Playtech & The Secret Treasure Chest

So this weekend I took my teacher (and a billion emails) advice and signed up for Playtech, an event where a bunch of kids 8 – 18 come and play with something you made.

Since my final project for Major Studio 1 seemed a bit inappropriate for kids, I decided to take out my CC Lab Final, the Secret Zelda treasure chest for a bit of fun.

I had a ton of fun showcasing the treasure chest at Playtech and hanging out with a bunch of really cool kids. I actually did get a chance to run my final project for Major Studio by a couple of the older kids who were hanging around afterward waiting for parents, so a double win!!!

Here are some photos of the kids playing with the chest and my table and table-mate Cat.

Pizza, puzzles and prizes at playtech!

The simplest answer is not the correct one… in this case

I’m called in for additional hints!

Someone is getting close!

The debris of our show table.

A friend offers hints after he already opened it

Chest with its clue sign!

Do the seams provide a clue, he asked…

Checking the back of the chest, getting warmer!

Trying some more things to open box.

My friend and table-mate Cat demos her AMAZING game to parents.

I realized a lot of things from Playtech. Kids are really great/unbiased/unabashed people and will tell you EXACTLY what you can do to make your project better. The biggest thing was my super esoteric poem/sign was a bit hard to digest for younger kids – although their parents kept wanting to walk them through it!

It was also fun to talk about stuff they had worked on and wanted to try. A lot of the kids had used Arduino before and wanted to see my circuit inside the chest and know the details about how it was made – whoah.

A lot more were interested in coding/circuits so I really did my best to encourage them to try it out. After all, 4 months ago I didn’t know how to do any of these things, and here I am with an electromagnetic lock chest!

Here are my biggest pieces of feedback for making my chest even better!

• Just giving the written clue I provided was not enough for them to get started.
• I had to tell people they needed to push the button & do something else, since at first everyone just went for the latch and gold knob on the front (that I had just added to cover up a screw hole…)
• The button should be moved to the front next to the latch, or the latch should somehow be a button.
• It would be cool to open the chest with music.
• It would be cool to run your finger over a part of metal on the chest and open it that way (I agree!!!)

Here is my feedback for my Major Studio 1 Prototype

• I want to be able to use different size strokes and more effects to draw.
• The defogger currency should be used across the app more overall, for add-ons and stuff.
• It would be cool if you could link your social media accounts and bring things in that way.