★ 001. the past week

So after a week of trying to figure out why my blog wouldn't work like everyone else's ... the answer was simple. All I needed was to post one entry and my blog would have worked. Hmm, maybe it does help to read all instructions and not half the manual.

The tasks in the past week allowed us to interact with one another, with the first one being Social Networking. This task was simple, we answered questions as we went along, written them up on post-it notes, linking them with our name on the wall. Later, we were told to link together all the similarities. Although the task was very simple, we were able to very easily see the similarities between each other. It was an easy way to collect a large amount of data and present it in a way which was visually pleasing to the eye.

In the second task, Situational Shuffle, we were split into teams of four. After deciding roles, we were given a deck of cards with instructions on them, and told to walk around city as the cards say, documenting and tracking as we went along. My group finished the task in about two hours, quite a long time, but the it was quite enjoyable.

My Reflective Statement --

Confusion. Awkwardness. Exhaustion.

Mixed feelings felt within a span of two hours. The task was simple — follow a set of instructions until there were no more instructions to follow. It was confusing at first, “what was the purpose?” Then as soon as we started walking around, it was awkward. Following tattooed men, chalking on the ground wherever we ended up… The people around us became confused. And of course, it was a quite tiring. A lot of walking was involved. There were restrictions. We were not allowed to change the given instructions, and we needed to be patient.

But despite that, we learned to communicate with each other and work together. We had to work as a group, even if it meant leaving our comfort zone to work with new people. There were also a few people we had to look for, objects we had to pick up, cars we had to count… Using our eyes, we visually observed the surroundings around us, in every different location we ended up at. We noticed things around us that we would not normally have noticed. Downtown suddenly seemed a lot bigger.

The third and final task challenged our creativity the most. We were told to create a brand new chess piece, including the name, the shape, the characteristics, and of course, the movements. We were to come up with a brand new protocol that would be relevant in modern day chess. Our first idea was "The Ninja" -- it can move in any direction possible, however only two squares a time. The Ninja's special ability is that it is able to disguise itself as the first opposing chess piece it takes out, moving as that chess piece would for the rest of the game. As The Queen has the most powerful movements, the player would then have to plan very carefully in order to be able to trap The Queen and taking it out with The Ninja. Taking out a Pawn with The Ninja would be very unwise.

However we were told later that we should only focus on the movements of the protocol and not how it interacts with other chess pieces. We realised that two squares did not meet the minimum required three squares, so we came up with a new protocol. "Mister Tee" can only move forwards, backwards, left or right, advancing three squares and then one more square to either the left or the right, created the letter "T".

We were then told that we were to move as our chess piece would move, from Britomart back to Aotea Square. Not only did this task allow us to create something new, it also teaches us to apply creativity into everyday situations. Luckily, our chess piece did not have any particular fancy moves such as moving diagonal or jumping over squares. With the rule that one square = one block in the city, we took the easiest route and found ourselves at our destination in a bit over half an hour. Not bad for having to walk with restrictions.