Design Document: Bentway Skateboard Group
EDIT: We’ve added a post talking about the contextualization of our project after having been to Sheffield DocFest, that post can be found here.
Who We Are:
Our names are Liam Cristello, Jason Chen, Arielle Bishop, and Madison Mitteness. We are the four students that worked with the Build For Bokma foundation on this Bentway Skateboard project. Build for Bokma is a group of skateboarders-turned-activists, and they worked with us to further their vision of building community skate parks with the ultimate goal of memorializing local skater Justin Bokma. They helped us get to know the area and their mission, and we uncovered another side of Toronto we never would have seen without them. We used this collaboration to create an immersive augmented-reality experience to help spread awareness of their mission.
Story:
- What is the story?
- What’s the narrative?
- We are creating an experience for the community to understand the importance of having skateparks and safe places for kids
- Who are the stakeholders?
- Build for Bokma crew
- Community members
- Members of the Community Center
- What are their needs?
- The Build for Bokma crew’s needs are to build skateparks that last and unite the community through skating.
- The community members’ need safe places for kids to spend time at.
- Members of the Community Center are building a skatepark for the community center anyway, so they need to build this community center with the community’s best interest.
- What’s the narrative?
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- What are the conflicts?
- City wants regulated and ordered skate parks. The regulations include concepts such as having “proven” ramps in designated and approved locations.
- Some neighborhoods are against it because they feel like it could be dangerous for the kids to hangout behind the school. There are also concerns about the noise.
- What are the conflicts?
| Stimulus (Objective) | Response (Subjective) | |||||
| See | Hear | Touch | Smell | Taste | Emotional State | |
| Attraction | A sign or graffiti | The hubbub of school children | Pulling out phone to download app | Grass, and usual sub-city smells | N/A | Curiosity |
| Entry | The cut fence and grass blowing in the breeze | The sound of grass rustling, maybe a train passing by | The fence as one enters/ Opening the app | Grass smell dies off, concrete rubble and general foul smells | Still curious, but now towards the floating items in the simulation | |
| Engagement | The 3D model of the ramps, video blurbs | The sound of Wes and Immony talking about their vision | Touching the screen to interact with the objects | Smells of rubble pile, to juxtapose what appears on screen | Excitement and interest watching pictures form on screen. Some sorrow from the gone skate park | |
| Exit | The metal fence again, but with the well-cut field and neighborhood | The simulation fading away, sounds of children playing return | Closing app, touching fence again on exit | Smell of grass and park returning, smell of rubble leaving | Excitement fading, but now wanting to tell others about the experience | |
| Extension | Imagining the 3D model and videos there | Remembering the message, talking to others | Tapping screen to message others about experience | Misc. smells of city and community | Telling others and spreading awareness about the project | |
- Refer to the 5 Es (see Appendix B)
- Effective: AR allows for an immersive experience that allows people to see what used to be there, superimposed on the real world. The videos and audio clips allow for a personal intro to the project on demand, without the need for people to be there.
- Efficient: With a click of a symbol, the requested video or audio plays
- Engaging: Users remain immersed in reality while still being able to see the objects we placed virtually.
- Error tolerant: Users can click whatever object they want in any order. If things go wrong, we advise the user to restart the app.
- Easy to learn: The app is intuitive. To see our 3D model, all one needs to do is look around. A click is all that’s needed to view everything else.
Demo Video:
Why AR?
- What unique affordances does AR offer to enhance the story?
- AR creates an immersive experience of what could have been if skateparks, like the toilet bowl, weren’t torn down.
- AR allows the user to explore the space similarly to walking around the park
- AR lets multiple perspectives be present at one given time. A single user is given the opportunity to view the world in a variety of different states overlapping each other, comprised into one single experience based on their predispositions.
- Each user will experience this AR experience in a slightly different way just like real life
- What aspect of the larger narrative is addressed by your AR experience?
- We want to give a voice to the kids that want to preserve this space and have say in the construction of the skatepark. They will be able to go through this AR experience and then have a call to action at the end to sign a petition or something of that nature so the community leaders have a understanding of how important it is to include the children’s voices.
- We want to give a voice to the kids that want to preserve this space and have say in the construction of the skatepark. They will be able to go through this AR experience and then have a call to action at the end to sign a petition or something of that nature so the community leaders have a understanding of how important it is to include the children’s voices.
- How do you reveal what is hidden?
- The skate park only lasted a few days, so a 3D model of the toilet bowl as it was before would memorialize the space that many have missed or might not know existed.
- Videos of the creators (Wesley and Immony) show their passion and their story at any time one visits.
- [Future implementation] AR can be used to show what the skateparks, but more importantly what the community, could be. All the future plans they had (new park, skateable art, etc) can be shown before it is built. Additionally, the community could use AR as a way to vote on various designs and create a final product that pleases the greatest amount of people.
Photos from our Process:
Final Thoughts:
This project was an absolute joy for us. Wes and Immony were both fantastic collaborators, being very flexible and incredibly helpful. We think we have achieved something very special here, by combining AR technology with activism for a cause we truly believe in. We hope Build For Bokma only goes up from here, and accomplishes what it has set out to do.
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