Placemarker Project Activities Timeline
Consultation workshops held with young people at Denmead Youth
Partnership
Workshops involved introducing the project to the area, getting young peoples
ideas and perspectives and also holding a session for creating a project logo.
Ages 8-15 and 12 young people in total.
17th June
25th June
16th July
Placemarker Project Summer School all day workshop
August 20th
This workshop was to do research at Waterlooville Public library where the
young people had a session with an expert in Maps and the local history of
Waterlooville. This was also an introduction of Geocaching and creating
Placemarker project geocache boxes, which were planted on the new
development site. 6 young people aged 10-17
Workshops held at Cowplain Community School
Young people have been from year 9/10 group sizes change on days but
numbers 8 – 15
Session 1 9th July – Introduction Group activities to develop relationships with
group and between group members; review aims of the project, look at initial
project materials and plan tasks and sessions with young people according to
their interests.
Icebreaker, celebrity cards, what app would be good for this person/character
What is the place marker project? Introduction about the project.
Session 2 14th July Site Visit to both housing development sites in
Waterlooville, the students had a tour and had a guide from the developments
Community development officer.
Session 3/4 16th July/8th Sept – Research, activities will include desk
research, possible visits to archive collections, talking to people and visiting
the development site to gather material for the app.
Session 4/5 10th & 15th Sept Planning
Students will use top designer methods of planning such as the double
diamond technique. Students create a concept of their app.
Session 6/7/8 16th 17th & 22nd Sept – Research suitable software for
developing the app and gather all historical timeline data for the app.
Sessions 9/10 24th/29th September Planning
These sessions meant refocusing the original ideas so that they were able to
develop them using different software.
Sessions 11/12 1/6th October Learning New Software
Learning MIT App inventor by developing simple games and apps using
tutorials and being given small tasks to time challenges
Sessions 13/14 8/13th October Developing
Students applied new skills and planning to start developing three new games
using app inventor.
Sessions 15/16/17 15/20/22nd October Developing & Games Developer
Workshop
More building of blocks and programming. Students also had a workshop with
Games Developer Jamie Whitworth who has worked on real engine software
for many years developing games such as Batman Arkham City. This session
gave a real insight into pathways to a career in the gaming and app world. 28
students attended this session and they asked questions and also showed the
designer their games in working progress so they were able to get
professional feedback.
Sessions 18/19/20 5/19/26th November Developing
With a deadline looming the students were staying late into sessions as the
development was at its crucial stage. The design arm of the team was very
busy designing the graphics and characters for the games. It was great to see
the team working so well under the pressure.
Sessions 21/22 3/10th December Testing
Using android software and hubs the testing phase was about testing and re
releasing new versions of the games and testing them on different android
devices. We used a sub team of students to assist and get their feedback on
usability and visuals.
Sessions 23/24 7/12th January 2015 Testing/Launching
All three games by this point had reached double figures in versions so this
time was about fine-tuning and launching, as sometimes there were problems
with the launched games even though they tested well before launch.
Launch Event on January 13th 2015
37 people attended this launch event at the Cornerstone in Denmead.
Students gave a presentation of the stages of their work and officially
launched the three apps/games. Those attending partners/parents/councilors
were all asked to help disseminate the promotional materials.