Our Coral reef project set out to create an immersive experience that allows users to explore the universe of corals and discover ‘treasures beyond the spotlight’ of our chosen exibit from Senckenberg museum. The goal was to combine engagement and education in a visually stunning and endearing journey through the underwater landscapes.

As any creative endeavor, the process brought along a fair share of challenges. Team work was not easy. We faced difficulties with communication and coordination, assigning roles and sticking to them and controlling deadlines. Though everyone seemed enthuasiastic and passionate, that dynamic was unstable and fell apart easily. It often felt more like ‘every man for himself’ than a team effort. Different perspectives, personalities, working styles and lack of management led to misunderstandings and badly affected collaboration.

Still, despite all that, we were able to bring (most of) the planned vertical slice to life. We have a working prototype which we presented at the museum at the planned date. It has a pretty landscape for the user to explore, sound design, nice locomotion and fun mechanics. It is, however, a bit disconnected from the original exhibit — we should have made more effort ensuring that connection was clear, but we did aim for a more stylized and cartoon-ish approach from the beginning.

Most of the users that tried our experience enjoyed it. They seemed interested in the story, liked exploring the levels, enjoyed the notion of being underwater in VR. Some of the weak points the user testing pointed out were: pacing of the story (too fast, not enough time to get adjusted and take in the views); level design (too much color in the landscapes and lack of a clear visual path); amount of physical effort required from the user; the robot assistant also had some issues.

This project reinforced the importance of clear communication and teamwork in a collaborative and creative environment. While the process wasn’t always smooth, it was a valuable learning experience. We want to thank the professors and everyone involved for following along with our journey and lending us your expertise.

Semester: P3
Group Name: Journey Productions (Group 4)
Group members: Varvara Trubitsina, Ivan Fesenko, Kareem Salem, Marvin Schmidt
Date: 12.02.2025

Journey Production Final Reflection Post was originally published in P3 & P5 blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Goethe’s Stone Gates — the Mixed Reality experience we conceptualized and developed over the past few months — is finished! Of course, with more time, the project could have evolved even further. No creative or technical endeavor is ever truly “done,” but as the deadline now lies behind us, we can proudly call this version complete.

From Concept to Reality

Over the past months, we moved through various stages — ideation, concept development, and finally, the realization of our Mixed Reality experience. Each phase challenged and refined us, both individually and as a team.

Our vision was to create an XR experience with a strong scientific and historical foundation. Goethe’s fascination with mineralogy inspired us to craft an interactive, immersive journey into his world. Throughout the process, we continuously iterated, tested, and refined our ideas based on feedback and development principles.

Key MileSTONES & Achievements

The first playable version of Goethe’s Stone Gates was a huge milestone, made possible by the seamless integration of different components. Every team member played a crucial role, contributing expertise in different areas:

• 3D Modeling & Environments — Created realistic objects and detailed environments that enhance immersion.
• Interactive Mechanics — Designed and implemented engaging interactions to guide users through Goethe’s Sorting World.
• Historical & Scientific Research — Curated and integrated Goethe’s mineral collection to make the experience both educational and engaging.
• UI & User Experience Optimization — Iterated based on user feedback to improve clarity, usability, and accessibility.
• Rock Generation System — Developed a system with randomized but reproducible shaders, ensuring unique yet consistent results.
• Collaboration and communication — worked with regular check-ins, both online and in-person, that helped us stay aligned. One challenge we faced was integrating different components developed by individual team members into a cohesive whole. Debugging and refining this integration was a complex but necessary step to ensure a smooth user experience.

Next Time we would..

