Samantha update 11/29 - 12/04

What did you plan to do?

Finish design questionnaire

Write up interaction types and a clear chart on what type of game can be for what (this idea can probably be expanded into a poster at UIST or CHI)

What did you do?

Finished design questionnaire and got some feedback, planned out poster on interaction types and the implications for social networking games

What problems did you encounter?

None

What do you plan to do next week?

Get more done with this new idea, and use it to solidify more SNAG ideas.

How many hours did you work?

~9 hours

Samantha update 11/21 - 11/28

What did you plan to do?

Create usability survey

What did you do?

Made a first draft of questionnaire, but through interview with some students decided to make some changes.

Wrote up some recruitment information which can be posted / handed out / put on flyers / etc

What problems did you encounter?

None, though I began running studies on cMotion this week and my family came down, so I was fairly distracted this week.

What do you plan to do next week?

Finish usability survey and make people take it!

Also, I'm designing games for other interaction types. Will talk about this in the meeting.

How many hours did you work?

~10 hours

Samantha update 11/13-11/20

What did you plan to do?

- Finish the Snag'em poster

- Fill in more of the paper

What did you do?

Created the snag'em poster (which is quite attractive, if I do say so myself!)

Compiled a list of conferences we can take snag'em to (good start is CHI student competition, then UIST!)

Did spend some time looking at paper, though not much.

What problems did you encounter?

I was really busy this week, which was a big problem. I did not get a chance to look at the paper as much as I wanted to.

What do you plan to do next week?

Create usability survey to see what people would want out of Snag'em game to help us focus our future development. This considers design choices such as groups, missions, etc.

How many hours did you work?

~7 hours

Christie's Weekly update

Summary Question (11/7 – 11/13)

1. What did you plan to do?

-Phone dev.

-begin using what I know to start the shell of my iphone game proposal

2. What did you do?

   -recycled code from pong demo to to start shell of game

• recycled code from iphone example to have an animated view transition

• created artwork for the game

• -lab demo for GRAD

3. What problems did you encounter?
- none so far. I am hoping that I have learned enough about objective c and iPhone coding in general to allow me to at least incorporate code from some of the examples I have tried into my game

4. What are you doing next week?

- Phone dev.

- animate the bugs in the game, learn how to instance objects

5. How many hours did you work?
- 11 hours

Drew Hicks -- Fri, Oct 23

We moved to ASSEMBLA!

What I did in the last day / week

Completed the mission page’s functionality:
- List of current and past missions
- Ability to generate a new mission when the current mission is complete
- Ability to select from a few missions to increase mission consistency

What I will do today / this week

Implement difficulty checking when generating missions
Create the networks page and create some interactivity with it

Total Hrs: ~12

Drew Hicks, -- Fri, Oct. 9

What I did this week:

Introduced Katie and Samantha into the code base

Worked with Katie to get mission generation functional

various database tweaks to get rid of redundancy

What I plan to do next week:

Missions - done!

start working on implementing events

brainstorm! new gameplay mechanics

Hopefully get set up on SVN

Get a functional version ready to test

Roadblocks:

Lack of sleep, but that's all!

Hours:

A lot! probably 15-20

Drew Hicks -- Fri, Oct. 2

What I did this week:

Troubleshooting on Spelman implementation of SNAGEM 1

What I plan to do next week:

Resume Development of SNAGEM 2

Create new website

Implement as much old code as possible

Roadblocks I encountered:

None

Total Hours: 8-10

Drew Hicks -- Fri, Oct. 30

What I did this week:

Implemented difficulty checking

Created a frame for the Networks, Groups, Events pages

Started working on improved database

What I plan to do next week:

Create Networks Page

Create Groups Page

Implement event attendance missions

Clean up database

Roadblocks I encountered:

Trouble getting points to register correctly... simple math bug I think but I need to find it

Total Hours: 7 to 8

Drew Hicks -- Fri. Nov 6

What I did this week:

Improved database layout; removed redundant information

Cleaned up the database removing problems

What I plan to do next week:

Create Networks Page

Create Groups Page

Implement event attendance missions

Roadblocks I encountered:

None

Total Hours: 7 to 8

Drew Hicks -- Fri. Nov. 13

What I did this week:

Worked with Sandhya to create Networks page

Worked on expanding the database to include avatar, event, and group information in the most efficient way

Started an E/R Diagram to show the expanded database

What I plan to do next week:

Finish E/R Diagram

Create new tables in database

Implement event attendance missions

Roadblocks I encountered:

None

Total Hours: 10 to 11

Katie's Update, November 6th - November 13th

What did you plan to do?

• Bug tracking and resolving
• Get this game out for playtesting
• Recover the game description/how to/etc that have vanished from the site

What did you do?

• Still nowhere near as much as I would have liked to accomplish
• Met with Dr. Barnes
• Located the issues that appeared to exist with things having been overwritte
  

What problems did you encounter?

• I still have a lack of time :(
• We really need to halt development sometime soon, we keep achieving playable versions of the game and then the next day things will be broken again....
• I think something odd has occurred with registration...as my profile was erased and my re-registered profile does not have proper functionality
  

What do you plan to do next week?

