Final Project

For my final project I created a map that showed the international availability of McDonalds sandwiches and burgers. I was originally going to do the entire list, but since the list was so extensive, it would have been very hard to include every single menu item on the poster.

I came up with the idea of this project after looking up the international availability of products, and saw that it was such a diverse list of items, that I wanted to come up with a way to show what items are available where. It's very interesting that everywhere you go McDonald's is suppose to look the same and have the same general feeling, but they offer different menu items based on whats ingredients are available and based on religious beliefs.

Since the list of available items was so long, I decided to narrow it down to just the sandwiches and burgers. After presenting my poster to the class and discussing it, I realized there were a lot of things I should have included on my poster. I lost a lot of information that I wanted to include

with my original idea. Although I was at first pretty happy with my poster, there are now several things about it I would like to change:

- Some of the names of the sandwiches/burgers aren't listed. I would have liked to include the names of all the different sandwiches, and could have easily added some text showing the name

of each kind of sandwich.

- Some of the locations on the map aren't very clear. It's a little confusing as to what country is what, and what country each item is specifically available in. I could have created borders for each country and/or labeled the names of some of the countries that don't seem as clear as others.

- There is nothing showing that certain items are only available because of religion. I could have included something showing that they don't serve beef products in India, and have kosher food available in Jerusalem.

Here is the final poster that I got printed:

Location Based Gaming

Location based gaming is any game of which involves the players location in order to play the game. Many location-based games involve GPS to know exactly where you are located. Most location based games require a smart phone to play, since they are programmed a specific way and need to use a smart phone interface, although there are still some where you can just use a normal GPS device. There are a countless number of location-based games already created, but some of the popular and interesting ones would be geocaching, tourality, blackbeards treasure, and pac-manhattan.

Geocaching is somewhat of a treasure hunting game that only requires a GPS device. Geocaches are user made and usually consist of a tiny box or container with a pen, logbook, and sometimes other little trinkets. After creating a geocache, one simply goes online to a geocaching site, (geocaching.com) and posts the GPS coordinates of the place they decided to hide their geocache. You can also look and see where other people have placed their geocaches and go find different ones. Some of the main rules with geocaching are to always sign the log book, and if you are going to take something out of it, make sure you put something else back in. Not all geocaches have a physical box or container, but some are just meant to remember some type of event or create awareness of information about an area.

Tourality is a real life scavenger hunt which requires the use of a smartphone with GPS. In this game, the goal is to reach different spots by running, biking, driving, bussing, or any means of transportation, before others have reached the spot. This game requires user-generated content in order to play, so points of interest for the game can easily be set using Google Maps. In this game, after reaching a point of interest, you are rewarded gold, which can be traded for gadgets to use within the game. There are also locations in the game galled “goodie spots”, which can have things at them like gold and other power-ups, or there could be a thief waiting there to steal all the gold you’ve collected so far in the game.

Blackbeard’s treasure is another type of location-based game that requires GPS and a smart phone. This is a treasure hunting game, but you are searching for virtual treasure. In the game, there are different level treasure chests, and you must be the level the chest requires to open it. Users in the game place chests on a map, each chest containing sometimes keys to open other chests and other treasures. As you find more treasure, open the chests, and bury more treasure, your experience rises, possibly advancing you to the next level. The treasures you find in the chest eventually allow you to complete quests, as well as battle other Blackbeard players in real time.

Pac-Manhattan is a location-based game that was developed by NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications graduate program, to play in Manhattan, New York. This game uses the cities grid to recreate a game of pac-man. In game play, this game starts with one person dressed as pac-man, who will run around Manhattan while trying to eat all the virtual “food” that are placed along the streets. Four other players are dressed as the ghosts, who try to catch pac-man before he collects all the virtual “food”. This game uses cell-phone contact, Wi-Fi Internet, and custom software to track the pac-man game, which is broadcasted over the internet for viewers all over the world.

