Thanksgiving break is over sadly, and our event date is approaching fast. THis post is a little late, but i spent most of my break laying in bed becauase i was sick… which sucked. when the break started, our group was pretty much on schedule. Our building is built and pretty much ready to go. We were goona buy furniture and other things to put inside, but then we decided that we would build them. THis way, we arent wasting money on buying useless furniture, and we have the ability to make things look like the way we want them too. We might add a third story to the building so that we have more space to play laser tag, but we havent all decided on that yet. next time our group meets we will decide on that issue. Last week me, jerry, and alex started working on that stuff and we have a little more to go. Maanit has been missing the past week or so, im not really sure where he is or what hes been up to, hopefully he’ll reappear this week to help out for the event.

From this point on our main task and goal is to advertise and market our event. We still need to email that listserv to tell people about our event. THe main obstacles that we will be facing now is getting peopel to come to our event, and then keeping everythign in order when they are there. Splitting the people into teams and what not will be the most challenging thing. I think this week we will be distributing notecards in second life to let people know about out laser tag event.

Last we checked the laser tag equipment was working and ready to go, but we still need to have one final test fun before the actual event day. I think on tuesday we will be working on all this unfinished business and we will also be taking the recordings for the video/movie that we need to create. Theres alot of work that still needs to be finished before the end of the semester.

Stressing

This week we started completeing tasks within second life for out final project. Alex bought a buidling earlier in the week, we have it in the location, but now it needs to be edited and a second story needs to be added to it for our laser tag game. That should have been completed by now, so technically we are a litle behind schedule as of now. Also this week, i went around looking for office furniture like desks and cubicles to place in the bulding. I found some good stuff for cheap, i just havent bought it yet. I think i will probably do that tomorrow or on tuesday. WE still have alot of work to get doen and we are appraching our deadline soon. Its crunch time, and eveyone in the goup needs to do his part.

Also this week, we tested out the laser tag equipment and i was surprised to find out that it was a little more complex than i first thought it would be. After some testing and trials alex finally got it to operate the way it should. We realized that we might need to get peopel to register a day or two early before the laser tag game, but that might be difficult, so we’ll see what happens with that. I’m hoping that on tuesday, the group shows up to class, so we can use class time to work on our project and maybe even the machinema, otherwise we care goona continue to keep falling off schedule. After thanksgiving we do not have much time to owkr on the project and we all have work to do for our other classes. I’m hoping we can pull this event off as we planned from the beggining. 

Before this course started i wasnt even sure what a virtual world was, but now as the semester is comign to an end im seeing the importance they hold and the important interactions that take place within virtual worlds. Im excited to see the avatar interaction that will take place at our event. Im excited to see the types of people who show up and the kinds of interactiosn that take place.

Finally out of the planning stages

This week, we finally finished with the planning stages of our group project. We completed the project management on wednesday, and we also completed a timeline of our project all the way to complettion. We now know all the detials of our project. We know that the laser tag game is going to be held on a peice of our classroom island, and we might also be using some of the bulidings that are already there. Starting tomorrow, or Tuesday, we are going to start the building process for our project. The building is going to be led by Alex, but we will all be helping to build the 2 or 3 story structure. The buidiling will mostlikely take place the entire week. Hopefully, we will be able to finish ahead of schedule. We will then be buying the office furniture to place inside the building.

 This week, we are also going to start emailing so that people will know about our event. We plan on emailing the Second Life Educators. Hopefully, some of them will decide to come and support our laser tag game. We have also started telling people in Second Life, and our friends about our event and when it will be, so that they will come out as well. The project is turning out to be alot more time consuming then i thougth at first, but i think if we work at it, we will be able to pull it off successfully.

Our group has gotten alot better at communicating, and i think the preflight checklist had alot to do with that. We know how each individual team member operates, so it has been easier communicating and figuring out what has been completed, and needs to be completed and what hasnt been completed. We are trying to finish the our project as soon as possible, so that we might be able to run a test run with the class as Joe suggested. This will ensure that everything is operating the way it should, and it will also help us fix any problems that we run into during the test. Our goal by the end of this week, is to have a building made and ready to go.

group project week 3

 This week we just continued working on our group project. The deadline is appraching fast, and we still have alot of work to do. This week i spent alot of time in Second Life, going to places that had people who would probably be interested in a laser tag tournament. I became friends with them and they told me that as i got more details to tell them, becuase they were really interested in coming to our event. They also said that they would tell their friends about it, so i guess word of mouth will help spread the word about our laser tag tournament.

My group needs to start finalizing our plans and then we need to  move onto the next step of our event. WHich is probably finding the location and starting to build the building and obstacles needed to host our tournament. We also need to talk to some real life laster tag companies, manufacturers of laser tag equipment, or laser tag hosts within second life to see if they  can be of any assistance to our project. Most people will be willing t o help if they know that we are students that are working on a project. This event wont cost them anything and it will probably be free advertising for them, so they should be willing to help. The main problem is finding these people and actually talking to them about it. Right now its hard to tell if our group is ahead of schedule, behind schedule or even on time at all. Im hoping that all the other members of the group are working on the project when they have the time.

I thinkour group is planning on meeting sometime early this week to start on the next stages of our event. I think the planning stages are finalyl over, and its time to start working on the actual event. Hopefully, our event will be a success and not a second life flop. I think if we all work together and actually use all the resources available to us people will actually come to our tournament and have a good time.