Driving Question: How can we create and design a mobile game that is marketed as fun but also portrays themes of entrepreneurship and science?

Full Project Link: https://sites.google.com/view/independentstudymodule/home

Project Overview: Throughout this module, we designed, coded, and built a tycoon clicker-based game that educates users on concepts of business and biology whilst maintaining a fun marketing campaign.

First, we studied game design by recreating an arcade game of our choice including code and user interface. The next step was to continue the development of our game, which we created the base concept and plan for in China. We built the wireframe, sound design, and rest of the graphics for the game throughout the Blockchain module.

Game Concept Summary: Our game is an idle clicker/tycoon game. The main concept behind this genre is that you collect money in order to spend money on making money faster. The genre follows this loop consistently, but we have put our own little twist on it. In the game, the player starts off by getting their own restaurant. In this restaurant the player has to keep upgrading to keep bringing in more customers, selling better food and making more money. This restaurant is a special one that uses Genetically Modified Food (GMOs) to make the restaurant more efficient.

Formative 1: Recoded Arcade Game To practice creating and finishing a product, we wanted to recode an arcade game. We chose space invaders, and simplified it to its core mechanics. We coded this and drew the visual assets over the process of around 3 days.

Formative 2: Hi-Fi Wireframe In order to plan our game effectively, we needed to create a wireframe. This helps us to test the UI and how users will move around the game. This began with a Lo-Fi wireframe but developed into our Hi-Fi Wireframe.

Formative 3: Sample of Soundtrack We looked into the process of creating a video game soundtrack in order to begin designing our own one. We ended up creating a quick sample of a soundtrack for our game.

Formative 4: Marketing Plan We investigated how to market video games, and the best methods to do so. We also investigated to work out the best target demographic for our game. Eventually we used this research to create a marketing plan.

Driving Question: How can we teach the concepts of branding, marketing, and project management to build a fashion brand?

Project Overview: We developed this service project to help local Panamanian fashion entrepreneurs Maale & Lorena build their streetwear brand, Sure. We did so by designing a website, graphics, and by offering business strategy through regular phone calls. We found the work to be more rewarding than initially expected. In this process, we not only discovered a passion for graphic design but also became passionate about the future of the project. Are You Sure refers to the branding we came up with in conjunction with the two young women.

During the fifth week, right before heading to WeXplore in Venao, Principal Russell Cailey asked for volunteers to help two of the girls at Hairarchy build a business website for a fashion brand. There we realized they were missing other important elements of their business so we decided to help.

As to who they are exactly, Maale and Lore are two Colombian girls that moved to Panama and began working in Hairarchy Casco. Lore is a bartender at La Bárbara, the speakeasy that operates at the back of the salon and Maale is the receptionist for the salon. They are both passionate, creative, and entrepreneurial people that love to use art to communicate with the world around them and they both love music!

It was also great to have our hard work recognized by two of the other members of their team, Ryan and Dave. One thing led to another, and Levith and I got offered a part in the brand if we continued with the project. The service project has become a passion project, and we very eager to see its development in the future.

Driving Question: How can we improve our health using Chinese concepts?

Project Overview: In the this module, we investigated how traditional Chinese medicine concepts can use artificial intelligence to improve our health. Through our two months in Shanghai, we learned about the core concepts behind traditional Chinese medicine, and in many instances we explored their uses ourselves.

With this background knowledge, we applied it to the creation of a software similar to a chatbot. The chatbot is used to diagnose and treat people using traditional Chinese medicine techniques and practices. NaiBot hopes to make eastern medicine accessible for newer generations as well as western audiences. We hope you take some time to see how the chatbot works and try it for yourself!

Test the NaiBot: https://bot.dialogflow.com/NAIBOT

Liam Davis Bosch’s Process Portfolio:

Driving Question: How can I use non-fictional storytelling to convey a meaningful message about sustainable living?

Project Description: The “Green Leaf” podcast is a 10 minutes podcast. It discusses some aspects of sustainable living. I talk about overconsumption, environmental concerns, fast fashion and how they could all fit into a sustainable lifestyle.

Our remote learning module has been a fun getaway during this quarantine. Fast fashion represents a big part of everyone’s life as most of us dress with it, so it was really interesting to look more into its effects on the environment and how we can reduce them.