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A: I feel a bit too tall, because the furniture looks too small. |
Q: Do you like the ambience of the rooms? How would you describe it? |
A: It looks light and cold due to the grey-scale colours. But the cube patterns pop-out well. |
Q: Do you feel comfortable while being teleported? |
A: Yes, it is comfortable. |
A: It is comfortable. Sometimes it could be faster. |
I improved the styling, designed new textures. Set up and baked the lighting. I also created an animation for matched cubes via scripting, added the video player which shows a video texture as soon as the game is won. |
User test no 2, with 13 testers. |
4 of 13 testers did not know how to interact with the app or how to play the game. |
„I did NOT know how to play the game. I had to ask what to do.“ |
“I found it hard to understand what to do at all, but the picture is fascinating. I was creeped out when I found the table approximately where I have my table at home.“ |
“The ambience is good, but it's hard to understand what to do.“ |
“add a few tips on how the game is supposed to be played, maybe make a video showing how to play it" |
Knowing that 60% of my testers had no experience with Google Cardboard, I decided to create an introduction scene with some explanations. Here, a user can get information about how to use interact with the reticle and how to play the game. The user can also decide whether to play in single- or multi-player mode. |
Most testers described the overall atmosphere being cool, clean. Additionally, I did not like the furniture of the first app version which looked old-fashioned and did not suit well the vibrant colors of Bernd Terwey's artwork. I decided to change the texture of the walls and to create some custom models following the ... |
I finally implemented a basic multi-player feature and limited the number of players to 2 players. A user can decide to play solitaire or in twos by joining a random player. After some tests with UNet networking API, I decided to switch to the Photon Engine |
After publishing to the app stores, I marketed the app just in social media and different ways. Within 6 days, the app was installed on more than 120 devices. |
While working on this project, I kept an eye on a good app performance on mobile devices, its frame rate is higher than 60 fps depending on the device. |
I took also efforts on designing an interesting, good-looking appearance with low-poly assets (number of total vertices lower than 60.000) |
Finally, the app has become an interesting, intuitive, and appealing mobile VR experience. The game has a solitaire and 2-player mode to compete with friends and family. |
Users can: |
Improve their concentration and memory with this smart and creative Virtual Reality memory game; |
Use the Google Cardboard to transform the classic among the games into a fascinating VR experience; |
Join a random player or play in solitaire mode. |
Enter the virtual room and find the right pair of matching cubes placed on the wall. |
Challenge concentration skills and spatial orientation at the same time with this chic and modern VR memory game. |
Adding localizations. |
Improved match making so that specific users can meet and join a game together (not randomly). |
Designing a custom Google Cardboard viewer. |
Art painting and wall painting texture by Bernd Terwey. |
3D low-poly models by Unity, Cassina, custom models. |
Take A Knee? Staples Students Take A Stand. |
TEAM Westport’s annual essay contest deals with heavy issues. In past years, the town’s multi-cultural commission has asked teenagers to weigh in on topics like white privilege and the “Black Lives Matter” movement. |
This year’s subject blended race, sports and society. |
The prompt referenced professional athletes who have “taken a knee” during “The Star-Spangled Banner” to bring attention to — and protest — ongoing bias and discriminatory practices in American society in general, and by law enforcement officers in particular. |
In 1,000 words or fewer, Westport students were asked to describe their understanding of what it means to be a patriot, and what forms of protest against discriminatory laws, customs, or patterns of behavior you would consider legitimate. |
The winners were announced last night, at the Westport Library. Their answers show that patriotism is a complex subject. It can be defined in many ways. |
But it’s also a subject that our teenagers think deeply about. And they express themselves strongly, clearly and passionately about it. |
Essay contest winner Henry Carter with (from left) Westport Library director Bill Harmer, TEAM Westport chair Harold Bailey and 1st Selectman Jim Marpe. |
Staples High School senior Henry Carter won 1st place — and a $1,000 prize — for his sophisticated, even-handed analysis of both sides of the “take a knee” controversy. |
Then he went a step further. Though he believes that athletes who took a knee acted patriotically, he thinks that’s the wrong question to ask. He wants to know why the focus is on those athletes’ actions, and not on the issues they are protesting like “racial inequality and police brutality.” |
Second place (and $750) winner Melanie Lust — a Staples junior — gave several diverse examples of what she envisions patriotism to be. That’s why, she says, she stands every morning for the Pledge of Allegiance. |
But, she adds, she cannot be a hypocrite. Any patriot knows that “the only truly unpatriotic act is one that hinders the freedoms and rights of others.” Anyone who tries to stifle athletes’ freedom of expression is acting unpatriotically. So, she says, the protesters are the true patriots. |
TEAM Westport essay finalsits (from left) Rachel suggs, Sophie Driscoll, Henry Carter and Melanie Lust. |
Staples junior Sophie Driscoll (3rd place, $500) also called the “take a knee” athletes patriotic. She draws parallels between the current movement and others in American history, like the Revolutionary War, women’s suffrage and civil rights. |
Staples freshman Rachel Suggs took the first-ever honorable mention. Her essay weaves her ancestry — on her father’s side, she’s a direct descendant of an earl who helped finance the Mayflower; her mother immigrated to the US from South Africa to escape the oppression of apartheid — with her arguments about the true me... |
There are many ways to be a patriot — and many ways to craft a cogent essay about this important subject. You can read 4 of the best below. |
