Notes on Class project

Sutori and Aris notes

Since we can't use the lab to look at stuff 😥, I wanted to find other ways for us to learn more about human evolution. Since the best way to learn something is to have to teach it, the major projects for this course is creating interactive online projects that help teach others about human origins. 

For the semester, you will pick one site/fossil and investigate it (note: some are a lot more info-filled than others so you might want to investigate first).

Sign up for one of them using the link below

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15NREIlw57OPmHCAX61hv2ksrehYVjhPyj6zEHvhJNR4/edit?usp=sharing

The major group project will be to take your info and use it as part of a online interactive location based game we are creating! We will be using Aris to create a location-based game.  This will be a situated documentary game that teaches the player about the fossil record of human evolution. The research you uncover will be used to both create an interactive presentation and then used as part of the game info. Aris lets players interact with real world locations.  Since we can’t walk around and visit these sites, we can use this to get a feel for where sites are located and what sorts of information we can learn. The software is a bit wonky but i think it would be more interesting/fun than writing a paper!

 Here is a video that shows how students have used Aris to learn

Aspects of this project

Part 1: Setting up Aris

• This software isn't as intuitive as some other programs so we are going to spend the first few days of class working on learning it. I played around with this over Spring Break but am still far from an expert.
• Follow along this video tutorial to sign up for and create a basic game. While you are doing this think about ideas to create a game that teaches about human origins 
• Check out the online manual too
• If you want to learn more, check out the other tutorials too (note that this gets into the weeds but also i think super interesting to learn the behind-the-scenes info)

Try to due this over the next few days (aim to have at least the tutorial done by Monday)

Optional: install software on your phone
If you have a smart phone try to install the software (note: if you are like me and have an Android it is a bit harder. See if you can follow these instructions but otherwise I’ll work on giving a more detailed instruction. https://fielddaylab.wisc.edu/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=169). Check out some of the games others have made!

Part 2: picking a fossil location

• Once you picked a site  do some research and find out all you can about it. Some sites have multiple fossils while others may only have one (i.e. Krapina has a lot of fragmentary Neandertals, while A.L. 288-1 only has one skeleton, but it is totes famous. Some things you might want to jot down as you research
• how old is the site
• where is it located (if you can find it, get the coordinates)
• when was it found?
• who found the fossils?
• how were they dated?
• who studied them?
• where are the bones stored?
• what interpretations exists?
• what specie(s) are found at the site
• what debates have happened about interpretations etc
• How is is linked to other sites etc

Aim to finish this part by the middle of the second week!

Part 3: create an online presentation with Sutori

• If you haven't already done so, sign up for the site:

1. Go to https://www.sutori.com/signup and sign up for the site
1. When the site asks “Before you get started, let us know who you are for a more tailored experience” make sure to choose 'student'
2. When the box pops up asking for a code put this code there: **twwk4**
2. Learn to use Sutori
1. This video is how I learned and it is pretty clear 
2. A second one that gives even more info 

• Begin to create a presentation on the site you chose. As you build it think about what makes an effective presentation considering you can't use audio
• Feel free to use lots of images, but make sure that you have the credits for where the image came from

Part 4:  Work on the online game

Starting next week we can begin to think about how to make this game work. For now, work on learning the software and how it works. If nothing else, i think knowing the basics of how these things are created is super interesting and could be useful in other projects (or just to make fun things!)

My general idea here is we each make a marker for the location of the site and then use that as a way to let players learn more about the site, fossil, etc. The basic idea I had was that we would make a game where a player could virtually go to different sites, meet a paleoanthropologist there, and have them tell the player something about the fossils they found. 

We could have players interact at the site the person who found or studied the fossil and have them ask questions using the conversation editor. They can also ‘get’ the fossil to carry around and maybe bring it to a lab to study (though that might be questionable since we don't want to encourage fossils leaving the country? Maybe there is something in having them bring it to a lab in the country of origin where a scientist can study it?). 

I haven’t used this before so it might not work 100% but should be interesting to play around with even if it ‘fails’

General plan of working on the game

week 1 

Setup and learn how to use it though tutorial. On Monday, May 1 I’ll do a quick check in and see what y’all think & if this will even work!

week 2 

Plan out and do research on your fossil.  start planning out the interactions etc you want to happen at the site

week 3

Start to build it using the group Aris project (will get an invite!). You could build a draft one on your own project and then redo it in the groups project 

give yourself time and remember that it might take some practice. Remember that if something isn't working it doesn't mean that you can't do this: it often means that the program itself just is not clear enough. 

week 4

Test and comment on the game. If you can play the app on your phone do that and see what happens. if you can't( and can’t borrow someone else's phone) then just click around and see what needs to be fixed. We can split into teams (testers and debuggers). The testers will play the game and see what needs to be fixed and the debuggers will then go through this list and fix what we can.

Bonus:

If you want to do something even more amazing, take the info you discovered while researching your site and make an infographic!