Workshop 01

Topic: Traffic Lights Exercise
I attended this workshop last year and had a fair idea of what we would be doing in the lecture. I still, however did not have a solution of my own to the Traffic Lights exercise.
In my group, we brainstormed and sketched diagrams of traffic lights and tried to figure out how they work. We came up with many different solutions, but we were unable to complete the full amount of stages. We got as far as timers, right turns are restricted, control centres, cameras and sensors controlling the operation, however we couldn't come up with how they actually connect and work. We struggled with those in between stages a lot.
I learned about how everything we do is a process of countless steps and building blocks to get to the final outcome. I learned that you can't just jump into creating something without some sort of process. Things that seem so familiar in our every day lives (like traffic lights) are actually really complex systems when you try to figure out how they work. After all that I discovered that the question "How do traffic lights work?" is a very good discussion starter.

Delivery: 
This activity was a good way to get people to expand their minds and start talking about their ideas and theories. In groups we got to see how other individuals work, and how close and open minded they may be.

Reflection:
I think that having to write about my experience helps me remember the reasons why we did this type of exercise to begin with. It got people to work our minds really hard and it even got some people frustrated, all of the things we have to prepare for when working on our games this semester, as well as working on other modules like visual design fundamentals and our group project.



Animated traffic junction
 (source: here)