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File me in
Posted August 20, 2009
on:An attempt in decreasing cheating in our everyday sign up
(Though we highly do not recommend it)
Each student has a card(two weeks on each card) which is separated in-terms of years instead of specialization, since most of us mostly consider signing-in for our same-specialization friends because we know who comes late and what classes we have. Thus by arranging it in terms of classes, we are minimising the chances of finding our specialization friends.
It is arranged in alphabetical order, as seen in the picture with slots for each alphabet. It is made easier for the students to find their card by searing within a maximum of 10 cards, in a single tray which is meant for their batch. All they have to do it search in the slot with first letter of their name. This is placed near the main gate, minimising the time the student needs to get to the sign up, thus more people can be on time! The time when the student collects the card is the time noted. They need to do this before 9.00 am.
The student then takes his/her card and signs on it and needs to hand it over personally in the office upstairs before 9.05 am, thus again, minimising the cheating. Even if the student flicks someone else’s card, it is impossible for them to hand over two cards to the administrator.
This mainly draws from a filing system. This system
– Reduces commotion and noise when people crowd around various notepads each morning
– Makes students run less
– Ensures two stages at which a student can be caught cheating
– Thus decreasing chances of students singing up for other students
Here is a storyboard of a possible scenario in Srishti on a Wednesday morning. (Please click on the image and then press ctrl and + to enlarge)
Shower Vs Bucket
I made a small set up at in a friend’s bathroom to see what their reaction was, when they entered. I tied a bucket to the top of the shower to collect any water that came from it, i.e. making the shower un-useable. Another bucket was placed under the taps and both had labels stuck to them. The top one saying ‘Look Down’ and the Bottom onesaying ‘Pick me!’
Later one could re-visit the little paragraph of the bucket on top that reads ‘Don’t look at me! He is better off really. A shower uses up to 160L of water, even a short one, up to 80L. That’s a lot of water! Even if you use 2-3 buckets of water, you would still be using half the amount of water used in a shower.’
Many people use the shower frivolously, without knowing how much water it wastes. Some assume that short showers save water! In fact, a bucket is only 18L and is more than sufficient for a normal bath and is 1/10th the amount a 5 minute shower takes! So this is a way to tell people to choose the good old bucket!
Drip Drip Drip
A small drip from a faucet can waste as much as 75 litres of water a day!
That is a massive amount. It seemed really drastic to me when I visualised it in terms of bottled water bottles. So, I decided to make it a small interactive activity. I made cut-outs of 1 litre pet bottles and asked my friends to guess how much water gets wasted in half a day, say the time they are in college, from a dripping tap in their house. They were then to place that many bottles in their wash basin which had a dripping tap, to symbolise the amount of water wasted. Each one made their estimate. Once they were done, I placed the actual amount of water that gets wasted and it was 5 times as much as their estimates. I hope they either try and collect this water in buckets or try and gets their dripping taps fixed after this!
Each bottle is one litre of water.
2 of them guessed 6 litres and one guessed 7
But actually, if a tap drips for half a day, around 35 litres of water is lost!
Flush Series
Toilets use about 30% of the total water used in a household. An old style single flush toilet used up to 13 litres of water in one flush. New, more water-efficient dual-flush toilets use 6 litres for a full flush and 4 litres with a reduced flush. That’s still a lot of water for a single flush! To remind how much water we are actually using, here are a few provocative statements acting as nudges I had put up in the girls loo’s in the old campus.
A slice of apple in the loo with text that says “Each time you push this lever down; you are just flushing down the amount of water needed to obtain a slice of apple. Feed it to someone instead”
Another one that says “Each time you push this lever down; you are flushing down enough water for a person’s consumption for a whole day”
The final one shows an image of ten 10L pet bottles filled with water, informing the user of the loo that they use about 10L of water each time they flush and this could be saved and used elsewhere!
The alternative options would be to use buckets to flush or a reduced flush which uses the minimum amount of water needed in the right force. The ones we have in college right now use a massive amount of water for no reason!
Water Works- Aajwanthi and Pushpi
Posted August 6, 2009
on:- In: Games
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Water Works is the game proposal we came up with using our words water- consumption and uses, procedural knowledge and chance. It is a 3D simulation of an everyday situation in an urban household setting. The player can choose his/her avatar and have to manage their main resources which are water and money in order to finish their daily chores. They will face (by chance) disastrous events as well as rewards if they manage their resources well. They finish the game if they complete all their tasks on time and make wise decisions regarding the mode of doing their chores and managing their resources well. If they have excess water or money left at the end, they can carry it on to the next game using their water card.
This could also be developed as a multi-player game, with each person taking on different roles in a family in the household.
To begin with is a slide of the rules and situations that could occur in the game. Following this are screen shots of how different scenarios could be visualised.