October 2011
31 posts
The Serendipity Engine
What is serendipity
#ozchi24
An important aspect of our design process was trying to determine a definition of serendipity that we all agreed on. As we wandered about Hobart CBD and the Salamanca Markets the ideas of the pleasant surprise and the joy of the accidental discovery really jumped out at us as what we felt was truly serendipity. We decided that serendipity is essentially something...
“That’s good, so we won’t have to beat him with a rubber hose”
– McJones #ozchi24
“I hear the sounds of birds, that means the sun’s coming up”
– Harry #ozchi24
“Imagination and Cogs”
– McJones
#ozchi24
What is serendipity?
#ozchi24
An issue we’ve had in this challenge was to truly nail down what serendipity meant to us, without a hard definition it’s hard to figure out what can summon it.
In the end we ended up deciding on a definition that worked for us based on the encounters we had as we roamed about Hobart and surrounds. Serendipity to us is the idea of positive random events occurring, it’s...
Random ramblings
One of the different ideas we had early on was to use augmented reality in some way to encourage serendipitous events. We spent a long time trying to figure out what about augmented reality would actually be something that people would want to see. We thought the idea of being able to see what is occurring around you would lead to people choosing to do something completely ad-hoc and lead into...
Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3.
So, that’s two rounds of iterative testing complete. Time for the hard slog to the finish.
September 2011
16 posts
The day so far...
#ozchi24
And so it has begun, another 24 hours of randomness, design, intelligence and stupidly. Somehow, on this day our eccentricities combine, erupting into a torrent of twitter one-liners, jokes and visions of foolishness. Yet we still somehow maintain a shred of professionalism behind the scenes, and manage to create something that actually has purpose. Arriving late—again—we were at our...
We made you a song. #ozchi24
“Feel my scratchy bark”
– Matthew
To the Mountain
Ack ack ack squee ack to Mt. Wellington ack!
“There’s cheeky and being playful and then there’s just trolling for...”
– Patrick
“Have you tried NCSA Mosaic?”
– Patrick
“It starts with just ignoring the mini-challenge, it ends with you invading...”
– Paris
Anonymous asked: How do you intend for the sausage to prevent Hitler?
Anonymous asked: Is The McJones really immortal?
Anonymous asked: Aren't dolphins always naked?
“This, as in all things context is king”
– Matthew
“My Penetrator is working really well!”
– Matthew
“Suddenly the sausage sends you a message.”
– The McJones
Introducing Team UTAS
Welcome!
This year Team UTAS (a.k.a. the Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy) is made up of:
Tim Nugent (The McJones) Tim is a second-year PhD student studying location-awareness. He is immortal.
Matthew D’Orazio (The Saboteur) Matthew is a UTAS honours graduate researching mobile navigation. He digs holes.
Patrick Burns (Mr Burns) Patrick is second-year PhD student investigating the use of...
The process
Listening to Michael Kamen to help us think #ozchi24
OZCHI24 begins!
Team UTAS shall post here during OZCHI24.