#my creative energy has been (a) low and (b) directed specifically into generating matching titles for my purimgifts fics

[muggle-writes]

Rules: Answer 21 questions and then tag 21 people who you want to get to know better.

tagged by @elizabethsyson

Nickname: Muggle is my nickname, but when I went by Muggle in person for more than a month at a time, it naturally got abbreviated, usually to Mugz

Zodiac: Aquarius

Last movie I saw: into the spiderverse (same answer as last time. I don't watch that many movies tbh except around Christmas. unless YouTube counts in which case... music of some sort? idk links for the next answer)

Favorite musician: changes by the day. I've kinda been in an acapella and/or folk music mood recently so the Maccabeats and Peter Hollens are in my YouTube and Spotify history a lot recently. also I'm eternally in awe of Forte Handbell Quartet (eta a longer video; i recommend skipping to the techno piece or the Jurassic Park theme)

Last thing I googled: "vine why are you buying clothes at the soup store" (my wife hasn't seen it; also i can't find the vine because apparently it's a much bigger meme than I realized). before that it was "chgrp not root" because work and group permissions are useful when they work

Song stuck in my head: well for most of the day when I haven't been actively listening to something, it's been the Pokemon RSE route-walking music. (but that somehow happens frequently when I'm in the no-music-no-internet room at work, as I was for most of the day, and I don't know how I accidentally trained my brain to make that connection). right now, surprisingly, I don't have any background music playing in my head. I think it's because the humidifier provides just enough white noise that my brain doesn't feel the need to provide its own

Other blogs: my main is @muggle-the-hat and I'm a mod on @why-do-neurotypicals but we've gotten one ask ever so that blog has been dormant for a while. I have a bunch of other sideblogs, but they're all small and I use different screen names on each of them (enby life: no idea which name suits me best so I may as well try them out) so i feel like it would just confuse things to link them.

Following: blogs matching all the themes of my sideblogs, (including this one, which is writeblr), korean langblr, jumblr, assorted fandom blogs, authors of my more favorite fanfictions (some overlap with other categories), and irl friends and acquaintances (including one fandom blog turned irl friend)

Do I get asks: on my main if at all, which isn't really surprising because i have hundreds of followers there and maybe 60 followers combined among the rest. but I get asks far less often than I reblog ask memes so... I'm always happy to get more. I do get tagged in ask games more on this one, but writeblr is actually vaguely organized about tag lists so that makes sense. also I used to get tagged a bunch on my main and I rarely could find the posts again to follow up when I had time to answer.

What I’m Wearing: pajamas. staying warm and cozy

Lucky number: I don't remember what I said last time, but I like a lot of numbers. 64 is a good number. recently I've been debugging software in which 0x3E is my lucky status number and 0x0E taunts me. (um, decimal 62 and 14). Also my other favorite number i can't share until it's no longer the combination to the lock to the Secret Room. (or realistically never because opsec and i shouldn't make public the types of parents we use for that combination lock), honestly I aim to be like.... ah, I'm sure the anecdote involves G.H. Hardy but i don't remember on which side. anyway one mathematician remarked to another about how the id number of the taxi he rode in was sadly uninteresting, and the one I aspire to be like, argued "what are you talking about, this number is interesting because ______" and I'd like to be able to do that for any arbitrary number thrown at me. (hi yes math is good, history is hard, math history is interesting yet i still forget the people even if i remember the math. except when things are named after people, but that tends to be, like, Euler and LaGrange and other people who did lots of cool science things so i remember the methods and the names of the methods separately which never helps)

Amount of sleep: ....depression both screws with my sleep schedule and means I always feel like I need more sleep except when I wake up at 5pm and feel like I've wasted the day. so yeah. I can never get enough sleep

Favorite food: yes (why do I have to pick a favorite?) uh, chocolate in most forms, many other sweet things, red meats (especially if served with potatoes), curry (especially if it has "too much" ginger), fresh-baked bread, chai the way my favorite local Indian restaurant makes it (spicier with just a little bit of sweet, which is the opposite of what i can get from the mocha machine at work which is wayyy sweet with a hint of spice but that inferior chai is still superior to coffee so i drink too much of it). also vegetables which I really don't eat enough of: sauteed zucchini and onions, roasted broccoli

Dream trip: dreaming requires creativity and tbh I funnel that mostly into my writing instead. I wouldn't mind going back to Korea for another visit though

Dream job: my current job is pretty good when I feel productive and when my debugging tools actually produce data maybe??? (they were not being helpful today. but i still mostly like my job.) dream job is probably this but with seniority and confidence and double the salary (while living in a similar area of the country; I wouldn't want to double my salary by moving to work for Google in California and having less available after rent than I do now)

Describe yourself as aesthetic things:

the smell of old books

the first glow of sunrise (the sunrise painting the mountains pink and gold)

a rainbow in the spray from a waterfall

the flicker of distant lightning (watching a thunderstorm fade into the distance)

this picture

Random fact: about me or about the world?