• Start Building Earlier — One major lesson we learned was the importance of early testing in a built version of the application. Initially, we only ran the project within Unity, which led to unexpected build issues when it was time for user testing. This forced us to reschedule, leaving little time for meaningful adjustments beyond the most critical fixes. While we successfully incorporated key user feedback, an earlier build cycle would have allowed for a more polished final product.
• Prioritize Development Alongside Concepting — Our workflow was heavily focused on planning and task division before the Christmas break, leaving little room for actual development. While ideation and concept refinement are crucial, starting development earlier — if the course structure had allowed for it — would have given us more time to refine and enrich the application. A more iterative balance between conceptualization and implementation would have been beneficial.
• Trust the User More — Looking at the final product, we realized that we had put more effort than necessary into guiding the user through interactions. In practice, users intuitively followed the intended flow and correctly sorted the minerals. This insight taught us that well-designed interactions often speak for themselves, reducing the need for excessive instructions.

Future Potential

This project has the potential to be taken to the next level. As an educational experience, it offers an engaging way to explore the world of minerals — where they are found, what properties they have, and how they have shaped our history. By actively interacting with these ancient stones — some of which have existed longer than the dinosaurs — users can dive into a fascinating world of shimmering crystals and geological wonders.

Designed for museum and educational applications, Goethe’s Stone Gates provides an enhanced reality where users can engage with up to 18,000 minerals — something that would be nearly impossible to showcase in a physical space. With further development, the experience could be expanded with additional environments connected to the minerals’ origins, more complex interactions, and refined mechanics that make the sorting process feel even more immersive and realistic.

Given more time and resources, deeper integration of scientific insights and historical context could transform this project into a truly compelling mixed reality experience — one that not only educates but also inspires curiosity and exploration.

Final Reflections

The development of Goethe’s Stone Gates has been an intense but rewarding journey. As a team, we overcame technical challenges, iterated on design ideas, and worked collaboratively to bring this vision to life. From initial sketches to a fully functional prototype, our project has been shaped by both our ambitions and the practical realities of development.

Reflecting on the past months, we take pride in what we’ve accomplished as a team. The experience has not only strengthened our technical skills but also taught us valuable lessons about teamwork, iteration, and problem-solving. No project is without its challenges, but navigating them together has been one of the most rewarding aspects of this journey.

We hope our experiences can serve as inspiration for future students tackling similar projects. Our advice? Stay flexible, communicate often, and test your ideas early and often!

Thank you to everyone who followed our journey.

_

Semester: P5
Group Name: Trouble Turtles
Group members: Elias Bormann, A. Bersu Dertli, Bruno Mueller Md Zunaed Alam Tanim, Miriam
Author of the story: Miriam
Date: 13.02.2024

Final Blogpost Group 5 was originally published in P3 & P5 blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If shortly, it works. Quite a few people including the representatives from the museum tried the app and liked the experience. Undoubtedly, the possiblity to print the result in the end had a lot to do with the positive feedback we got.

Am I happy with the result? Yes. What would I do differently? Pretty much everything in terms of the architecture of the project to make it more flexible and easily adjustable.

It was my first experience as a lead developer and I am glad that i managed to bring almost all the features we planned to life. Nevertheless, it would be impossible without my amazing team. I was increadibly lucky this semester and worked alongside a bunch of very talented people.

Semester: P5
Author of the story: Mariia Kostiukova

Date: 13 Feb. 2025

Paint your Goethe was originally published in P3 & P5 blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

To again introduce us The “NOMS” we do consist of the following, and the roles we did mainly take are listed there.

N: Noah Wendt — Concept, Coding, Producing, Environment

O: Omid Ameri — Concept, Coding, Sound, Music

M: Milena Malova — Concept, Producing, Coding, Environment Design

S: Stella Campana — Concept, Character Design, 3D Modeling, Animation

As you can see all of us worked on the concept. We started with 3 different exhibits, and it took us quite a few weeks to refine our concept and decide upon our main topic. We generated many ideas through ideation processes, and through a detailed User Journey simulation we were able to visualize them in real life and distinguish between what we could actually achieve within our deadline.

After this quite extensive process we did converge onto our midterm presentations. In so doing specifying what we want to achieve and also practicing how we would communicate the project idea and story to people who are not as familiar with it than we.