• Figure out where the registration issues are coming from
• Determine an end-point for this version of Snag so play testing can begin
• Release for playtesting!!!
  

How many hours did you work?
~5 total

Samantha update 11/05 - 11/12

What did you plan to do?

Get registration forms working and write more paper.

What did you do?

Read through a lot of form-specific tutorials. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get this form to work. It won't be complete by the time of the meeting, though I plan to get it done this weekend. I also began working on getting the visual poster done for SNCURCS / other conferences.

What problems did you encounter?

I spent the majority of my time this week on the registration page because that needs to be done before we begin studies. I didn't do as much of the paper as I'd planned due to this.

What do you plan to do next week?

The form will be done.The poster paper will be done, as I'll begin to make the outline and start filling in sections for a real paper. I'll also continue working on the visual poster which we need for SNCURCS on the 21st(?).

How many hours did you work?

~9 hours

Christie Thornton Updates (10/24 - 11/7)

Summary Question (10/24 – 10/30)

What did you plan to do?
- CSS tutorial
- CSS for SNAGEM
- iPhone with remaining time

2. What did you do?
- placed iPhone dev on hold
- began implementation of CSS
- moved all images from the header.php and footer .php files and moved them into the css.
-began the Girly.css style sheet
- added some missing tags into the css files

3. What problems did you encounter?

- not many. Picking up the css wasn’t difficult, my biggest issue was learning how the code base was orgainzed, and after looking through a few files with direction from Evie I was able to catch on.

4. What are you doing next week?
- css tweaks

- iphone dev

5. How many hours did you work?

- 10 hours

Summary Question (10/31 – 11/7)

1. What did you plan to do?
- create CSS for the oringinal black background CSS

- iphone development

2. What did you do?
- Convert orginal SNAG to conform to the existing CSS (Assassin.css)
- Attend iPhone development workshop

- Help prepare laptops for the workshop

3. What problems did you encounter?

-none, but the tutorial was very helpful. It gave me information that I can use to at least start implementation of my game proposal

4. What are you doing next week?
- Phone dev.
-begin using what I know to start the shell of my iphone game proposal

5. How many hours did you work?

- 10 hours

Samantha update 11/01 - 11/07

What did you plan to do?

Write more of the paper

What did you do?

Wrote more of the paper! Abstract and conclusion sections complete, as well as most of the benefits of snag section. I looked over the surveys / pre-tests / post-tests that I wrote and finalized the process for how the study will be run. I've been doing literary criticisms of three papers which have been REALLY helpful for the introduction sections, which are really important for our paper, for Dr. Lipford. I feel very confident about my knowledge of the current research in the area of social networking tools developed for conferences.

What problems did you encounter?

I've been sick and had to spend a few days this week at the doctor's office, so I didn't have as much time as I'd like.

What do you plan to do next week?

The paper will be done by this Friday, aside from some sections (implementation, SNAG games suite) which I'd like to get more information about from other team mates.

How many hours did you work?

~10 hours

Samantha update 10/25/09 - 11/01/09

What did you plan to do?

Begin writing paper

What did you do?

Wrote really comprehensive introduction sections about the importance of networking at conferences and the importance of networking at universities. I'm very pleased with it. I also planned on what will go in the other sections. My meeting with Dr. Lipford went well, and she emphasized the importance of how Snag'em can be used to "turn physical data into virtual data." This is something I've been thinking a lot about, and have been making notes about how we can do this with Snag'em, such as visualizations, drag and drop interfaces to category friends, etc.

I also finalized the registration process with Thomas, and helped design some gameplay issues with Evie and Drew.

What problems did you encounter?

Lack of time. :)

What do you plan to do next week?

Write more write more write more. More papers. Make sure everything is ready to go for running studies.

How many hours did you work?

~11 hours

Samantha update 10/17/09 - 10/24/09

What did you plan to do?

Make official outline of paper, help with development when I can

What did you do?

Finally could good papers, met with Dr. Lipford to discuss important HCI aspects and how we can make this novel compared to current tools, got basic outline of paper finished.

What problems did you encounter?

None!

What do you plan to do next week?

Start writing parts of the paper and filling in citations. I'm meeting with Heather again next week.

How many hours did you work?

~10 hours

Katie's Update October 30th - November 6th (from Wordpress)

What did you plan to do?

• Bug tracking and resolving
• Get this game out for playtesting

What did you do?

• Very little related to this project

What problems did you encounter?

• The game info I had written and posted is no longer displayed on the site, somehow it was overwritten...
• I have had a hectic week and been unable to contribute a significant amount of time to the CREU work this week.
• The only research payment I've received thus far was gobbled up by Student Accounts, so I now work a part time job to maintain an income. Because of this, it is difficult for me to be present at weekly Snag meetings

What do you plan to do next week?

• Bug tracking and resolving
• Get this game out for playtesting
• Recover the game description/how to/etc that have vanished from the site

How many hours did you work?
~2 total

Thomas Bi-monthly update #4

Oct. 16th - Nov 3rd

1. What did you plan to do?

Get Snagem 2.0 working

2. What did you do?
Getting closer to being finished but still need to work on cleaning up the site and adding the last few features.

