Category: Flog

When I first started making hack #5 I thought I wanted to make another remix with as much AI as possible, so I had ChatGPT write a song at a certain bpm and found a free track that matched that vibe and bpm. I wanted to learn SynthV to create the vocals but I couldn’t get a voice bank to install for free even with the trial (definitely user error). While I was looking for an alternative AI powered vocal synth I found a website called Suno, and I just had to input the lyrics and a short prompt and it made the whole song… it sounded very realistic and this kind of killed my creativity and sent me into this spiral of wondering if I’ve been unknowingly listening to music that was completely created by AI like this song. Because of this crisis I pivoted and decided to remake hack #2 and try to include AI somehow since I’d been wanting to write about AI in some capacity. The only way I could think to do this was to play into something that may become a problem in the near future involving crime, so that’s how I came up with the idea of making an AI cctv spotting game. I’m not sure how well it actually works as a remake since the two projects are quite different, but they’re under the same umbrella of ideas so I thought that was good enough. 

I struggled a lot with actually creating realistic looking cctv images since AI like DALL-E 3 refused to make images depicting crimes, and Stable Diffusion struggled to make images that looked potentially real. I eventually found DeepAI, which seems to have looser restrictions but the images are not as realistic. They seemed to work well enough, though the game is easier than I wanted it to be.

​​After yesterday’s debate, this will be my last Flog for DIG 401. I didn’t mention Hack #5 before, so I’ll cover it now and include it in my final portfolio. For Hack #5, I created a beta version of Hack #2, the game I originally built to critique the U.S. healthcare system. I chose to revisit this hack because trying something entirely new felt overwhelming. Sticking with familiar tools allowed me to focus on refining the concept rather than wrestling with new software or program on my computer. At first, I thought my original design was flawless, but Dr. Sample’s feedback on Moodle convinced me there was room to improve. One challenge was time. During my class presentation, I ran out of time before I could show the updated treatment and illness cards or demonstrate a quick round of play with a classmate. I knew the mechanics worked, but without a live demo, the game’s emotional impact didn’t come through as strongly as I’d hoped. Another challenge was balancing complexity with clarity: adding new game elements risked confusing players, so I had to simplify rules without diluting the critical message, and I think I was able to embody that by adding more realistic examples!

I am writing this flog because I would like to write all 16 flogs. We are discussing right now the correct number of flogs, and it has become quite confusing. Supposedly we’re supposed to have 10 flogs, but this is now my 14th one! I am really quite confused but I hope Dr. Sample sorts this out.

Firstly, I am submitting this Flog late, it’s now Monday morning, because I completely forgot to turn it in on Friday, and unfortunately, it slipped my mind over the weekend as well. This oversight is entirely on me, and I recognize that I need to be more mindful about keeping up with deadlines, especially as the semester comes to a close. Additionally, I missed class on Tuesday because I was feeling very unwell. I ate something that didn’t sit right with me, which triggered a flare-up of my ongoing stomach issues. This discomfort eventually developed into a migraine, which made it difficult to function for the rest of the day. That said, reflecting on the past week, and really the semester as a whole, I’d say the experience has been a bit bittersweet. I’ve learned a lot and grown through the challenges, but I also feel mentally and emotionally ready for the break. I’m really looking forward to the summer, both to relax and to spend time with my family, whom I miss so much. Being far from home, especially my loved ones in Bolivia, has been tough at times, but it’s also helped me appreciate them even more.

This week was super exciting to see my classmates present their best hacks in an even better version. It was super clear to me that everyone took the time to “master” their design. There are a couple of things I wish I could have changed, however. Specifically, I wish I could have made a super small simulation of the game on some part of the board or created a scenario that would actually happen in the game. I believe that could have strengthened my classmate’s understanding of the game and the changes. Additionally, not a failure, but I am still questioning the visual aspect of my board. I do believe the handmade aspect adds something necessary to the game; however, I think there is still a better way to execute somewhere out there that I was unable to find. Other than these two small regrets, I am very pleased with my final Hack overall. It was something I really enjoyed, and I put a lot of hard work into it.

