James - Work Experience

James is a year 10 student who worked at Daden for one week as part of his course. The following is an account of time at Daden as written by James.

After a team meeting on Monday, I set to work getting to grips with Fieldscapes, using the tutorials to create a quiz that takes the user through the world answering various questions, which turned out to be useful later on (my geography knowledge was tested in a quiz mid-week, so knowing that Ulaanbaatar was the capital of Mongolia from my own project was very helpful!)

 I was then set the task of importing files from Paint 3D into Fieldscapes, which provoked research into the numerous 3D file types available, their uses, as well as how to model a 3D object.

Some default models in Paint3D in 3D mode

Finally, I was then able to export Paint 3D files as an fbx into Unity, then to create an asset bundle to be imported into Fieldscapes; although we encountered problems with offsets and colours along the way, which proved to also be a great learning experiences. The asset bundle I made featured artistic marvels such as a coffee cup with 3D text and a rainbow.

Paint3D models imported into Fieldscapes

In addition, I was present at a meeting that showed me the many uses of virtual reality and 3D, as well as how business between two companies is carried out.

Then on Wednesday, I made an inventory of all the computers in the office, prompting discussion about aspect ratios, computer specs and anti-virus software, as well as having to use the computers’ BIOS’ and learning about the financial side of things with discussions about the cost of the computers.

Next on Thursday I was involved in testing, giving me insight into how it is carried out, along with the gratifying feeling of discovering a funny bug, in this case props being placed in the sky and avatars floating into the air, seemingly ascending to heaven.

I then participated in the testing of a virtual mentor, which again showed the need for and the process of testing and both the positives and negatives of using VR and 3D in the classroom. Next I tried programming a chat bot, adding an input box to it, which greatly improved my JavaScript, as well as allowing me to practice HTML and CSS in a practical environment, not just a classroom and all throughout the week I had a go at C# programming, which I learned from scratch.

Finally on Friday, I continued with programming a chat bot, improving and optimising already existing code. I used JavaScript to present contacts, as well as CSS to improve the appearance of the bot in general adding an input area, an enter button and a scroll bar if the chat overflows.

Daniel, Humza and Julio - Work Experience

During 5-9 Jun we played host to three Yr10 students from Aston University Engineering Academy students on work experience. Two of them (Daniel and Humza) had already spent a week with us earlier in the year. Here is their collective report (verbatim).

HUMZA 
Chatbot & Chatscript

Monday - We were assigned our tasks and our mentors to help us with our tasks. Adam showed me what a chatbot is and an example of one. Then he showed me the coding behind the bot.

Tuesday - I started to write some of my own code for the Henry Bot. Just some of the basics. Towards the end of the day Adam asked me to think of a topic for me to program my own bot on.

Wednesday - I couldn’t think of a topic so Adam chose one for me. I then had the rest of the day to code my bot and occasionally getting help from Adam. The image below shows me chatting to the bot.

Thursday - I was close to finishing my bot, Adam wanted me to start learning HTML and CSS coding, so I could create a webpage to talk to the bot online.
Friday: Adam was not here so I was not able finish my web page for the bot. Overall, I have had a good week and learnt a lot of skills that I can use later in life.

DANIEL 
Fieldscapes 

Monday - Out of the three options we were given, I chose to complete the Fieldscapes task. For this I had to download the Fieldscapes app onto my phone and was given a few hours to test out most of the maps and report any bugs I found. Alongside this, I gave feedback of suggestions or any improvements they could make. The image shows some of my suggestions.

Tuesday - I had the task of searching for 3D models of props that would replace existing props. However, while looking for models I had to consider the different file types that Unity accepts and if they fit into the criteria.

Wednesday - On Wednesday, I created a word document that explains to a new user how each widget works and what it does. For example, the Tape Measure. For me to complete this task, I had to use Fieldscapes and try out each widget. Towards the end of the day, Humza and I created videos showing how to play Fieldscapes on mobile.

Thursday - After David purchased the props, I imported them into Unity and began resizing and texturing them. However, I mainly focused on an idea that David came up with regarding an intractable chess board. This required me to texture, resize and add a collider to each chess piece. I resized the new props by using various old props as reference to what size ‘roughly’ they should be.

Friday - On the last day, I finished up previous scripts and wrote my blog.

JULIO 
Amazon Alexa Skill & Javascript 

Monday - On the first day at Daden I had to learn how to code with JavaScript, this meant that I had to use code academy and complete the course on JavaScript

Tuesday - On the next day with my new knowledge of JavaScript I was given the task of producing a new skill for Alexa, this was supposed to take in a question which would then output a response, the coding was in JavaScript. The skill was based on the fact that Alexa had to say, “Hello world” due to a trigger which would have been my question. The image is a screen shot of the Alexa skill building app.

Wednesday - Being halfway through the week I was tasked with exploring a new objective which was to use Zap works to create some augmented reality content. This website allowed the user to create a storage of the information which a marker would trigger the “pop up” of the context which could either be images, videos, soundtracks, or information which would be linked to websites. There were different stages that had different levels of difficulty in the making but there was more manipulation over the content which meant that augmented reality could be created.

Thursday - On Thursday I carried on with the building of three new intents for Al exa, this time alone, when I finished this I had to learn how to use switch statements to reduce the amount of code there was and to make the code more efficient, once this was done I had to change the utterances of the skills to make grammatically correct so that it makes sense to the person saying the skill. Finally, I had to find out why the response that Alexa gave started with “undefined” but I didn’t manage to do it so I had to use a replace method in order to replace undefined with “The answer is ”. The image shows a switch statement I wrote in my Alexa skill.

Friday - On the last day of my work experience I had to create this blog as my final task.

Daniel and Humza Work Experience

By: Daniel and Humza, Yr10, AUEA

On the 13th of February, we arrived at the Daden office and were introduced to Nash and Sean. Sean and Nash were going to be the ones helping us learn and develop skills in software testing and also using different software such as Unity 3D. For the first day we learned the basics of Fieldscapes, one of Daden's products that allow to go on a virtual fieldtrip. In our opinion Fieldscapes is easy to learn and understand. Fieldscapes also has a wiki one can reference if they need help.

On the second day we were a given one tasks to complete for the week. Firstly we asked to test Fieldscapes and look for bugs in the software. During our testing we were also asked to think of an experience we would to create using Fieldscapes. We created a mind map of all the ideas that we had. In the end, we agreed to use Pokémon because of the endless ideas that we had that would work well by adjusting Pokémon.

  

On the third day we started to download 3d models of Pokémon and import into Unity. Once they were imported, we had to adjust their length and widths so they would be able to fit onto our world. We downloaded about 15 Pokémon alongside buildings and a small city.

On the fourth day, after we sorted out our Pokémon, we started to work on the landscape. We were showed how to access the Unity Asset Store to see the terrains we would use. We chose a grass terrain and edited it to fit in with our planning diagram. We changed the middle area to be flat for the city, with mountains covering the outside.

On the final day, we imported both the terrain and Pokémon onto a Fieldscapes and started to create settings for each Pokémon. For example if you were to tap on one it would make a sound and show the details about it. Instead of repeating this for each Pokémon, we used the clone tool when we found the location to hide them, they were given the same properties. We used unity in order for us to adjust and resize the models of the Pokémon.

We also were able to use the Oculus Rift to explore the world we have made and all the Pokémon that we have inserted in virtual reality

Overall we have enjoyed week here and everyone was kind and helpful.