how about a combination answer: when we got our new handbell music this season, we only looked at half the pieces our first rehearsal and afterwards I tried to look up one of the pieces we hadn't gotten to on YouTube because it's got a weird time signature and I wanted to get a feel for how fast it would go and how strict the counting is...... except it turns out we're the first group to ever play the piece. it was commissioned recently but seeing my conductor's name on the page didn't tell me how new it was because he's super prolific. (the fact that it was on printer paper without the publisher's graphics should have been a giveaway but it's only the second time I've been among the first to play one of his pieces so I think I can be excused for not realizing)

Languages: mostly just English, but I took Spanish for years, so I can hold simple conversations in it. I can almost read sound out Hebrew fast enough to keep up in services, and I know some random Hebrew vocab but comparatively no grammar. and I took Korean in college, enough that I can recognize sentence structure but I can really only speak tourist-Korean, though I can sound anything out (if it's typed. handwriting is hit or miss.) in both Hebrew and Korean (and Spanish tbh but i don't often listen to Spanish music) I'm very proud when I can separate the words enough, listening to a song, to translate them without looking up the lyrics. also I tried to learn Japanese from Duolingo when it was new, but I still hadn't gotten the kana straight when it started progressing to kanji so that was a rough time and I went back to Hebrew.

tbh I "dabble" in "language learning" which really means I start a million courses on Duo and stick with none of them. with the notable exception of French, which I acknowledge is super common and probably a good idea to learn but the spelling and pronunciation seem so arbitrary I'm scared to look close enough to learn it properly, and I've never particularly considered starting the Duolingo course for French

I think I lost a few questions, because that's only 18 answers. whoops.

um... who to tag

@abluescarfonwaston if school hasn't drowned you in work yet and @copperscales I'm interested in both of your choices for lucky numbers especially.

... wow I'm blanking on other mutuals I haven't tagged recently. as usual lmk if you'd like to be edited in, or just answer the questions and tag me back, that's great too.

[bct1305722paulchan-blog]

THE INTELLECT STARTER CARD

ii. Project title THE INTELLECT STARTER CARD This is a activity play card for children aged at 2 onward to visually learn about alphabet, number or shape & etc.  

ii. Reflective statement The objective for creating ‘The Intellect Starter Card’ is for helping parents to enhance their first experience for introducing the ever first knowledge of alphabet and image in collaboration, as well as shapes and numbers to their offsprings. By playing the cards, babes from age of 2 may be able to visually learn about such knowledge.

Analysis of the project 1). The background Introducing first step learning of knowledge to children, who are at their age beginning to memorise image one by one together with matching image and sound, is a challenge for parents. This is often involved with baby’s born skill of observation of which parents may not be aware. However, the author believe that inter activity with instructors with focus on self learning may enhance such first step learning process. The ‘Intellect starting card’ has been designed with regards to this ‘self learning’ principal.

“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth learning can be taught.”   — Oscar Wilde * Reference: Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track By Russell L. Ackoff, Daniel Greenberg 2). Design pillars i, What to do and how? This is to design an interactive ‘play card’ for infants from age of 2 to learn about alphabet, number and shape, with possible active involvement with tutors. The principal design guideline is to enable learning by playing the card with mistake and learn from it. The card is designed to be able to go into each other by section to section through a cut on either edge of the card. This gives each section a possibility for 8 matches, but only one of them is a correct matching pair in term of matching image/picture against alphabet, number or shape. Therefor, players may initially have no idea of the correct match at all, but just playing the two cards to match randomly. An opportunity for getting the right match is established. Ideally, the card will be integrated with sensors for light, sound ad voice that can indicate and confirm the right match.

ii, What to consider ?——With the above in mind, here are some aspects considered through the designing iteration and play testing.

i—a, Safety—-This is the priority to satisfy. It has two issues to deal with: Material: While the card has to be relatively strong enough to fit into each other, any chance of misuse of it must be avoid. The misuse may include children to chew, bite or use the card to hit or scrub against other objects around him. While adult’s attention is required to avoid abuse of such, especially the mouthing behaviour that creates unique risk for children, it is crucial to find the perfect material with cost consideration to serve the design purpose. (This unfortunately need to be researched further.) Reference: “Non Toxic Toy, Making daycare centres safe for play!” https://www.rit.edu/affiliate/nysp2i/sites/rit.edu.affiliate.nysp2i/files/training/non_toxic_toys.pdf

b) Actual card profile. It is important to have consideration for a relatively soft and round profiling of the card to avoid possible edge cutting. Only the part of the card on two edges through which cards  to fit into each other may be structurally strengthen.

c) Disciplinary rule for play. In this case, it is about more of disciplinary of play behaviour than rule. Adult monitoring may be required for any possible misuse and abuse of the card.

i—b, Fun—-It is a challenge to inject fun into learning, typically, for putting one card to fit into the other, as it is a simple act of hand movement, where the player may initially have no idea what is it for by doing so. It is reasonably difficult to ‘lure’ a child to repeat such an act by hand, as his attention for doing that maybe as soon as just a one or two goes. Therefor, to introduce incentives to sustain playing appeal maybe one of the solutions. This incentives may include: Adults involvement to play by mimicking sound made by animal, presenting actual objects, and awarding the child’s favourite food when the right match is scored. While adults involvement for play may help, the success for sustaining the playing appeal will be relying on the application of ‘creative technology’. This may required the card to be integrated processor, memory chip, speaker, sensors and transmitter of such by using Blue Tooth Low Energy which can react, record and share the player’s performance to enable personal ‘machine card’ interface and interaction for instant fun. (This may have opened up an opportunity and direction for me to study with the BCT course.)