1st Place: The Ill-Considered Nature of Our Discussion of Patriotism |
Henry Carter (Staples High School senior) |
Colin Kaepernick’s decision to kneel during the national anthem in August of 2016 understandably effectuated impassioned responses around the nation and reinvigorated the debate around racial inequality and police brutality in the United States. Though harsh invectives from right-wing pundits and politicians and praise... |
The national discourse that followed, however, was disappointing. What I, like many others, had perceived as a crucible for change fell into a recognizable pattern of political maneuvering which went frustratingly unnoticed and unchallenged by prominent activists against racial inequality and police brutality. The agen... |
#takeaknee movement in their misplaced efforts to authenticate the “patriotism” of protesting athletes, facilitating a discussion that has been ultimately counterproductive and oblivious to the reality of African Americans in today’s society. |
Henry Carter |
Since Kaepernick’s decision to take a knee, social media has been flooded with images such as the one retweeted by President Trump in January: a widow grieving at a military graveyard, with the caption “THIS IS WHY WE STAND.” This image and the hundreds of others like it disseminated around the internet capture the foc... |
Though this sentiment is understandable, its logic is flawed. The military is, in the symbolic sense, inextricable from the country it fights for. In this way, any protest against a nation’s symbol, such as the Star-Spangled Banner, can be misconstrued as expressing disdain for those who sacrifice themselves for the sa... |
The liberal counter to this conservative judgement of protesting athletes has been a naive attempt to prove the patriotism of athletes. While this may seem like a worthy goal in the ongoing debate over taking a knee, it accepts the flawed premise that black athletes must demonstrate patriotism towards a nation that has... |
The unfortunate truth is that our country was built off the backs of slaves, and this legacy has continued throughout American history. Prosperity in the United States has always been dependant upon the disenfranchisement of black people. Thus, while it may be well-intentioned, by trying to authenticate the patriotism ... |
Though I do believe the athletes who have taken a knee acted patriotically, I also believe that’s the wrong question to ask. From slavery to convict leasing to Jim Crow to housing segregation to mass incarceration, the marginalization of African Americans has been interwoven into the fabric of our nation, and it is unf... |
There is a reason our founding fathers did not make free speech protected by the first amendment conditional on the fact of it being patriotic. To do so would not only hinder progress in the U.S. but create an autocratic regime in which free speech would cease to exist at all. Why then, is the focus of journalistic end... |
What began as a promising opportunity to address racial inequality in our nation has devolved into public reckoning on the character of protesters, the result of clever political maneuvering on the right and ignorance on the left. Hopefully, moving into the future, we will consider prioritize the validity of speech ove... |
2nd Place: The Patriotism of Protest |
Melanie Lust (Staples High School junior) |
When I look at the American flag, I see a set of principles. |
I see perhaps the most complex and unique history in the world. I see a small group of refugees, relentlessly persecuted by their own government, taking the ultimate risk and fleeing to an unknown land, somehow birthing a three-hundred year empire. |
I see struggle. I see the first colonies during their first winter on the brink of collapse. I see eventual omnipresent British control. I see a bloody conflict for freedom, and only in its most pure and uncompromised form. |
I see a rich and beautiful culture, native to the North American territory, slaughtered until it dwindled nearly out of existence. |
But there is also triumph — the survival and sustainability of Jamestown, expansion into thirteen colonies, increasing establishment of more and more self-governing institutions to combat British oppression, and Washington’s climactic victory at Yorktown that won us the Revolutionary War. |
I see togetherness and strength in the interminable battle for equality and stories of those who have never known peace. I see a nation slowly learning that acceptance should not only be mandated by law, but exalted morally and universally. |
I see the bold red of hardship and valour, the plain white of candor, and an ever-changing constellation sewn into the deep blue field of vigilance and justice. |
Melanie Lust |
And what I see, more than anything, is a set of values designed to counter tyranny. Our American identity took centuries to develop, and it came first from immigrants, then from those bound by the crude chains of British oppression, then from the Founding Fathers who strove to create a society in which tyranny can neve... |
America is unique because its identity was not born from borders or geography or ethnic circumstance. There is no American ethnicity. To be an American, one needs only to believe in one principle: absolute liberty and justice for all. |
This is what the American flag means to me, and this is why, each morning, I stand and recite the pledge. I have a profound respect for our history and values, and this is what makes me a patriot. |
But any person who refers to themselves as a patriot — especially any person who passionately admires the Constitution, as I do — knows that the only truly unpatriotic act is one that hinders the freedoms and rights of others. |
The right to protest and free speech is clearly detailed in the Constitution’s first amendment. The football players who choose to act on these basic rights are honoring the Constitution in the most explicit manner possible. By virtue of living in a country such as ours, a nation designed since its birth to contradict ... |
The natural exceptions for acceptable forms of protest are any that prohibit other citizens from their ability to exercise their rights. But kneeling on a field does harm to no one; nor does burning an American flag, nor does sitting down during the pledge of allegiance, nor does wearing a black band on your arm to res... |