We had great group dynamics, and our skills were well-balanced between the artistic and technical parts of the project. Small issues such as someone being late to meetings or miscommunication were the hardest that we’ve been through, so overall we can say we worked well together. Everyone gave their best to make this project come to life.

And with that short of a paragraph over half of the semester was over and production phase did start. Given the short time of just 6–7 weeks to actually build our experience it was very helpful for us to have such a detailed outline of what should be in there. Yet the time was too short nonetheless. A couple of weeks more would not have hurt at all. But It is always like that we assume.

To summarize the individual contributions a bit. Noah did take the role of the “Tech-Lead”, managing the unity project and the git repo and doing some coding. In addition to that he worked on one of the scenes as an environment designer and took the role of producer in the later part of the semester.

Omids main focus was the sound design. Not only searching sound effects online but also writing and recording his own music as well as the voice lines for our character. He also managed the implementation of sound in unity as well as creation the tutorial section in the beginning of the experience.

Milena led the research on mastodons, providing key insights into their appearance and facts to be integrated into the storyline. She also designed the environment for the main mastodon scene, recreating the landscape as it might have looked 10,000 years ago. Additionally, Milena prepared the mastodon model by modifying an elephant model to resemble a mastodon. She also contributed to the development of the mastodon riding mechanic, shaping climax of the experience into a fun.

Stella was responsible for giving life to our character — the Shaman. As we wanted our storytelling to be historically accurate, she dived into research about native American tribes. The Algonquin tribe used to live throughout the USA and Canada, especially in the area of Little Britain, where the remains of the Mastodon from the Senckenberg exhibit were found. Their folklore, clothing, and visual style were the main inspiration for the Shaman, who is based on the mythological character Nokomis — a wise old grandmother. She first started with the 2d Character Design, which evolved to a 3d model.

So we were able to create a fun experience. Yet there was a major issue with unity’s pathfinding system and building our app on the quest. An issue not even Professor Gabler could find and fix. Having these kind of issues at the end of a project is really, really frustrating for everyone! And it was annoying to show a build to the stakeholders which was not as polished as it could have been. But with a bit of rest we are planning to redo the scene in question, fixing the issues and have a working experience we can show around.

Since our experience is all about human-centered design, user experience was our top priority. That’s why gathering feedback and running user tests was so important. Not everything was immediately clear to users, but their reactions gave us valuable insights into what needs improvement. Now, we’re ready to take those lessons and make the second iteration even better.

Because our experience is so story-driven, timing is everything — what happens when, and how the environment guides the player through the story. Even small details matter. For example, when we placed a single mushroom in the tutorial area, players instinctively tried to take it with them, assuming it had special meaning. This shows how even tiny elements can influence expectations and behavior.

A lot of users wanted to explore beyond the main path, which means some missed parts of the storyline. We need to think about how to accommodate those players — how can we make sure they still engage with the story, even if they go off track?

Another big takeaway was the emotional connection with the mastodon. Players were excited to meet the animals, but they didn’t get enough time to bond with them before being sent off on quests. That connection is key, and we need to give it more space to develop.

By the end of this iteration, we want the experience to feel more intuitive. That might mean adding clearer visual cues or extending the tutorial for players who are new to VR. Most importantly, we need to find ways to keep the story alive, even when players explore in unexpected ways.

In the end, we had a great semester. It had its ups and downs, but we did create a very cool application. It was a team effort and each of us learned a lot. It was super cool to create a pitch project for an actual stakeholder. And while we would have appreciated two more weeks of production we are proud of what we have achieved! And thats that.

Cheers!

— — — — — — —
Semester: P3
Group name: VR-NOMS
Group members/authors: Noah Wendt, Omid Ameri, Milena Malova, Stella Campana
Date: 13.02.25

Final VR-NOMS Post was originally published in P3 & P5 blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This week marked the culmination of our journey with the Psittacosaurus Exhibit VR project. After months of dedication, research, and development, we delivered the final version of our immersive experience. This was an exhilarating moment for GPU 1, as we presented our final project at the university, showcasing the entire creative and technical process behind our VR experience. Here’s a look back at our journey and the incredible milestones we achieved.