OH WAIT. How could I forget!!! The biggest failure this week was this dang WordPress site. I ran an update (because I was forced to), and it took DAYS. I mean DAYS to finish. I have no clue why. For the first day, it would not even begin the update, but it finally did. It was quite possibly the slowest thing ever. I left my computer open and charging so that it would go faster (that did not help!) At least know it is back up and running with the latest software for the final portfolio.

This week I was working on the last hack of the semester. It was hard for me to decide which hack I was going to make a beta version of because it had to be significantly better or different. I decided to work on Hack 3, UnDesmos because I remembered the comments and feedback I got in class about how I could make it better. I decided to build on the alpha and apply more meaning to the axes, as well as play around more with the affordances of Desmos to further make a claim. Some struggles I ran into while doing this hack was how I could not save my work. Usually, when saving math work in Desmos, it all saves, but with too many images it doesn’t save because of the bigger file size. I lost my progress many times if my page reloaded or the browser closed. Something I also struggled with was how long this project took, as I had to individually look for each photo in my camera roll, send it to my laptop, drag it into Desmos, and then format the picture. This entire process for one year of my camera roll took about an hour, so I wasn’t able to do the same thing for all 4 years. I wish I was able to do it for all years because I think it would have been interesting to see how I have grown, and what images I find important or significant, and which ones I don’t remember as well.

For me, the hardest part of class this week was figuring what changes needed to be made to my Hack #3 in order for me to really expand upon my first rendition of it. It was challenging for me to try to expand upon my previous project because in order for me to really grow this project, I felt like I needed a lot of other people to interact on it as well, that it could really simulate a social media platform. Unfortunately, I could not get people to help me out and interact with my project as the people I asked for help were very busy with finals work of their own. Instead of just making it “bigger,” I decided to take a step back and look at the main principles of my project. Initially, I wanted to make Google Docs in to a social media platform by utilizing its more playful features. I wanted to do this because I feel like oftentimes, Google Docs is seen in a very serious and professional light. In my first go-around at this project, I realized that in doing this, I completely ignored the whole professional side of Google Docs. I felt like instead of repurposing Google Docs, I completely ignored all of its original features and tools, which is not what I wanted to do at all.

When coming back to this project a second time, I wanted to incorporate features that cater to all types of users. I did some more playing around in the software and discovered even more tools that Google Docs has to offer. I came across the feature called “Smart Chips” that offers so many different types of things to add. Users can tag other people by linking their email addresses, set a timer, add in real locations, make checklists, and more. I decided to utilize most of these features as it allows for users to express themselves freely in just about any they please to, no matter how serious or playful. That is what makes this repurposing so special. Not many other social media platforms allow for this as it is often just intended for a completely social purpose. I really wanted to hit home this message in my revisiting of this project.

One of the biggest fails I had this week was scrapping my original final hack idea on Sunday night. I was originally going to redo my poetry bot from Hack 1 and my plan was to have users build their own poems and all the poems were famous ones written about works of art, so then when they build the final poem it would be next to a remixed work of art based on how the user made the poem. I decided to cut the idea because when I made my own mashup I thought the art looked weird and also I wanted to have more of a critical lens for my project.

After doing a lot of brainstorming, I realized how the Abacus could be used as an educational tool because my own hack with the abacus taught me how it works. I did a lot of brainstorming on ways to make it a game and a lesson that related back to my original idea.

In the process of creating my abacus I faced many challenges with my code. A complexity I didn’t realize was that Javascript uses RGB colors, but I wanted my abacus to be in CMYK because those color values are out of 100. While Claude accounted for this conversion when it wrote my code. It did not account for the fact that every color value had to be a multiple of 10. This meant it would give the user a color that was impossible to make with the abacus. This was something I had to fix with the code, so all the random values could be multiples of ten.

Claude’s initial code also did the spacing of the game very weirdly, so I had to manually fix a lot of the problems in where it placed text and different boxes as shown above. The code also added a bunch of labels to the beads and percentage points that I thought made the game too easy and would not allow the user to learn as much, so I had to go in and delete all of them to make the game harder.