The cause of the protest has little to do with the protest’s legitimacy. As long as no harm is done and the freedom of others is not infringed upon, the protest is legitimate. The simple brilliance of kneeling during the national anthem is that it does nothing except draw much-needed attention to the prevalent issue of... |
Racism is an issue that affects almost every person living in our country, but is rarely talked about, and even more rarely addressed in a manner conducive to change. While I personally believe that the national anthem and flag are not representative of our modern society or racism, individuals should still have the ri... |
And so, no matter how much protest of the flag conflicts with my personal values, I am in no place to criticize the football players who take a knee on national television to bring attention to the cause they believe in most. No matter how much I disagree with these protesters’ interpretation of our nation’s ideals, I ... |
The primary guiding principle of our democracy, and thus the guiding principle of American history, is exertion of individual freedom that does not inhibit the individual freedoms of others. Just as protesters have the right to silently and effectively engage a global audience about modern discrimination and racism, cr... |
Censoring opinions that have no physical, palpable impact on anyone is a step towards fascism. The Founding Fathers explicitly designed our nation to contradict all political instruments that would advance authoritarianism. The fact that protesters are able to express their opinions without censorship is an exact resul... |
The struggle, the separation, the ceaseless and bloody wars for freedom, the oppression and liberation, all led up to the nation we know now. In fact, protest against any cause at all should be viewed as a blessing , not disrespect for the nature of our country. A protester is a perfect model of the Constitution’s visi... |
3rd Place: Patriots Exercise and Defend Essential Freedoms |
Sophie Driscoll (Staples High School junior) |
True patriots demonstrate love for their country by exercising and protecting its core principles, even in the face of personal risks. Thus, the participants of the “take a knee” movement are patriots. |
The “take a knee” movement was launched in 2016 by NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick in response to numerous fatal shootings of African Americans by police officers. According to data collected by The Guardian, 266 black Americans were killed by police in 2016, with black males aged 15-34 nine times more likely to be ki... |
After former Green Beret and Seahawks player Nate Boyer told Kaepernick that it would be more respectful to those in the military to kneel rather than sit during the anthem, Kaepernick began to “”take a knee”,” i.e. kneel silently, during the national anthem. Since then, other athletes in the NFL and elsewhere have sim... |
The “take a knee” movement should be categorized with the American Revolution, the civil rights movement, the women’s suffrage movement and other iconic protest movements as the quintessence of American patriotism. Like the “take a knee” movement, most of the protest movements that fostered important social change in t... |
For example, a 1966 Gallup poll indicates that at that time nearly two-thirds of Americans had an unfavorable view of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. However, today, he is a revered civil rights hero honored with a national holiday. Similarly, although some people criticize Kaepernick’s protests against racial discriminatio... |
Sophie Driscoll |
Critics of the “take a knee” movement contend that it is unpatriotic because it disrespects the military. This is based on the erroneous idea that the flag is inextricably linked with the military and a refusal to stand for the anthem is essentially a criticism of the military. |
This argument misses the mark. The flag and the national anthem are not symbols of the military exclusively. Moreover, the brave men and women who have fought and died for this country have done so in order to preserve our values and freedoms. It would undermine those values and freedoms to muzzle Americans who peacefu... |
Kaepernick has, in fact, demonstrated his respect for the military through his choice of gesture. Kneeling silently is a solemn act. It is not rude; it is not violent; it does not express any disregard for the military; and it does not inhibit anyone else from expressing their patriotism in whatever manner they choose,... |
Furthermore, in sports, taking a knee has historically been regarded as a respectful gesture. Players “take a knee” when another player is hurt. In this context, taking a knee is an acknowledgment of vulnerability and unity. It conveys the message that the injury is serious and worthy of concern. Correspondingly, when ... |
Conversely, behavior that undermines or contradicts the principles that a country holds dear is unpatriotic. The comments about the “take a knee” movement made by the President of the United States are an example. In September, he publicly referred to any NFL player who takes a knee as a “son of a b****” and indicated ... |
Comments such as these are deeply troubling, and they intentionally divide Americans. They also reflect disregard for freedom of expression, a principle so essential to our society that it is reflected in the Bill of Rights. This issue resonates with me because I am involved with Inklings, the Staples High School stude... |
Ultimately, it should be acknowledged that neither kneeling before the flag nor standing before it is always an indication of patriotism. What qualifies someone as a patriot are the values behind the actions he or she takes. Kaepernick’s values are clear; he has fought for equality both on and off the field. Kaepernick... |
Honorable Mention: They Don’t Have to Stand For It: Patriotism and Legitimate Protesting in America |
Rachel Suggs (Staples High School freshman) |
As a nation, we are in the midst of a painful and angst ridden debate about the “correct” interpretation of patriotism. However, I believe that patriotism cannot be fully defined by words alone, as it is an unstoppable and infectious force that ripples through the hearts of a people. It is depicted through feelings suc... |
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