Tag: Twine

Task #4: Race, Gender, Identity and Intersectionality in the Maker Environment

Brief

Design a critical and cohesive overview of race, gender, identity, and intersectionality in the maker environment. Introduce others to representational problematics in makerspaces and communities.

Choose your means of presentation so long it is multimodal.

Project: Inclusive Makerspace Twine Game 

This is an interactive text-based story surrounding a group of diverse makers that challenged the space’s gender norms and definition of “making” in the local makerspace the Iron Forge.

There are two main aspects of inclusivity that I focused on, specifically on gender and culture.

The story draws upon themes mentioned in the lecture by Kimberly Martin on   Centering Gender: A feminist analysis of makerspaces and digital humanities centres  especially the notions of the difference between “Making vs Crafting” and how that often is intertwined with the idea of “New Domesticity” when it comes to “softer” forms of making with sewing, knitting, weaving, etc. having it be dismissed as mere “craft”.

Another theme that really resonated with me in that lecture was the idea of “invisible labor” of women when it comes to expectations within makerspaces and the stereotypical gender roles affecting how work is organized into private and public spheres that in turn shape how we categorize tasks into “men vs women’s” work.

The narratives I have included are completely fictional and made with the help of ChatGPT. I wanted to utilize AI in this project as I was curious to see what stories it creates and the underlying biases and stereotypes that arises when it comes to inclusivity and diversity in makerspaces.

Below is an excerpt that I did not use in my story, but was given to me after prompting.

As the weeks passed, the dynamic between the men and women evolved. The men, who had been skeptical, began to respect the women’s leadership, learning new techniques and embracing projects they had never considered. Meanwhile, the women appreciated the technical knowledge the men brought, weaving it into their more holistic, creative projects.

By the end of the month, the makerspace had become a true melting pot of ideas, where gender was no longer a barrier to creation. Men and women worked side by side, designing everything from wind-powered kinetic art installations to smart home devices that responded to voice commands. They learned from one another, breaking down stereotypes and building something even stronger: a community that thrived on diversity and collaboration.

The women had taken charge, not by forcing the men out, but by expanding what was possible in the space—and in doing so, they had created a makerspace that belonged to everyone.

It felt like it was perpetuating the gender binary, even though there was one non-binary character in the story, and it felt like it was lumping “non-men” into one category of “women”. The erasure of non-binary-ness was somewhat surprising to me, and it played into a conundrum that I had when I was creating this project. Namely, the challenge of  wanting to “break gender stereotypes” but needing to lean into and “exaggerate” the stereotypes in order to highlight that gap. I felt like that was the case when I was reading some of the papers, like by talking about under-representation first entailed the re-enforcement of gender stereotypes!

In terms of culture, I think the story reflects the kinds of cultural assumptions nested within the creation tools used in makerspaces, especially the recent tendency for integration of Arduinos, circuit boards, e-textiles to add the “Art” into STEM. Many papers seems to place an emphasis on empowering girls to participate more in science and computational activities, but it feels like there is less of a push to empower boys to lean into their artistic side. Seo and Richard (2021) mentioned that bidirectionally responsive design (BRD) activities were shown to “dissipate gendered preconceptions, and the learners across gender equally saw value of crafting, coding, sewing and design”, which might be a start, but I am curious to investigate more into such design-thinking and the more practical aspects in a broader context.

Ideally, I would have liked to include characters that are based on lived experiences, and to make sure that the representations of the characters are reflective of people with such positionalities that the characters themselves occupy. Potential development would be by asking friends with culturally relevant maker experiences to be part of the storytelling.

Should I have more time, I would have liked to explore more into disability and accessibility aspect of makerspaces in terms of content and subject matter.

In terms of the making of this artifact, I would have liked to find ways to embellish the story with more visual elements, such as photos of the makerspace, the characters, the kinds of projects they are making, etc. to create a more immersive and visual experience.