In conclusion, after researching a variety of different location-based games, it’s interesting how different games use locations differently. Some games require a smart phone, while some like geocaching, do not. Some require a real-time meet up place and a large group of people. Other games have you trying to reach a goal and play against other people you’ve never even met. It’s interesting to see how diverse location-based gaming can be, and see how it evolves over time as technology gets better and better.

Sources:

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_gaming

-http://www.tourality.com/what-is-tourality/

-http://www.appbackr.com/app/blackbeard-s-treasure

-http://pacmanhattan.com/about.php

Final project and paper proposals

FINAL PROJECT:

One thing I found very interesting about fast food chains, especially McDonalds, is that wherever you go in the world, McDonalds offers different menu items based on the general demographics, the laws, and what resources they have available. My idea is to create a poster/infographic of the earth, showing the different availability of menu items they have throughout the world. I plan on using this wikipedia article to get my information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_availability_of_McDonald's_products

FINAL PAPER:

Location based gaming is always something i've found very interesting ever since the first time I tried it. For my final paper, i'd like to research a few different location based games, and find out the different ways people have used technology/smart phones to create location based games. To pick a few games I might research, I will start with this article on location-based gaming:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_gaming

Wandering

After coming to a better understanding of the wandering assignment, I completely changed my entire idea of what to do when I would wander. One route that I am very familiar with is either coming home from the Castro area on the L-Taraval Muni, which drops off only a few blocks away from my house, or driving home. When taking the L, it goes underground and takes me through West Portal station. When driving, I take Market to Portola, and kind of pass Forest Hill Station on the way home. We all know also, that Muni is a joke, and sometimes I just want to get home, so I will take whatever Muni comes first and get to West Portal station, and sometimes walk home from there.

To make this route a new experience, I decided I would walk from Forest Hill station to my house. Below is a link to a map of the three different routes, 2 of which I would be used to, and one which is the route of my wandering.

Wandering

After taking this walk from Forest Hill to my house, there were some cool things I had never noticed before. Mainly the things I would notice are the houses. Most of the houses in San Francisco I find very interesting to look at, and I was surprised that I had never seen some of these houses before. Also, behind the Forest Hill station, there is a whole grassy area and some stairs, and it's kind of like a park, which I had never noticed before. Another thing I noticed was a staircase that seemed as if it might have led to a park, which I definitely will be going back soon to check out.

Videos:

Wandering

I have yet to come up with an idea for what I will do for my wandering project, but here is a link from my previous wandering project I did last time in this class.

http://shakosrsexylm.blogspot.com/2010/02/wandering.html

What I most likely will do is come up with a set of rules, maybe while listening to music, to interact to while driving around San Francisco, starting at my work. There will be different directions based on things you might see, or things you might hear in the music. These directions will tell me when to turn or when to stop and look around or even turn around. I plan to follow these directions for 30-60 mins, and see where in San Francisco I end up.

Velociraptors

Here's a screen shot of the velociraptors I posted on layar.

Layar

For my first try with layar, there were two different I wanted use to place around campus.

The first image is a velociraptor, that I decided to place several randomly around the lawn by Caesar Chavez. The other is an image that says smoking is prohibited in certain areas, and I placed each of those at the 3 smoking sections on SFSU's campus. The first map shows where the velociraptors are, and the second map shows where the permitted smoking sections are.

Go Cars 2010

Since I unfortunately had to deal with some miscommunications and some complications, I was unable to attend the field trip to Go Cars this time for the Locative Studio class. I decided to share my blog post from last time, which includes a few videos from my trip and experience last time I went on the Go Cars field trip.

Hope everyone had fun!


http://shakosrsexylm.blogspot.com/2010/03/go-cars-videos.html

First Project- Dead Drop

www.deaddrops.com

After learning about dead drops, I found them extremely interesting, and decided that what I wanted to do for my first project is install a dead drop of my own. Installing a dead drop now would allow me to check on it later on this semester and see if anybody had accessed it.

