#InteractiveDisneyCube

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Assignment 1 – Interactive Disney Cube (03/09/2017)

As I am finally starting with our Creative Thinking Skills classes, our first project was assigned to us which was the Disney Interactive Cube at around Week 4, although the lecturers had told us about it way beforehand, we only started getting the briefing during that time of the month. Like what the cube is called, we had to make something out with the theme of Disney cartoons and I was in glee and full of excitement as I am a cartoon geek, I technically grow up watching Disney.

Mr Choy, our tutor, assigned us to be in groups of 5 to 6 people and I am blessed to join a group of teammates that are hardworking and accepted me whole heartedly although I joined in late (got change to another tutorial class that’s why). During tutorial classes, we got a quick briefing from Mr Choy in how we can create our cubes and also our IDJ. IDJ stands for Idea Journal and it is where we jot down our ideas, inspiration and anything related to the project, you will hear a lot of this throughout the blog. After briefing, Mr Choy picked a designated Disney movie to each group, I was not worried that much since, like I said, I love anything Disney, but still got a bit nervous upon what movie will we get. Some groups got really interesting movies like Frozen and Monster Inc, finger crossing we will get something similar, we ended up with Pinocchio, yes that Pinocchio that came out during the 1940s, well before all of us were born. I did not want to think that it is an impossible movie to interpret into a cube, and it really help cause I got an idea really fast on how I wanted the cube to look like.

After the classes, my teammates and I immediately started doing meet ups to discuss about how we want the cube to look like. Natasha was our group leader and I can say she did a great job in making sure all of our ideas are being used in the project and not just merely focusing on someone’s idea. This is something crucial as it is a team oriented project, teamwork is really important and I am glad she took all our idea in account. We finalized on how we wanted the cube to be, we wanted it to be a more story narration with interactive element for children to play around. It was a rough start since we were all clueless of how the cube will really look like as we bombarded a lot of different ideas on it, never thinking how limited we are actually if we were to create that certain element in the box. But making sure our ideas do not go to a waste, we have them written down to refer it back. I was beyond happy to do most of the sketches so we can see our model more vividly through the drawings. Without wasting a single second, we collected all sorts of materials we can use for the project, although I felt bad for not providing that much material because I just moved in to the university dorm and got insufficient material with me.

Since we have prepared our materials, every moment started becoming more precious to us as the time we were left to make the cube out with was getting lesser and lesser. To make sure we get to have our cube submitted on time, we gathered up almost every day after our classes to start building it up from scratch. Trust me, it was NOT easy, Natasha and Esther had to spend around 4 hours to just make the base shape of the cube (shout out to both of them!) because we wanted it to be a “exploding box” cube, which was inspired by the exploding box card where the flaps of the box will fall down to reveal a flat surface. I was in charge on most of the drawings and brainstorming I assume since I contributed some ideas that made it into the cube (YAY). Our main idea for how the box will work was that the lid will be removed so the flaps on the box will fall flat, appearing in the middle is another smaller box so we can paste the scenes on it. But what is more surprising for this part is, we will take away the middle box at the end of the presentation as the inside is the ending of the Pinocchio story, that Pinocchio turned into a real boy! We first started with the 4 main scenes, which is the puppet making scene, circus scene, pleasure island scene and last but not least the climax, the whale scene. Looking at the idea that was not as interesting, we came up with an idea of adding another scene in it, which was cooperating the circus scene with the prison scene, where Pinocchio were trapped in a bird cage. We wanted the circus scene to drop down and show out the prison scene at the back. We painted the box with base colours and have our pieces of printed background pasted on it. When everything was glued together, it was so satisfying because it felt like we are getting somewhere.

The scenes were done so we went on with making small elements. Since we wanted a story telling base interactive cube, we made small little elements to write story lines on it. And to make things interesting, we made the characters out into puppets as an interpretation of what Pinocchio is -a puppet! Well, more precisely, a marionette but we were short of time to figure out how we can manage to make a real marionette out, thus leading us to make the puppet cut outs. We also thought of explaining how the whole box is Pinocchio’s head and the inside is all his thoughts, and the characters are all puppets since he thought of so! (Shout out to Jolene for the fantastic idea!) Having to prepare al the small details was one of the toughest as we need to make sure that everything fits nicely in place as we need to close the box. Not only so, we have to make sure every elements are not boring, and from there we have to start up with more creative way to make the interactive parts more doable. Since we wanted to rush everything before the dateline, we have to stay over on Saturday to finish up most of the thing. We managed to finish up about 80% of the cube, having to make the miniature pool table, sticking on the miniature Pinocchio, pasted on the whale to the box, making sure all the mechanics work and just almost everything. It was a hectic day because we spent about 6 to 7 hours straight that day to complete most of the task. Glad that everyone took the effort to come to campus although they are busy that day.

We continued our project after classes and there was only a few days left before the due date. Lucky enough, we only have a few things to do before we completely end our interactive cube. We also manage to get our hands with some leftover Perspex to make a “display box” for our miniature Pinocchio. Since we are done with the inside of the box, we finally got to focus on the outside of it more. Having to already paint the head of Pinocchio, we were only left with his eyes and his hat, which will be a decoration for the lid. We have our ping pong ball cut into two to be the eyes of Pinocchio, and as for the hat, we rolled yellow cards together to form into a cone. We also painted a white colour feather that we have on hand into red to fit as the feather on his hat. As everything was assembled together, we finally got the chance to try it out. We were really happy at how the outcome turned out since we poured our hard work in, although we were also worried at the same time whether can we meet our lecturers and tutors expectation. But still, we were relieved as we did the cube on time.

In between the making of the cube, I also managed to do a few parts of my IDJ. At the end of the cube making, we all discussed on how we wanted to interpret the box for the last part of our IDJ. From there, everyone was busy working on their IDJ to make sure we can submit the PDF version on time. I had already printed out and pasted most of the pictures on the IDJ so I was only left with the writings and drawings. As I finally completed the IDJ, my first assignment finally came to an end, and there is left is the presentation. I had a lot of fun from this project, especially getting to meet all the nice teammates I have and letting me be a part of it. I am not the type that likes group works as I am always being neglected but I would love to work with them again if I had the chance to!

Signed, MJ