 

References

Martin, K. (2017, November 28). Centering gender: A feminist analysis of makerspaces and digital humanities centers [Video]. Media Collections Online. https://media.dlib.indiana.edu/media_objects/47429d523

Norris, A. (2014). Make-her-spaces as hybrid places: Designing and resisting self constructions in urban classrooms. Equity & Excellence in Education, 47(1), 63-77. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2014.866879

Parekh, P. (2024). Girls’ reluctance and intersectional identities in STEM-rich makerspaces. Education Sciences, 14(6), 628.

Seo, J., & Richard, G. T. (2021). SCAFFOLDing all abilities into makerspaces: A design framework for universal, accessible and intersectionally inclusive making and learning. Information and Learning Sciences, 122(11/12), 795-815.

 

Linking Task 12: Speculative Futures (Joseph)

ETEC 540 – Task 12: Speculative Futures

Joseph chose to use Twine as the medium to explore the two different futures — a utopian “sweet dream” and a dystopian “nightmare”.

This was a clever design decision, as “Twine was a natural choice [to display two different viewpoints] as I could have a split narrative path to contain both of these options” (Villella, 2022).

In the opening of the game, the player is prompted to enter their name and location in the text box, in which it is used as the main character in the narrative. This already immerses the player within the story, in addition to the background music and sound effects.

Utopian “Sweet Dream”

The utopian viewpoint had a more upbeat, cheery background music that plays throughout the game.
The narrative is set in a world where nature and humanity thrive in harmony. There is emphasis on renewable energy and eco-friendly technology, which is seen on the air-hovering eco-Translink buses and the newest model of Meta Headsets powered by oxygen.

The storyline splits into two side quests, one is finding your “brother”, and the other is the journey to school.

The brother provides more context of the world through the dialogue you have with him. The player finds out that it is 2025, and personal assistant driod eRobots help with taking care of your everyday needs. There is reference to the continuing existence of technology moguls, namely Elon Jr.

On the journey to school, physical classrooms that afford collaboration still exists, yet with heavy utilization of VR headsets. The classroom environment is surprising to me, as one would think there would be complete digitization and heavy emphasis on virtual interaction with the ubiquity of VR Headsets, such that a physical classroom could be deemed unnecessary. However, it seems there is still a focus on human interaction and physical presence in the classroom, especially given the set-up of the desks to be conducive to collaboration.

Dystopian “Nightmare”

The dystopian viewpoint had a more somber and desolate background music. The narrative is set in a somewhat post-apocalyptic and barren environment, where humanity seems to have reach destruction and is in the process of rebuild.

The education environment has become a mere “virtual daycare” where students are there to be supervised as they learn digitally. Remnants of technology is strewn across the classroom, interspersed with analog methods of teaching, yet students lacking the literacy skills to successfully learn.

Through the dialogue between the player and an “officer” with the same name, context of the current world is given. The hyper-development of technology has broken down the geopolitical borders between nations, and the influence of politics has created fear and paranoia of cyber-information warfare, which in turn causes a regression of civilization to the early 2000s. When asked about the origin of this dystopian disaster, we are left on a cliffhanger and wake up from this nightmare.

Reflection

I thought the world-building was very interesting and reminds me of very distinct futures.

The utopian narrative reminds me of the vision of a solarpunk future. Solarpunk is an imagination of the future where nature and humanity are able to maintain an equilibrium without exhausting all natural resources, even proposing that technology can enable humanity to exist sustainably.

On the other hand, the dystopian narrative, “technology has replaced our own abilities” (Villella, 2022) reminds me of the grungy textures of dieselpunk , especially with reference to the “retro-futuristic” aspect of technology. It very much alludes to the downfalls where “humanity collapses on itself” and the unforeseen consequences of needing to revert to previous technology, yet without the ability or skills to do so, due to over-reliance on technological advancement.

Overall, one main aspect I really enjoyed in this Twine game is that the narration brings the player to explore both the utopian “sweet dream” and dystopian “nightmare” scenarios in a way that flows with each other; there are paths that return back to a previous point and allows the player to explore the other option, while staying cohesive to the overall structure within a dream.