3. What problems did you encounter?
We now have an excellent project management system with SVN so that problem is not holding us back any more. We still need to make sure everyone does an update before their commit.

4. What are you doing next week?

Finishing Development on SNAGEM v2.0

5. How many hours did you work?
- 20 hrs

Josh Oct 23 - Oct 30th

What did you plan to do?

Work on css styles for website.

What did you do during the week?

Added the database table styles It included two rows called
STYLEID
and
STYLEPATH
Basically the THEME_NUM in the users table corresponds to the STYLEID
and allows the php in header.php to search out what css file it needs to pull.
I also troubleshooted with Christie’s help removing all hard coded images and
turning them into div tags that had id values in a css file.
Christie created snag_Girly.css and I created snag_red.css

What do you plan on doing this week?

This week I want to tweak the code a little bit more and add some commenting into the css file so that we know exactly what is what. (right now it is very messy and hard to follow)

In addition to cleaning up the code I will add a dropdown menu in the top right or left per my discussion with Drew that allows users to select a new theme for their profile. Basically I will refresh the theme value in the browser session as well as updating the database to reflect their changes.

I also may get to bring the asterisk phone server online and at least just see what the state of it is.

What are my roadblocks and what do I need?

Roadblocks would just include my newness to PHP and mysql, nothing I can’t ask the Google about though. Last week I spent a lot of time converting hard coded images to css because I didn’t know that css would not give the
image a 100% height.

Hours worked: 15

Katie's Update October 23rd - October 30th (from Wordpress)

What did you plan to do?

• Finish the game...
• Gather playtesting data
• Familiarize with Assembla

What did you do?

• Continued work on the game
• Finished putting game info online
• Worked within Assembla

What problems did you encounter?

• We have still not released for wide-spread playtesting
• Code keeps changing/breaking unexpectedly...even with Assembla and SVN being utilized
• Time is in short supply
• Halloween Game Night is tonight, planning prevents me from being at the meeting

What do you plan to do next week?

• Bug tracking and resolving
• Get this game out for playtesting

How many hours did you work?
~5 total

Chrsitie Thornton Weekly Summary

Summary Questions (10/17 – 10/23)

1. What did you plan to do?
- iphone development

2. What did you do?

iPhone dev: Pages 45 - 61

- view controllers and how they respond to orientation changes.

- orientation controls

- attaching views to windows

- attaching text boxes and editing text

- CGRectangle and creating and placement of windows and views

- the advanced capabilities of the view controller as apposed to creating a
view and adding them
to a window

3. What problems did you encounter?
- some trouble understanding syntax. Using Objective C tutorial for clarification. Nested method calls caused some confusion, and the syntax for pointers threw me off, but Evie helped clarify that.

4. What are you doing next week?

- css tutorial

- implementing website designs using css

- iphone dev

5. How many hours did you work?
- 9 hours

Katie's Update October 16th - October 23rd (from Wordpress)

What did you plan to do?

• Alter the Missions page in order to eliminate non-functional elments
• Regulate egroupware to ensure it is being used by all team members
• Snag’em needs to be readied for playtesting by Friday!

What did you do?

• Updated Missions Page, changed functionality
• Moved information and previous uploads over to Assembla
• Began utilizing SVN
• Troubleshooting certain areas of the game
• Put game info online and formatted

What problems did you encounter?

• I am still exponentially slower at programming than other people working on the project...
• Even with SVN, there are issues with things being overwritten and old code returning to the project

What do you plan to do next week?

• Finish the game...
• Gather playtesting data
• Familiarize with Assembla

How many hours did you work?
~20 total

Raven Oct.17-23

1)What did you plan to do?-Work on tutorials and examples so I can learn about php.
2)What did you do?- I uploaded the FAQs to the the Admin/help php file. I went through the new assembla website, so that I could understand how to use all the functions and know how to retrieve info from the site.
3)What problems did you encounter?- I didn't encounter any problems this week.
4) What are you doing next week?-Next week I will be working on a write up of the Snag'em game. I will also continue to teach myself php.
5)How many hours did you work? 10

Christie Thornton Weekly Update (10/10 - 10 -16)

Summary Question (10/10 – 10/16)

1. What did you plan to do?
- I phone development, I wanted to become familiar with the interface builder
- created new skins for snaggem
- Work with josh on php


2. What did you do?
- create 2 new skins for snaggem
- working through Ch 3 in my iPhone dev book.
- Worked with josh on linux

3. What problems did you encounter?
- sometimes the book I am using to code for iPhone is vague about certain concepts

4. What are you doing next week?\
- more iPhone dev
- php

5. How many hours did you work?
-13 hours

Thomas Bi-monthly update #3

Oct. 2nd - 16th

SNAGEM Spelman was successful. Turnout was good, had 40+ players register.

