Article by Radhika and Shane
Storyblog by Euclea Tan, Verlyn Ku, Natalie Lem, Andrew Sutjipto
One crucial part of the Groundwork booklet made for the elderly registered under Filos, as part of the Batch Project that USP embarked on this year, was the puzzles and games section. There was at least one puzzle in the booklet for each weekday and around 20 puzzles in total per month. These puzzles and games ranged from intellectual puzzles like Sudoku and math riddles to visual games such as “Spot the Difference” and even some physical activities such as recipes for cooking simple dishes! The Games Committee was in charge of creating these activities to engage the elderly, and it consisted of about 40 members(largest among the three committees- Games, Education and Design). Most games and puzzles had around two to three members of the committee working on them.
The purpose of the games committee was mainly to keep the elderly engaged as many of them might be feeling lonely especially during these difficult times. The committee hence aimed to create games and puzzles that would be both simple and fun so as to ensure that the elderly would find doing them enjoyable and would engage with them every day. The activities were also aimed at helping to keep the elderly active both physically and mentally.
The process of creating the games for the July booklet began with a briefing about the aim of the games and guidelines to creating appropriate games by the Batch Project Committee through a Zoom meeting on 12 June. Within the Zoom meeting itself, possible games were then discussed. This proved to be rather efficient as the seniors could share their insights on the feasibility and appropriateness of the games there and then, while the freshmen could also give suggestions to each other to improve their ideas. After the list of games were finalized on a Google Document, the freshmen then listed their names besides the titles of the activities that they were interested in, and this way it was decided how the workload will be divided and what each person was in charge of.
Thereafter, all the freshmen went on to collaborate with the others who had indicated their interest for the same activities as them to come up with the first draft for their puzzles and games. As this was not possible physically in light of the current situation, this was mostly done through online platforms as well, such as Zoom. In order to ensure that these games would be meaningful, the first drafts of all the activities were shared with Filos to get their feedback. While some games were instantly approved by Filos, they did give feedback for improvement for many of the games. Working on a tight schedule, the freshmen of these respective games then had to make changes to their games before the deadline, which was in less than five days. After all relevant edits were made, these games were compiled together by the design team who then finalized the booklet.
This process was then repeated for the creation of the August edition of the booklet, though the timeline was much less packed this time as the creation of the booklet started in early July the creation of the July edition had started in around mid-June (since that was when Batch Project started for freshmen).
Given the current Covid-19 landscape, the Games Committee had the challenging task of creating high-quality and user-friendly content for the elderly despite the physical limitations imposed by the current healthcare situation. With a limited working time frame to complete the colouring activity, Zhijun and her team dedicated more than seven hours of their time out of their hectic schedule each day for three consecutive days to complete the activity. Despite facing a relatively steep learning curve in having to adapt to using the drawing software (Paint Tool SAI), the initiative of each team member to step up and contribute helped the team readily resolve any miscommunications and technical hurdles that came in their way. Zhijun was extremely satisfied to see the team’s effort come to fruition in the final product, that their effort and dedication in these trying times had paid off.
While many enjoyed seeing the fruits of their labour, many too enjoyed the entire process of Game Creation. After all, a good process is one that motivates an individual to desire to do better! By giving USP freshmen the chance to meet their fellow batch mates, Batch Project has indeed provided an avenue of opportunity for freshmen to interact with one another in times where physical interaction is highly limited. Fellow freshman Simone had truly enjoyed the process of designing games through the collaboration with two of her batch mates on Zoom, as she felt that these gave her the opportunity to make two new friends even before embarking on a new journey of her life in NUS and USP.
Despite the multitude of challenges faced by the Games Committee in these challenging times, the members of the Games Committee chose not to be bogged down by the physical limitations but rather overcame the hurdles faced by going the extra mile and placing a greater emphasis on the importance of collaboration. The complement of modern technology and communication helped the Games Committee to facilitate more fruitful discussions, and to allow team members to critically evaluate the feasibility and engagement of each game so as to ensure a meaningful experience for the elderly participants. We believe that all participants of Batch Project 2020 will display the same levels of pride and enthusiasm in their contributions to the betterment of society!
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