References

Dieselpunk (n.d.) Wikipedia. Retrieved August 10, 2022 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieselpunk

Solarpunk (n.d.) Wikipedia. Retrieved August 10, 2022 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarpunk

Villella, J. (2022, August, 3). Task 12: Speculative Futures. ETEC540 Joseph Villella. https://blogs.ubc.ca/jvillella540/2022/08/03/task-12-speculative-futures/ 

Linking Task 5: Twine Game (Jessica)

 

Task 5: Twine Task

Cardiac Arrest Management is a hospital simulation game where you are a nurse making your rounds, helping your patients stabilize in various  cardiac arrest scenarios.

Though it was a “text heavy game”, it was interspersed with many vital chart graphics and pictures. It also offered a lot of clues and hints when returned to a previous step upon a mistake. This allowed for the continuation of the narrative, while providing correct information without taking the player out of the scenario.

The bustling hospital environment and sounds of beeping machinery makes it a very immersive experience reflecting the day-to-day as a nurse in medical care.

This game is very much catered towards those with a background in medical care settings, as there is a lot of medical terms and jargon. One should also be literate in ECG charts and know what the visuals mean to make the right decisions of what to do next to save the patient.

Once the patient has been stabilized, the player can return to the main menu and move on to the next patient. The “onus was on me to ensure this virtual pathway through my game was well planned out” (Presta, 2022) given the details and true-to-life nature of the game, was an important detail to keep in mind.

Reflection

This was a very anxiety-inducing game, because 1) I am not from a medical background and 2) I don’t know anything about cardiac arrest management!

Only a few minutes in, due to my medical malpractice and neglect, I already had to perform CPR on Patient #2 and use a defibrillator with maximum of 360 joules and some injection to get him breathing again (ಡ‸ಡ)

That aside, I thought it was very informational, and though I don’t know how to read the ECG charts, I came out of the game with more knowledge about defibrillators than I had in the beginning!

Using Twine as a medium for this game was a great idea, as it co-creates a learning environment where the player is an active participant of their own learning through this hospital simulation game to manage cardiac arrests. I am grateful that Jessica took the time to share her medical knowledge in a step-by-step manner, making professional experience and information accessible in an interactive way!

References

Presta, J. (2022, June 13). Task 5: Twine Task. Jessica Presta’s Blog ETEC540. https://blogs.ubc.ca/jpresta/2022/06/13/task-5-twine-task/ 

Task 5: Twine Game

 

If “the Internet is a physical expression of hypertext” (Bolter, 2001), it couldn’t be more fitting to turn to the Internet to create a hypertext game! This game is based on some of the missed connection posts I have collected throughout the past few years from Craigslist Vancouver.

I browse the site once in a while for fun and I always find some intriguing posts. Most of the time it’s people wanting to reach out to someone that caught their eye in passing, and expressing regret for being too shy to initiate interaction. Oftentimes, I find people searching for long lost connections from their past, or recollections of fond memories with those who they are no longer in touch with.  Sometimes I come across very cryptic poetry!

As a preface and disclaimer, I did not write any of the content and do not take credit for the collective collaborative efforts of the Internet. I tried to keep most of the posts true to its original form and content as written by their author(s), with only minor stylistic edits for legibility.

One main challenge is creating the links connecting one post to another, as there is no start nor beginning to this game. Mostly, I’ve created the links by association, and players are able to follow the one that piques their interest.
Since craigslist posts are mostly text (sometimes with map next to it to show the location that it happened at), I did not embellish it with illustrations.

Below is a map of what the nodes look like:

The red nodes are part of the main narrative

Just as we tend to “conceive of hypertext spatially”, every missed connection post is a topographically and temporally grounded node that connects one event to another to “constitute a path through virtual spaces where the reader becomes a visitor or traveler in that space” (Bolter, 2001). This is the feeling I hope to evoke, an observer peering into the lived experiences of others.

I can’t really express or describe why I enjoy reading missed connections so much, perhaps it is something about the serendipity and invisible networks of the universe that creates opportunities for connection in strange ways!

References

Bolter, Jay David. (2001). Writing space: computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print. New York, NY: Routledge.

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