1. What did you plan to do?
Get Apple Developer Account

Get Snagem v2.0 ready for UNCC

•Skin the website

•Fix the registration process

•Create the Snag process

•Create Missions

•Flesh out the database schema more

•Log in system

•Gameplay design

•Bring existing features from v1.0 to v2.0

•Documentation

2. What did you do?
Got Apple Developer Account

•Skined the website

•Fixed the registration process

•Still working on the Snag process

•Still working on creating Missions

•Fleshed out the database schema more

•Log in system is done

•Gameplay design is nearly complete

•Still bringing existing features from v1.0 to v2.0

•Completed more Documentation

3. What problems did you encounter?
I came down with the flu the first week and had food poisoning the second week. Not having SVN makes collaborative programming difficult. The eGroupWare Project Management System is difficult to work with sometimes.

4. What are you doing next week?
•iPhone Development

•Finishing Development on SNAGEM v2.0
•Play testing SNAGEM v2.0

5. How many hours did you work?
- 32 hrs

Katie's Update October 9th - October 16th

What did you plan to do?

• Finish establishing Snag’Em website functionality
• Release Snag’Em for play testing ASAP
• Get Mission generation fully functional **top priority**
• Get Tags page fully functional **top priority**

What did you do?

• Worked on Snag'Em Website functionality
• Mission page has minimum functionality
• Debugged registration
  

What problems did you encounter?

• Still no SVN...this has resulted in information/code being erased due to the number of people working on the project
• The Mission page is not working in the way I envisioned it working, although we have minimum functionality...it's not as appealing and intuitive a page as I would like.
• Every step is more time consuming than it should be....issues with SVN and the database being altered
  

What do you plan to do next week?

• Alter the Missions page in order to eliminate non-functional elments
• Regulate egroupware to ensure it is being used by all team members
• Snag'em needs to be readied for playtesting by Friday!
  

How many hours did you work?
~15 total

Samantha update 10/09/09 - 10/16/09

What did you plan to do?

Help with mission types

Outline paper

What did you do?

- Learned about phpMyAdmin (~1 hour)

- Helped put mission types / tags into the database (~3 hours)

- Met with Thomas (~5 hours)

- designed registration

- made design changes

- wrote out things to be fixed

- Read more tutorials on php / sql (~ 1 hour)

- Looked for papers (~ 2 hours)

What problems did you encounter?

I'm having a hard time finding useful papers. A very hard time.

What do you plan to do next week?

Until development is complete, help with that

When it is complete, do more papery stuff

How many hours did you work?

~12 hours

Katie's Update October 2nd - October 9th

What did you plan to do?

• More research
• Prototype the team building game
• Prototype the exercise game
• Develop a full feature-request list for both games
• Find out everything possible about the iPhone related to: Networking, GPS, Friend Finder, Foursquare, Maps, and Distance Calculations

What did you do?

• Lots and lots of research
• Finalized ideas for team building and exercise game
• Started on prototypes for the above games
• Added to the feature-request list for Snag’Em
• Looking into programming with Objective C
• Finally got my hands in the Snag’Em code base (for a very, very long time…)

What problems did you encounter?

• SVN isn’t working, so conflicts are arising in the code base
• I’m still slow with working in the Snag’Em code base, but Drew has been a huge help and I’m making lots of progress
• Pulled my first all-nighter of the project and worked for nearly 12 hours straight! This is a problem due to lack of sleep, but a huge success as far as progress is concerned.
• Issues are coming up about playability features such as remembering the code, mission generation, etc.
• There is still a lot to do before our CCI release in one week

What do you plan to do next week?

• Finish establishing Snag’Em website functionality
• Release Snag’Em for play testing ASAP
• Get Mission generation fully functional **top priority**
• Get Tags page fully functional **top priority**

How many hours did you work?
~25 total

Christie Thornton Weekly Report (10/3-10/9))

1. What did you plan to do?
- begin iphone dev
- artwork for snagem

2. What did you do?
- read and completed chapters 1 and 2 of iphone dev book
- edited my webspace
- logging resources and links used in learning how to program for iPhone
- completed 4 mini iPhone programs (using tutorials on icode blog).

3. What problems did you encounter?
- the examples in the book weren’t very useful, so I had to resort to the internet to find useful examples

4. What are you doing next week?
- iPhone Dev!!! More specifically I want to become familiar with using the interface builder. I started working on it this week, but I want to get to the point where I can work with interface builder without having to follow a tutorial.
- modify the new look for snaggem that conforms to specs listed on the website

5. How many hours did you work?
- 11 hrs

Raven Sept.28 - Oct.2

1)What did you plan to do?
-I planned to work on creating the objects needed for a “Don’t Cheat” animation. Also after creating the ojbects I will continue to do flash tutorials for the animation of the objects.-Also I will be creating a trouble shoot page for the game. I will be working with Thomas and Drew to collect the data. -Post my game idea to the website, and continue brainstorming on that idea.
2)What did you do?
- I created my objects and I am now starting the animations.- I went through the posts of problems with the site and created a page for Snag’em Game problems.- I uploaded my game idea to the groupware site.
3)What problems did you encounter?
-I didn’t run into any unexpected issues, just lack of familiarity with the software.-I wasn’t able to locate the information I needed at first for the trouble shoot page.-I didn’t have the host and user name login to upload material.
4) What are you doing next week?
-Next week I will be working on my website.-I will start looking into other game ideas, or ways I could expand my own idea.
5)How many hours did you work? 12

