Pokemon Catch-a-Thon || Team Kappa

Team Kappa - Members (*joking)

• Kimberly Ha –Team Leader, prop-maker, runner, theme-maker, *balloon-phobic
• Melinda Kuei - prop-maker, runner, team name maker, *balloon enthusiast
• Kyle Jacquemart – leaderboard maker, prop-maker, balloon taper, *lackey, *only male
• Avery Bell – timed distance between bases, insight provider, helped brainstorm ideas/tactics for project

Note: This is a long reflection dedicated to covering many of the aspects that went into this project

Project Description/Premise:

The goal of the project was for teams to devise a method of getting a random stranger to pick up and move an object of our choosing from our home base to an opponent’s base while passing by flags scattered between the team bases to gain points. This had to be done without any verbal communication with the participant during the event. The team with the most points (time + # of flags) were the winners.

Project Solution Brainstorm:

In order to gain the interest of strangers to participate in this project, we explored many different scenarios of gameplay. Some themes that were brought up during brainstorm include Pokemon, zombie attack, robbery and a few others. However, after talking amongst ourselves and hearing a tale of some sad pirates, we thought that it would be in our best interest if we had a theme that was friendlier in its appearance, while also being well-known and widely accepted. Out of all the ideas, we gravitated towards the themes of Pokemon or the Legend of Zelda. For both options, we had the idea of giving the person a quest that would require them to go around and collect objects placed on the flags to gain more points.

For the Zelda theme, we thought of the idea of having little papier-mâché pots with little rupees inside of them that the player would collect at the flags and a sword would be the object they would carry. The goal would be to get to the shop to buy a shield before it closes. For the Pokemon theme, we were having more trouble thinking of a plot to go along with the theme. We were debating a number of ideas, ranging from stopping Team Rocket from stealing pokemon to saving sick/injured pokemon and taking them to a pokemon center for medical treatment to saving lost/baby pokemon and returning them to their families. In order to settle the debate, Kyle and Melinda conducted field research and polled random people whether they liked Pokemon or Zelda more. The results showed that more people seemed to either like or know Pokemon more than Zelda. After that, we decided to go with a “catch legendary Pokemon” theme, leading to our preparations for the actual project.

Project Solution Preparations:

In preparing for the race, we came up with methods to recruit people to participate and ways to help the participant navigate the course to the finish line. The object of our choosing was a small Pikachu plush doll which served as the participant’s companion as they ran around campus “catching” pokemon we had placed on the flags. For the pokemon on each flag we printed out images of legendary pokemon (provided by Kimberly) and placed them behind paper pokeball cutouts (which made it look super legit, see pictures below). We also made little town signs for each pokemon which was the relative location where each one was located in the games to add extra atmosphere to the experience (provided by Melinda).

In order to help the player complete their quest, we came up with various tools to assist with navigation, eg. a map with the start, end and flag locations, as well as balloons placed between each point. To recruit people, we came up with ways to invite them to participate without speaking to them directly and vocally. We did this by creating signs inviting them to come catch legendary pokemon and instructions detailing what we would be doing (we even had audio clips which we would use to invite people to play). We had Pokemon memes on picket signs, two big Pikachu plushes to visually attract participants, and we were going to blast Pokemon orchestral music that people would recognize. In order to create a sense of competition and make it more exciting, we came up with the idea of creating a fake leaderboard with times on it to motivate people to not only play but to also try and persuade them to run.

Balloons that were left after multiple popped

The Race:

For the race itself, we showed up at 8:30am in order to prepare for the event. We printed out the maps and Kimberly went out to place the pokemon and the city markers near the flags while Melinda and Kyle taped the pokeball cutouts onto the balloons and the leaderboard onto a stool which the little Pikachu would later be stationed upon. After all the preparations were completed (which unfortunately took longer than anticipated) Melinda and Kyle rushed over to help Kimberly who was at the base trying to recruit someone.

Kimberly: At 10:20am (starting time), it was difficult to find someone who was willing to even make eye-contact with me. A few mins later, I had two people come up but they told me they only wanted to take a picture. A young women came up to me a few minutes after that and it seemed like she was ready to participate. I flipped through the signs and she gave me a nod to show that she understood what to do. Kyle and Melinda joined me then but as Melinda showed her the stopwatch and had the sign “Ready...Set…”, her eyes widened and she stuttered, “Wait you mean right now? Uhh I can’t right now, I have a meeting. Can I go build something and come back later?” We all shook our heads furiously and tapped our fingers down in front of us indicating it had to be done NOW. She frowned and apologized, walking off with a note that she will try and send someone else over.