The first thing I did was check the database to see if there were any dead drops in San Francisco.
http://deaddrops.com/db/?page=view&id=45
I found this one dead drop, over by the New Montgomery BART station. I wanted to go check it out and see what kind of files people had put on it. When I got there, I found that the wall had been repainted, and the dead drop being painted over.

This wasn't going to stop me from installing my own. After reading the instructions on how to create your own dead drop, I went looking for all the materials. There were two ways to install dead drops: using fast setting concrete or using epoxy glue/putty. I purchased two flash drives, and then went to home depot looking for the rest of the supplies. Unfortunately you could only purchase fast setting concrete in 60 pound bags, so I decided my best bet would be to trying using the epoxy glue.

Since I've lived all over the Sunset these past 3-4 years, I decided to install a dead drop in the Sunset near one of my old places. There is a parking lot on the corner of 33rd and Taraval which is right next to a building. The building had some of the wall "out denting" so I decided to glue the dead drop to the bottom of this wall part, and then I got some silicone sealant to try and reinforce the flash drive a bit more.

The next step would be to post where my dead drop is to the dead drop database. The database asks for three different pictures of your dead drop: one up close, one far away, and a picture of the general area. Before reporting my dead drop though, I wanted to give it a few days and see if the dead drop stuck to it's location, and would be there for awhile.

Unfortunately, after going back to check on my dead drop after a few days, someone had already removed it. All that was left was the remnants of the epoxy putty and silicone sealant.

I'm hoping to be able to find a smaller amount of fast setting concrete somewhere (probably online), and then find a better location to install another dead drop, and use a more permanent technique to install it.

Here is a link to download a zip file of what I put on the dead drop:
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~evana/LocativeMedia/deaddrop/deaddrop.zip

The Read Me file comes from the dead drop website, and is suppose to be put on all dead drops before installing them. I also put my own folder of random interesting and funny images on there to contribute my own files.

The entry below this one shows pictures of the dead drop near the New Montgomery BART station, as well as the three pictures I took in hopes of posting my dead drop to the dead drop database.

Dead drops

Pictures of the dead drop from the directory found downtown sf, and pictures of my attempt to install my own dead drop in the sunset.

QR Code Pics

QR Codes, a set on Flickr.

Beyond Locative Media

After reading the Beyond Locative Media article, there were several things that I found interesting.

First off, "location aware, networked, mobile devices make possible invisible notes attached to spaces, places, people, and things."
This means several things: "computer games move outside and get subversive, sex and love are easier to find, real space can be marked and demarcated invisibly," and stuff like augmented reality become possible.

Also, the article talked about how locative media basically has two types of mapping: either virtually tagging the world, or tracing the action of the subject(s) in the world.

Another thing I found interesting was how they talked about adding switches to street lights so that they could be turned on and off at will, allowing people to wander in subway stations and around at night.

One last thing that I found interesting/kind of scary was that "since the US Army controls GPS satellites, in using them we allow ourselves to be targeted by a global military infrastructure..." It's scary to think that by just carrying around our cell phones, there are people out there with access to the right technology to be able to track wherever we are at any given time.

QR Codes

After having a workshop learning about QR codes, we split up into groups and each group came up with a different way to use QR codes, such as make a game, or tell a story with.

Our group came up with the idea of using QR codes to go on a "treasure hunt." We linked QR codes to a picture of a location on the campus of SFSU, and on each picture there was a star marking where the next QR code would be found. Our first QR code was easy to find, which marked the start of the treasure hunt, and then lead whoever was reading the QR code onto finding the next one. We had about 5 QR codes linking together, before just going back to the first one.

Pictures of codes and "clues" soon to come.

Locative Media

Locative Media Links:

- Biggest drawing in the world
- The Seven Wonders of the World
- Location Based Gaming




- 12 Reasons Why We're Staying in San Francisco


- IO Graphs