Josh Sept 30th - Oct 9th

Summary Questions

1. What did you plan to do?

- Create Game Idea
- Look at Security problems with codendi and server
- Get backups
- Create profile on codendi
- Help with getting secure data storage of our data on our server so hacker's can access it.
- Look into CSS customizing for the site
- Contact CCI Tech for a copy of Adobe Suite


2. What did you do?
- Made offsite backup of Virtual Machine
- Loaded REU data back on machine
- Helped Evie put SVN on host
- Removed directory listings for Game server Apache server
- Created user group "webusers" instead of a "root" all enviroment
- Locked all folders except /var/www so that in the event of a hack via ssh only root and arena
users could change
- Created an off site backup
- Allowed remote login through logmein.com so that we can get into xcode and server
-

3. What problems did you encounter?
- Not having RHD repositories
- Midterms
- SVN went down


4. What are you doing next week?
- Try to get a setup of a svn
- Learn more details of PHP
- Figure out why when server restarts reset apache
- Continue when time allows working on css
- Add users as needed
- Talk to Scott or Tam to get Repositories setup for Red Hat and make another backup
- Looking into getting trixbox back up online
- Add users so everyone can learn php and mysql


5. How many hours did you work?

- 12 hrs

Samantha update 3: 10/02/2009 - 10/09/2009

What did you plan to do?

Begin reading research papers

What did you do?

- collected 6 relevant research papers thus far (read introduction / methods / results for all to get brief overview) and am organizing them so they're easily accessible for when we're writing the paper. (~4 hours)

- read two of them very thoroughly and took helpful notes (~ 3 hours)

- wrote up document explaining what information we can find in each of the papers and the sources they cite. (~2 hours)

- studied HTML and learned about CSS so I can help with development of site (~ 3 hours)

- received email from IRB requesting some edits and worked on fixing that up (~ .5 hours)

What problems did you encounter?

There was some information I didn't include in the IRB involving the email exchanges with professors where they say they'll use Snag'em as extra credit or "service learning" credits. Need to figure out if that exists yet, or if I need to go ahead and begin it.

What do you plan to do next week?

- Begin outlining the paper we'll write

- Write up / begin writing up related work / motivation sections

- Help with development in some way

How many hours did you work?

~12.5 hours

• 
  

Thomas Bi-monthly update #2

September 16th - Oct 1st

1. What did you plan to do?
Get Snagem ready for Spelman
and give support for it

Specifics:
•Encrypt Passwords
•Get version ready for Geek Week at Spelman University by Sept. 25st!!!
•Little Logo 16x16 favicon
•No Border for iframe
•Generate leaderboard last so that players can see results of their actions immediately rather than the next time they refresh the page.
•Google Analytics add tracking code
•Design and Implement new Database schema
•Write new PHP Code to work with new database schema
•Create new Survey on SurveyMonkey.com
•Add new mission types to new version
•Enable Texting
•Fix the TextMark service so that users input 'snagem' as the keyword
•Test play
•Add flash animations
•log in after registering (just turn on the session variable)
•redirect pages after all pages that make changes to database
•Add more information in the Account page
•Add agreement clause to the registration page to allow use of anonymous data
•Fix the validation for registration
•Fix the interests sections
•Fix the registration process
•Fix it so that when there are less than 10 players registered the game cannot start
•Fix it so that when a player is about to snag the last possible person they have to wait until another player is registered
•Take away a point for trying to snag made up numbers
•Admin page
•You should get a point for getting snagged
•Change the style of the site to look more INVITING instead of deadly and sniperish
•Write the instructions clearer and have images
•When deleting players system should automatically find affected players and fix their missions
•After deleting players it shouldn't break the snagem process.
•Admin page should have "Logs"
•Make the site 100% valid XHTML according to the W3C Standards
•Fix the css for Internet Explorer
•There is a bug in the logging system that causes new data to overwrite some of the old data
•There should be a help page
•Automatically capitalize the first letter of everyone's names
•Remove all error printing
•Remove all redirects to old server
•Write the "correct" consent check box message as per Samantha
•Write up the instructions for the Spelman version
•Fix some of the colors on the page

2. What did you do?
All the things in the list above except a couple. We still need to finalize the new Snagem version database schema.

3. What problems did you encounter?
Game had a hiccup during play at Spelman had to troubleshoot the problem. It turned out a couple players got a requirement variable from a type 3 mission when their mission was actually type 2.


