Design and Develop an Art-History-Tech Exhibition in 5 Days
INDUSTRY: Education, Tourism
SKILLS: Training, Event Production
AWARDS: 3 projects participating in U-Mano Art Exhibition for 6 months
PRESS: Corriere Della Sera, Rai, Sky, Giannella Channel, Corriere, Exhibition site, SenzaFiltro, Unibo
BUSINESS:
The Golinelli Foundation has invited me to design a week long schooling experience for teenagers, and to develop together with them several virtual reality game experiences that will be shown during a 6 months art exhibition speaking about the relationship of human history, art and future tech. I loved the challenge!
During 5 work days (in summer vacation), a group of 35 teenagers and 10 mentors prepared 3 virtual reality exhibits. All participants had zero background in programming, Unity 3D or game making. Most also experienced virtual reality for the first time. It was also their first Hackathon experience or actual meaningful group work.
Already on the second day, participants left later than during other workshops done
"Oz is an Educator much more than his technical skills. A sure-bet horse." Mr Saracino, exhibition manager
DESIGN:
I spent enormous effort on the on-boarding experience: getting to know one another, mixing the people together, and creating a fertile ground for creativity and collaboration.
Started with social activities to introduce people and social ice breakers. We also offered a lot of play testing the device to understand the capabilities of the tech.
We had a history lesson about the subject of the exhibition. Then we learned the Unity engine. The ideation process arrived to its top on the 3rd day with the elevator pitch and group sorting. I sorted the groups according to their passion for the idea itself. Then we had 2 days for development, and in the last day we prepared for presentations.
"The focus of this week might look like its to building applications. Its not. The focus is to prepare you all to your future job place, where you are forced to collaborate with others you might not like". This is the moto I told the participants in middle of the experience.
From Teenagers to Colleagues
From a "Boring" History Lecture to a Successful Vessel of Teaching
One of the points where I saw the wonders of passion, is when we asked the teenagers to listen to Stefano Zuffi, a professional historian expert for the life of Leonardo Da-Vinci and his painting "Battaglia di Anghiari". I asked the kids to write down any critical information they hear, since games rely on content. I prepared them in advance that the speaker might have a "more traditional teaching style than mine", but urged them to ask questions about things you might find more interesting.
I was very surprised they actually did put a lot of questions, and they did learn a lot. If you would ask those kids about Leonardo's life, you would see that they actually remember a lot. This is a proof that when given the right challenge, kids can listen and learn.
Ideation and Brainstorm Stage
Idea Pitching and Grouping
Project Management Skills Developed
Quick Art Direction Workshop
Actual Work
Final Presentations to the Parents
Summary video of the school week including interview with the participants. In Italian.
Journalism Cover
"But thanks to the guidance of Shachar Oz, an Israeli game designer, several mentors from the Event Horizon school of video games, and the stuff of Golinelli Foundation, we teached the participants to use Unity, a program to develop games, and create video games and graphics in just a few days", Wrote the Corriere Della Sera (the Italian equivalent of the New York Times) on 17 November 2019.
Results
TEAM:
Shachar Oz: Planning, Running Event
Alessandro Saracino: Production, Management
Matteo Balasso: Lead SW Development of Exhibition
Mentors: from the Event Horizon school of game development- Alessandro Stoduto, Francesco Barton, Ylenia Barzan, Fabiola Bonfanti, Roberto Venezia, Issac Parise
Mentors: from the Event Horizon school of game development- Alessandro Stoduto, Francesco Barton, Ylenia Barzan, Fabiola Bonfanti, Roberto Venezia, Issac Parise
35 Participants
Team of the Exhibition:
Andrea Zanotti, Silvia Evangelisti, Carlo Fiorini, Stefano Zuffi
"We want to thank you for the experience we made together. We enjoyed it and learnt a lot." Francesco Barton, Alessandro Stoduto, Ylenia Barzan, Fabiola Bonfanti, Roberto Venezia, Issac Parise - the Mentors from the Event Horizon school of Game Development
