The document describes Vanessa Roa's Major Studio 2012 project called "The Virtual Maze". The project aimed to have total strangers work together to move a robot across an interface. It was inspired by the Subservient Chicken marketing campaign. Wireframes and rough sketches show early designs for the maze interface. A non-working prototype of the website is shown. In the conclusion, Vanessa reflects that the point system and webcam quality could be improved, and that she aims to further develop the project's direction and utilize an Arduino Protoshield.

1. Spider 1.0
The Virtual Maze
Vanessa Roa
Major Studio 2012

2. Introduction
The Virtual Maze
Robots; if you got people together, in one
room, to try to send the same command to
one Robot to commit one action, what would
happen? On the surface, one would deduce
that The goal of this project was to connect
total strangers to work together and make a
robot move across an interface.

3. Precedents
Inspiration
The Subservient Chicken -
A 2004 Burger King Marketing
campaign for Burger King's Tender
Crisp. The site was created by The
Barbarian Group of Boston,
Massachusetts, and hosted in
Kansas, Missouri. Users could type
in over 300 commands and based
on the responses the site received,
a man in a chicken costume wearing
garters on top would perform
various tricks for you.

4. Wireframes
Mock Ups
The first wireframes for my original idea, I moved away from this because the IRC
format would have been confusing.

5. Rough Sketches
Creating a Maze
Drawing plans for the maze. I made the first sketch on the right
before realizing that the layout of the panels wouldn't have been
wide enough for the spider to move through.

6. Prototypin'
Building a Maze
Various Stages of my maze, as I was building it. I had used some
wrapping paper for tracking, but the paper proved to actually be too
smooth for the glitter glue I had planned on using for it. I ended up
using some tissue paper to lay it down. The tissue paper helped.

7. The Website
Non-Working Prototype
My website, in the first stages of completion.
Click here to go to my site.

8. After Thoughts
The Virtual Maze
So, I don't know if the point system would have
worked as I envisioned it with a not so clear
webcam. The darkness and graininess of the video
was probably contributing to the the difficulty I had
prototyping the robot from a certain angle, so this is
something I would hope to flesh out.
Another point I want to bring up; the point system.
This is something I would flesh out a lot more and
make more clear. I felt like the x marks may not
have been clear enough on the map, so that's
another point I would revisit. I also wanted to steer
this project in a direction that would work for a
specific audience. This wasn't something I thought
about when I first brainstormed the project and I
think the ambiguous result lent itself to that.
I didn't get as far as utilizing the Arduino
Protoshield, although I bought it. It's something I
would love to play around with in the future.

9. Thanks
For watching!
Vanessa Roa
Major Studio 2012