4. What are you doing next week?
•Starting iPhone Development
•Finishing UNCC version of Snagem!

5. How many hours did you work?
- 30 hrs

Christie Thornton Update

Summary Question (9/25 – 10/2)

1. What did you plan to do?
- Finalize Spelman logo
-Create a new look for the website that is less offensive
- work with experienced member in troubleshooting team for snagem
- submitting ticket to tech support for creative software (High Priority)
- start reading iphone dev book
- completely finish website
-incorporate logo into animation

2. What did you do?
- Finalize Spelman logo
- Create a new look for the website that is less offensive
- work with experienced member in troubleshooting team for snagem
- submitting ticket to tech support for creative software (High Priority)
- start reading iphone dev book


3. What problems did you encounter?
- had trouble pulling meeting notes off of site

4. What are you doing next week?
- iPhone Dev!!!

5. How many hours did you work?
- 10 hrs

Katie's Update September 25th - October 2nd

What did you plan to do?

- Learn MySQL
- Learn PhP
- Learn HTML
- Learn CSS
- Develop plans for iPhone Exercise game
- Develop plans for iPhone Team Building game
- Snag 'em support
- Get my web site up

What did you do?

- Got waivers/alterations of consent to Samantha for the IRB
- Developed pitch for team building game
- Developed pitch for exercise game
- Reading relevant papers on:
- how games motivate
- team building
- exercise games
- Worked on website
- this has been a way to practice PhP, HTML, and CSS
- Studying SQL so I can assist with database side issues

What problems did you encounter?

- I don't care for UNCC web space, I'm going to move my site onto UNCC makes games this weekend.
- I have the ear canals of a toddler and have ended up with yet another ear infection
- Exercise games for the iPhone present a variety of design challenges

What do you plan to do next week?

- More research
- Prototype the team building game
- Prototype the exercise game
- Develop a full feature-request list for both games
- Find out everything possible on iPhone:
- Networking
- GPS
- Friend Finder
- Foursquare
- Maps
- Distance calculation

How many hours did you work?
~15 total

Samantha Update 2: 09/26/09 - 10/02/09

What did you plan to do?

- Finish IRB

- Write up everything that needs to be included, such as:

- Informed consent

- control survey

- qualitative survey

- information collection survey

- pre-game questionnaire

- post-game questionnaire

- recruitment slide

What did you do?

- Finished IRB, made lots of changes and updates. (~1.5 hours)

- Wrote up everything that needs to be included, such as:

- Informed consent (~.5 hours)

- Recruitment slide (~.5 hours)

- control survey (~.5 hours)

- qualitative survey (~.5 hours)

- information collection survey (~ 1 hour)

- pre-game questionnaire (~1 hour)

- post-game questionnaire(~1 hour)

- Spoke to Dr. Lipford about social networking stuff (~1 hour)

- Began looking at CHI and C&T for relevant papers (~ 2 hours)

- Wrote up informed consent for Spelman College (~.5 hours)

What problems did you encounter?

None!

What do you plan to do next week?

I will be beginning to read research papers about social networking integration and look for other sources of groups that have turned physical data into virtual data. I plan to write up the requirements document for what will be necessary for the profile / social networking virtual part. I may choose to write up a usability survey regarding this and distribute it to CCI students.

How many hours did you work?

~10 hours

Christie Thornton: Updates 8/28 - 9/24

Summary Question (8/28 – 9/3)

1. What did you plan to do?

- create a really cool game idea
- implement animations for the flash
- create blog for publishing weekly updates
- create profile on codendi

2. What did you do?
- came up with a mediocre game idea: Finger Twister (it was bad, but it got the wheels spinning)
- Finalized photoshop file to be used in the Flash Animation
- reviewed flash tutorial
- created the blog

3. What problems did you encounter?
- codendi down
- coming up with a decent game idea
- finding ways to transfer my ideas into flash

4. What are you doing next week?
- better game idea
- begin animation

5. How many hours did you work?

- 8 hrs

Summary Question (9/4– 9/10)

1. What did you plan to do?

- create a better game idea

- finish blog

- beautify snaggem

2. What did you do?

- animation, animation

- research good game qualities.

3. What problems did you encounter?

- Learning specifics of flash

4. What are you doing next week?

- completing animation

5. How many hours did you work?

- 7 hours

Summary Question (9/11 – 9/17)

1. What did you plan to do?

- finalize game idea

- finish animation

- beautify snaggem

2. What did you do?

- further planed out game mechanics

- submitted game proposal

- sketched out some game aspects

3. What problems did you encounter?

- swine flu like symptoms

4. What are you doing next week?

- Spellman logo

-basically everything I didn’t get to this week

5. How many hours did you work?

3 hours

Summary Question (9/18 – 9/24)

1. What did you plan to do?

- Spellman Logo

- finish animation

- updated calendar in Egroup

- uploaded logo to Egroup

- Update my research website on Egroup

2. What did you do?

- research into Spelman

- created a 1st draft of the logo, uploaded to project site

- animation tweeks

- updated information on project site

- updated my project website

3. What problems did you encounter?

- some difficulty navigating e-group, however more comfortable with it now

4. What are you doing next week?

- Finalize Spelman logo

-Create a new look for the website that is less offensive

- work with experienced member in troubleshooting team for snagem

- submitting ticket to tech support for creative software (High Priority)

- start reading iphone dev book

- completely finish website

-incorporate new logo into animation

5. How many hours did you work?

13 hours

Drew: Week Sep. 20 - Sep. 26

What did you plan to do?