3). Design process Card Specification Size: 63mm x 88mm x 5mm Material: Wooden, Plastic card Number of Cards 4/set Contents to be printed/engraved on cards Because of the limit of choice of material involved, the design process of the card as shown in the picture is fairly simple and direct, yet it has been through a long and complicate thinking and iteration which involves in using a), A paper card, which the matching design is limited to cut hole on one card to match the other. In this case, it does require a deck of cards to play with at least 26 cards for alphabet learning by itself, This number of cards unfortunate baffles a young child at the age of 2 or above, where the design is for enhancing his very first intellect knowledge learning experience. b), A cardboard card. When fitting the cardboard card to each other by either edge, two of them may have 16 sections in total for pair matching, therefor, a set of 8 cards can create  chances of matching. It is thankful to a classmate Adam, who originally plays his designed card game by using ‘card block’, where cards can fit into each other by four directions, for sharing his skills in further demonstration of my idea of “THE INTELLECT STARTER CARD”.

c) Wooden or acrylic card: The attached is the final fabricated piece of work. Laser cutting in the 3D lab had been used with clear acrylic plastic board as well. Because of the the high clarity of this material, it generates poor double sided image, so to use wooden card (Wood veneer press glued on MDF) so far.

4. Outcome Pro: The outcome of the design for now is fairly satisfactory in the following: a), The smart cut on a card that allows cards to fit each other, so to create combination of information matching pairs. b), The design serves the principal of creating a card that enables learning by playing the card with plenty of chance to make mistake and learn from it. c), It is versatile for adding information of image associated with sound, as well as plain text. This makes it possible to go beyond with the proposed audience who are infants from the age of 2. It may fit for other specific group of people who may enjoy playing card for matching info with correct formats.

Con: a), Material to use is uncertain as safety issue involved with infants. b), Cost effectiveness not established, if commercial application become possible. c), Need to be tested in various physical environments and to have reasonable volume of feedbacks from trial to verify this concept.

5. Potential/future direction Potential application Audience: As the design of the card is basically for matching infos in a correct format in pairs, it may be used for other age group, not necessary for the designated audience only. For example, it may be used for ESOL students to correct common spelling mistakes, and so on. Contents: As it is discussed above, the feature of smart cut on a card, that allows cards to fit each other so to create combination of information matching pairs, provides an unlimited contents application for the purpose of memory knowledge refreshing. It is interesting to note the as people are living longer nowadays, the ageing population is facing a problem of ‘fading memory’ which affects quality of daily life. Application of direction such does need a further profound research, not just to imagine of course.

Future direction The starting point of creating the design of card has been with focus on what a BCT student should work on. That is to utilising technology for creative outcome, both in learning and mastering such technology and set for strong personal interest to pursue in the terms. Therefor, to put it simple, to utilise technology to make it possible for viable commercial use is the future direction for this design idea. To integrate the card with micro processor, memory chip, speaker, sensors and transmitter of such by using Blue Tooth Low Energy which can react, record and share and analyse the player’s performance to enable personal ‘machine card’ interface and interaction maybe worthwhile, at least for BCT studying.

C. Play Experience Description

i. A single 1920*1080 image that epitomizes the play aesthetic

ii. Twitter friendly tag-line

Patent pending, “THE INTELLECT STARTER CARD” created by Paul for helping parents to enhance their first experience for introducing the ever first knowledge of alphabet and image in collaboration, as well as shapes and numbers to their offsprings.

iii. Rules of play Because the target audience of the the card is infants from age of 2, rule for play is fairly simple and basic. The rule of thumb for playing the card is to place the one card into the other so that they meet by where the cut slot stops, so that information on the sections of the cards can be matched and the player’s knowledge can be tested.

The game is basically to encourage self learning from making mistakes, but not randomly by guessing to ‘hit’ the correct answer by chance. To award the winner by setting a game rule between at least two players is necessary for players who have been play the cards and developing such knowledge. This involves with a judge who know the correct answer and has the power to interfere with disciplinary cation.

1, Each player has two chances to match a call by the other for matching answer. 2, Whoever succeeds at one go, is awarded  one point; succeeds at the second go, no point; fails both 1 negative point. ( This can be tricky for the player to understand, but it is up to the judge how he deliver the award by kids language.) 3, Winner can be judged in the end. 4, Prize to be awarded to the winner. (Prize may vary to depend on the judge who is to encourage learning by awarding all players with different approaches.)

Based on the above rules, a chart for recording points may be included in the project.

iv. Play-test video: embedded video of play test uploaded you YouTube.

https://youtu.be/dxnl91CifjI

3. A single physical ‘card’ has been summited.