The final challenge I ran into was that whenever the randomly generated color had 0 as one of the values, the abacus would initially not register that the user had matched the color. To fix this problem I had to add the check color button, so the code knew to actually go in and check the colors to see if they matched. While this was not the ideal solution, it proved to be more effective and fixed the problem.

This week, Hack 5 project tested my patience more than any other so far. I started off completely stuck, I couldn’t land on a narrative that felt especially meaningful or worth building around. Every idea felt too vague or too forced. Even once I chose the general concept of encoding a message graphically, I got tangled up in the logistics.

I knew I didn’t want to generate the equations by hand again, like in my last project. So, I experimented with building a tool that could generate encrypted messages automatically. I started collaborating with Claude to help construct the software, but things quickly got messy. Letters wouldn’t render correctly, and even after rounds of corrective prompting and patching the code myself, I realized I was spending more time fixing problems than making progress. The broader concept—creating an encrypted message—wasn’t strong enough to justify all that manual labor. It had potential, but still lacked conviction behind any specific narative examples.

That turning point forced me to ask the harder question: if I want to express realistic dangers through encoding, what would a realistic situation be? Once I reframed the project around meaning first, I landed on the idea of a ‘tutor’-student relationship.

Even though I abandoned my initial tool, I was still able to repurpose part of the code to help me generate the base equations. From there, I applied linear transformations to tailor them to my story. Ultimately, everything worked out for my Beta Release.

This week has flown by as we have just been focusing on sharing our presentations for Hack #4 in both Tuesday and Thursday’s classes. My biggest struggle this week was trying to complete my hack because I was bouncing around from idea to idea because I felt like what I had come up with wasn’t good enough for the guidelines of this last project. So, my biggest issue was trying to think of ways to expand my project because I really wanted to take the time to try and work more with what I had previously been working with on Spotify, which is using song names and playlists in different ways than they were originally intended. At the end of the day, my final product of having the song lyrics in the playlist translate a song in a different language than its original feels like a good outcome for my project. Although it was time consuming, it does highlight this issue with Spotify that has even been brought up by several users. Now, as I go into the weekend, I have to focus on the final portfolio of my work that I need to submit during the exam period.

This week wasn’t too hectic, which is why I feel a little silly for turning in this Flog late. I usually get them done on Fridays without a problem, but I have to admit that the Frolics vibes fully took over, and I lost track of time. I’m still figuring out exactly what I want to do for the Hack, and that uncertainty has been lingering. That said, it’s my only assignment for tomorrow, so it has my full attention moving forward. I’ve also noticed my stress levels creeping up a bit as we approach the end of the year. It’s that weird mix of being overwhelmed and excited at the same time. Still, I’m really glad we’re closing things out in a fun way by showing Hack #5 in class as it helps keep the motivation going.

Hello Flog.

I am writing this on Saturday, I forgot to write this on Friday. I’m not even sure if we are supposed to be writing these because they are not listed in the schedule. But I’d like to write 16 Flogs, one for every week.

My failure for this week was a. not doing this Flog on time. And b. I didn’t work enough on my hack! I would have liked to work on it more, but I still have 3 days to flush things out. I am happy with my progress, but I have so much to do this week. I really hope the showcase we have to create for the class is not too difficult.

I’m also slowly getting burnt out. It’s been a long semester but I’m excited to see these projects through.

This week I failed to prioritize my own timing. I always get upset with myself when I choose to not due my Flogs on Thursday night, so I am then forced to do them on Friday afternoons. While this is usually frustrating to future grace on Friday afternoons, I think the Grace on Thursday evenings takes great joy in this practice.

Otherwise, I felt like I failed this week because I didn’t pay as good attention to the class schedule because for some reason I thought we had two classes to have work days to work on the final hack. I wish I had realized this because I would have ran my idea by Dr.Sample during Thursday’s class, but I didn’t because I wanted to prioritize working and having my idea fully fleshed out. Now, I just have to get it done before Tuesday. I am not too concerned though because I have found I generally work pretty well under the pressure, so I think it will be ok.