Project Status
Status: Live
Launched: July. 18th, 2007
Web Site: Tucson Stormwater
Project History
This project entailed producing a web site and CD with activities, games and exercises as part of a program to educate middle school children about the conservation, hazards and environmental impact of desert storm water. Produced in conjunction with EEE, the site and Flash piece were started while I worked at Commotion Studios. While fun to work on, it is also great to know that in at least a small way your work is furthering education, environmental awareness and safety for kids. It is very rewarding to feel you are contributing something and giving back to the community.
An entire article could be devoted to how the project started and ended with me building out the Flash so I’ll try to nutshell it for you. Interface design gets under way, four of six company owners bail, art director moves on taking project with, another developer and art director have falling out, art director cannot complete by themselves, turns source files over to EEE which then brings project to me while working at Company X. After paying for incomplete project, client has little remaining budget for Water Harvesting activity, commissions Atomic Sight & Sound to complete. Company X tells client they are not paying enough to have their project managed and do not get scheduled into production, client duly offended, wants to work with me independently. Remaining Flash work for activities completed, Water Harvesting activity integrated into interface, CD artwork and cover and CD master created. Whew…
Goals & Objectives
Educating kids about where water goes, how to minimize runoff and reclaim water for landscaping, common pollutants based on land use and weather patterns were the primary goals. Perhaps the next biggest goal of the project was to engage kids in a way that was fun without being too childish. The activities and interface were designed to be challenging and somewhat intuitive with brief instructions that guide the student without doing the work for them.
How It Was Built
For anything interactive (web site, DVD, Kiosk) my preference is definitely Flash. For a long time Director was the standard authoring tool for CD or DVD Rom although it continues to fall to the wayside. Especially in this case it wouldn’t make sense to develop the site in Flash for the web and Director for the CD. Flash can export executables so why would you produce the same creative twice? Sure you could embed the Shockwave on a web page similar to Flash, although the Shockwave Player only enjoys about half the distribution.
If you read about the turmoil this project went through, you’ll already know the project came back to me after work had started on the interactive piece. So it wasn’t built in a way that warrants too much explanation. Frame labels had been set up for each ‘section’ of the site with the main navigation sending the playhead to that label. My job on this was to do the actual programming for the activities and integrate the Water Harvesting module into the overall interface.
Once the interactive had been approved, I then designed the CD case insert as well as the artwork to be printed on the actual disk. The CD masters were just sent for duplication and will be available to schools for the upcoming Spring session.
Technologies Used
Credits
Design & Illustration - Stephanie Goldthorpe, activity booklet and city illustration - Boelts-Stratford, Water Harvesting Activity - Atomic Sight & Sound.
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