-Create new database from SNAG 2 (CCI) Schema

-Create content for new game ideas (Bug game, Team Maze game)

-Create simple administration page and resources for SNAG1 (Spellman)

What did you do?

-Built a new database on infd.birdnest using the new schema, cleaned up some of the relations

-Created a E/R Diagram and description, posted them on the wiki

-Built a simple administration page from the existing admin/leaderboard scripts (incomplete)

-Helped create smoother code for mission generation/checking

-Began developing php and sql code scraps for use in SNAG 2 (CCI)

What problems did you encounter?

- Had to refresh php/js knowledge

What do you plan to do next week?

- Complete simple administration page, write documentation for this page so it will be easily usable

- Meet with Raven and Katie to discuss web development and remote administration

- Implement new mission generation code for SNAG 1

- Begin implementing code scraps I have written into SNAG 2 pages

How many hours did you work?

About 10 hours.

Katie's Update September 19th - September 25th (retroactive)

What did you plan to do?

• Finish the IRB, try to get it completed in time for the Spelman release
• Assist in whatever capacity possible to get Snag’Em ready for Spelman
• Schedule support for the duration of the Spelman event

What did you do?

• Finished determinations on IRB specifics
• Assisted in the completion of the IRB
• Set up a doodle to help with scheduling the Spelman event

What problems did you encounter?

• IRB will not be approved for Spelman
• There are some complications with IRB approval relating to how we obtain informed consent
• We all need to take more charge within meetings, this will be a big goal for me in future meetings

What do you plan to do next week?

• Be available for Spelman support
• Study PhP, MySQL, HTML, and CSS so I can begin contributing to the code base
• Develop plans for an iPhone exercise game that will feature team-building elements
• Develop plans for an iPhone team building game
• Finalize my webpage

How many hours did you work?
~5

Katie's Update September 12th - September 18th (Retroactive)

What did you plan to do?

• Assist in IRB documentation
• Help get things together for the Spelman release

What did you do?

• I’ve assisted in making determinations with regards to the IRB
• Along with Samantha, I’ve worked on the IRB documentation for data collection on Snag’Em
• I’ve been working on getting accounts up to date and having an active web-presence for CREU

What problems did you encounter?

• The Spelman release is coming up quickly, I worry I won’t have time to make any significant contributions before this time
• Many of the ideas I had in mind for the CREU project are not being, and likely will not be implemented, in Snag’Em. I’m hoping to find a way to integrate these ideas with the current goals of the project.

What do you plan to do next week?

• Finish the IRB, try to get it completed in time for the Spelman release
• Assist in whatever capacity possible to get Snag’Em ready for Spelman
• Schedule support for the duration of the Spelman event

How many hours did you work?
~5

Samantha: Update 1

What did you plan to do?

- Look at Snag'em data

- Work on IRB for Snag'em

- Think about other SNAG games that can be made

What did you do?

- Completed IRB, save a few questions I have about funding and who else will be looking at data. (~ 3.5 hours)

- Created graph representing Snag'em data and captured semi-meaningful qualitative comments. (~2 hours)

- Began thinking about what to add to Snag'em. (~1.5 hours) Primarily:

- Categories of questions to ask

- Specific of questions within category

- What information needs to be collected

- Outlined document for figuring out how these questions can give us data (~.5 hours)

- Thought about game ideas and wrote some stuff down. (~ 1 hour)

What problems did you encounter?

- The data was a little hard to look at, but it wasn't really debilitating.

- There was some info for IRB I don't know, but that shouldn't be hard to get answered.

What do you plan to do next week?

- Complete waiver / amendment of consent forms

- Fill in blanks of IRB

- Write up document that specifies exactly what type of question will give us what info.

How many hours did you work?

~9 hours

Update 1 Thomas Phifer

A Little Bit of Background:

My name is Thomas Phifer and I attend Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC where I live. This summer I was accepted into a REU program at UNC Charlotte where I worked under Dr. Tiffany Barnes in the Game2Learn Lab. I worked with other talented members of my team to create games that benefit society. My experience during that summer was amazing and I gain plenty of knowledge, skills, and friends. My team and I blogged our progress over the summer here: http://game2learn.blogspot.com/2009/06/thomas-phifer-weekly-report-6909.html

One of the more significant outcomes of my experience from the REU was the creation of the Snag Suite. This concept was created by Dr. Barnes and Dr. Dahlberg and is a suite of games that foster interaction and networking between the people who play them. Our team was given the task to create some games for this Suite as part of our work during the REU. We ended up creating two games for the Snag Suite: “Table Tilt” and “Snag’em.”

Table Tilt is an iPhone app that allows for multiple players with iPod Touches or iPhones to play a game that utilizes teamwork to accomplish a goal. Snag’em is a Web Application that is played online or by text messaging and allows for players to meet new people and make contacts that they otherwise would have never met. We deployed both games at a conference in Tallahassee with positive results.

After completing the REU I had the opportunity to stay on the team during the school year to continue developing Snag’em. This blog is for tracking each of the team member’s progress during their CREU throughout this school year.

