdige, Foot & Druker Combined

Iat 331 week 3: Hebdige, Foot & Druker Combined

The new book that has been incorporated this time is Dick Hebdige's Subculture: The Meaning of Style.



The project team was:
Greg Polvi,
Rob Innes,
and Nathan Waddington
for IAT331 Interaction and Reception.