After all hope seemed lost, a young man looking at his phone walked by, becoming a beckoning ray of light which pierced through the dark veil of defeat. Melinda ran up to him shoving a sign in his face and to our surprise he showed interest. After showing him the signs with the instructions, he was willing to participate and Melinda and Kimberly ran with him while Kyle waited behind at the base to watch the stuff (who also dashingly photobombed another teams picture in the process).

Kimberly: We booked it across campus to get 8 flags as he followed behind me. He was amazing and I give him props to be able to run at full speed throughout the whole thing. At the end, even I was heaving and could barely breath. We learned he was here for Freshman Orientation that started in an hour or so and this was going to be his first experience here at the UW. While running in the quad towards the 7th flag, I watched as another team's participant running towards me was thumbtack happy and popped our Pokemon balloon as he passed.

We finished the race at 10:40, with the actual run being 9mins 40secs. In the end, we thanked him for his help and gave him a pokemon plush doll as a prize (those things are pretty expensive). After all the points were tallied up, we learned we were the third fastest team (out of 4), but we had the most flags, giving us 14pts total (6pts for time + 8pts for flags). However, the team who had the second fastest time was disqualified due to talking during the race, so we gained 8pts for being 2nd place time, giving us 16pts total and tied for 1st place.

Reflection:

While doing this project there were a few bumps along the road which we had to overcome. During the race itself, a major issue that came up was the placing of the balloons as it too long to tape them down, leaving Kimberly all to her lonesome trying to recruit people. The main reason why (besides my lack of taping skills) was that it was windy during the time of setup, so we were a little too cautious and decided to double tape the balloons on the ground and the pokeballs on the balloons (they only had one piece in the middle and were flopping around). We addressed this halfway through by just taping the remaining balloons with one piece and praying that they wouldn’t fly away. Another related issue that could have possibly saved time was the over-preparedness and the amount of props we had to take care of as many of the things we had prepared we ended up not using or it was irrelevant in the end such as the city signs and the balloons themselves as Kimberly and Melinda just ended up running alongside him. The props we only really needed were the ones at the stand themselves- the Pikachu dolls (including the object itself) the leaderboard and the signs we held. However, this observation is made in hindsight and we also were lucky that the person we recruited wasn’t busy at the time, so it’s not to say that all the props we made were completely useless as they did add to the experience in some form or another. Things to change would be to have made less signs (as we had many we couldn’t display due to lack places to put them or hold) and keeping only the essential ones which informed people what we were doing only, taping the balloons and the pokeballs on them once, and to make the instructions onto one sheet for person to read instead of multiple bigger sheets as flipping through them wasn’t as efficient.

As we were doing this project some informative and interesting things happened. While we were play-testing our idea before the actual event day, we were able to get one group of people interested in the project which allowed us to gain needed insight in preparing for the actual thing. Some insight we acquired was that we lacked the right means of communication to notify them of what exactly we were doing, so we needed signs that were more direct in telling them the objective instead of just subtly implying it as we were. Another things is that although we tried to point out the Pikachu doll for the person to pick up, he ended up not noticing it and kicking it by accident. This let us know that we needed something to make the object more noticeable and easier to see, prompting us to get stool to sit the doll on and also giving us a place to put the leaderboard on so that we wouldn’t have to carry it.

Overall, despite the minor issues we came across such as being able to recruit someone quickly in the beginning (since it was just Kimberly by herself) and the setting up balloons took longer than intended, it was a rather successful and fun experience as were able to gain some people’s interest in our project and get someone to want to fully participate in it.

Final Closing:

Kyle: I would like to thank all members of Team Kappa for being wonderful people and teammates as without them it would not have been as fun or successful as it was. I would like to thank Kimberly for being the glue that held the team together as well as being the main contributor of the theme of the project and creating signs and printing out the pokemon. I would like to thank Melinda for creating the city signs, helping plan out the map route, getting the balloons and helping creating props. I would like to thank Avery who, although she was unable to provide help later on due to unforeseen issues involving her grad school senior capstone project, provided help and insight and ideas which were helpful during the initial stages of the project. I would also like to thank our teacher Dominic for providing us the opportunity to be able to do an activity like this as it was not only fun but an informative and insightful experience as well.