My Weekly/Bi-monthly Summary:

September 1st – 16th

1. What did you plan to do?

At the end of my summer REU I was asked by Dr. Barnes to complete a research paper. I planned to complete the paper and turn it in to her.

Dr. Barnes also gave our team the assignment of developing the Snag’em game further so that it could be used for multiple schools, conferences and events. I planned to get started right away making these revisions to the game.

I planned to establish a meeting time we could all attend to.

I planned to attend the meetings and establish the goals for our team.

I planned to use our Project Management System to organize our efforts.

I planned to add additional requested features and fix bugs and security issues.

2. What did you do?

I completed my paper and emailed to Dr. Barnes.

I got started working on the new version of Snag’em right away.

We established a meeting time on Fridays at 4pm.

I attended the meetings and helped to plan our next steps.

I added some features, fixed many bugs and closed some security holes. But there are still plenty to go.

3. What problems did you encounter?

Unfortunately we no longer have our server which had our Project Management System on it. The IT department deemed the server too dangerous to allow any longer as they said they found viruses within it. So we backed up our server and wiped it clean. However, we can’t get it back up and running because setting up a new server takes too much time so we have to work without it. This is just a brick wall that we will jump over. We have already begun setting in place a new Project Management System on our other server space www.unccmakesgames.com.

4. What are you doing next week?

Dr. Barnes just sent us an email telling us that Spelman College wants to use Snag’em for their Geek Week event. This event supposedly starts September 21^st so we have to work hard and fast and get a good version working for Spelman. This will be a good opportunity to test out our goal of having this software deployed at other colleges. Managing the game play in Atlanta from Charlotte could be challenging but we can handle it.

5. How many hours did you work?

Total = 75hrs

Katie's Update September 4th - September 11th (Retroactive)

What did you plan to do?

• Start working within the Snag’em code base
• Begin setting up team meeting times
• Start determining roles for the rest of the semester/school year

What did you do?

• Set up meeting times
• Gained a better understanding for what my individual part of the project will be
• Started studying so I can make a contribution to the game

What problems did you encounter?

• I am sick today and, thus, unable to attend the meeting
• I still feel like I’m playing a great deal of catch up, as I’m jumping into this project in partial completion
• Many of the tools we’re working with are completely new to me

What do you plan to do next week?

• Assist in IRB documentation
• Help get things together for the Spelman release

How many hours did you work?
~5

Josh: Aug 28 - Sept 29

Tue, September 29, 2009

Josh Schroeder: Updates 8/28 - 9/29

Summary Questions

1. What did you plan to do?

- Create Game Idea
- Look at Security problems with codendi and server
- Get backups
- Create profile on codendi
- Help with getting secure data storage of our data on our server so hacker's can access it.
- Look into CSS customizing for the site
- Contact CCI Tech for a copy of Adobe Suite


2. What did you do?
- Backed up server
- Linked up with Dr. Kang to begin looking at botnetworks and understand what happened
- Make an Acronis Image of server
- Began Virtual Machine creation on Windows 2008 Server
- Got HTTPS 2028 bit encryption to prevent man in the middle attacks while people login to SNAGEM
- Move Snagemgame.com from my host to the bluehost.com hosting so we can use https directly.
- Found a free backup solution to codendi called egroupware
- Removed directory listings so that no one could reset passwords on egroupware or anypart of of unccmakesgames.com for that matter
-

3. What problems did you encounter?
- Codendi went down due to SSH being used by bot to call home
- Trouble articulating a game idea
- Wasn't able to get Acronis to open image from Imaged USB drive into Virtual Machine
- Failure to get support of IT TAs at UNC Charlotte in getting codendi back online
- Slight trouble with registering for HTTPS due to needing a direct IP address


4. What are you doing next week?
- Work more on Virtual Machine creation
- Try to get codendi Virtual Machine created on my Laptop / Desktop PC
- Work with Tam in CCI IT to get windows 2008 server online
- Look more into CSS customizing for specific profiles
- Keep tabs on SVN setup
- Put a better copy of my game idea on wiki

5. How many hours did you work?

- 56 hrs

Katie's Update September 4th (Retroactive)

What did you plan to do?

• Get familiar with the CREU project as it stands now
• Play Snag’Em to understand what’s going on
• Coordinate a team meeting time

What did you do?

• Was brought up to date on the current state of the CREU and projects
• Familiarized myself with the Snag’Em Interface
• Coordinated with Snag’Em team to find a meeting time
• Started brainstorming/discussing new ideas for growing the Snag project

What problems did you encounter?

• I was out out of town all summer and am behind on the Snag project
• Coordinating meeting times with a team this large is difficult
• There is a great deal of material to learn, much of which other team members have a head start on

What do you plan to do next week?

• Start working within the Snag’em code base
• Begin setting up team meeting times
• Start determining roles for the rest of the semester/school year

How many hours did you work?
~5

Weekly Summary Questions

1. What did you plan to do?
2. What did you do?
3. What problems did you encounter?
4. What are you doing next week?
5. How many hours did you work?