Final Presentation at the University

During our final presentation, we took the audience through the entire process of bringing the Psittacosaurus Exhibit to life. We detailed our journey from the initial research and ideation phases to the intricate production stages that shaped our final product. Our presentation covered:

• Research & Ideation: How we conceptualized the exhibit, drawing inspiration from paleontological findings and educational VR experiences.
• Production Phase: A deep dive into the different aspects of our VR development:
• Modeling & Texturing the Environment: Crafting a futuristic laboratory setting that enhances immersion and interactivity.
• Developing Investigation Tools: Creating intuitive tools that allow users to analyze and reconstruct the Psittacosaurus fossil.
• Bringing the Psittacosaurus to Life: Designing, animating, and integrating the dinosaur model to create a realistic and engaging centerpiece for the exhibit.
• Technical Development & Logic: Implementing the interactive mechanics and VR functionalities that power the experience.

Showcasing at Senckenberg Natural History Museum

One of the most exciting moments of our journey was the opportunity to present our VR experience at the Senckenberg Natural History Museum, where the Psittacosaurus fossil is preserved. This was a surreal experience as our project was evaluated by the museum director and several members of the museum staff. Their feedback was incredibly encouraging, with praise for how our VR exhibit brought science and storytelling together in an engaging and educational way.

Their insights also provided valuable recommendations for refining the experience, reinforcing our belief in the potential of VR to revolutionize museum exhibits and educational tools.

Key Takeaways from User Testing and Presentation

During the user testing phase and final presentation, we gathered several valuable insights. The key takeaway was that most of the users had a positive experience and found the navigation of the VR experience intuitive. They were able to easily figure out all the tasks and interact with the various elements of the exhibit without much difficulty. This reaffirmed our design choices and confirmed that the interactive features we implemented were both user-friendly and engaging.

Surprising Insights from User Testing

While most feedback was positive, there were some surprising moments during user testing. A few users took a more playful approach, intentionally trying to push the boundaries of the experience by attempting to break it or find bugs. This behavior was unexpected, but it turned out to be a fun way to test the robustness of the experience. It also provided us with valuable feedback on areas where we could improve stability or refine mechanics that might have been more prone to errors. Their attempts to “break” the system ended up helping us identify potential weaknesses, and we were able to address those before the final presentation.

Gratitude & Reflections

As we conclude this incredible journey, we want to take a moment to express our gratitude. Working on the Psittacosaurus Exhibit VR has been a transformative experience, allowing us to push the boundaries of immersive learning and interactive storytelling.

A huge thank you to our professors, mentors, and peers who provided invaluable feedback and support along the way. We are also deeply grateful to the Senckenberg Natural History Museum for giving us the opportunity to showcase our work in a professional and scientific setting.

Though this project has reached its conclusion, the knowledge and skills we have gained will undoubtedly shape our future endeavors.

Semester: P3
Group Name: GPU 1 (Group 1)
Author: Mohammed Najm
Date: 13.2.2025

Week 15 Final — P3 — “GPU1”: The Grand Finale was originally published in P3 & P5 blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

• A New Dimension for the Klassik Stiftung Weimar

Content:

• How it all started and where it all came to
• Turning points
• Challenges along the way
• Presentation and feedback
• Lessons learnt
• The group and our skills
• A glimpse into the future
• What if?
• Closing words

How it all started and where it all came to

The journey of this project has been fulfilled from start to finish and we are writing this final recap post.
In retrospect, we have to admit that the idea of the project has changed significantly from the moment of its inception to the day of presentation. This story deserves a blog post of its own. But long story short, originally we wanted to make a replacement for an audio guide. Then all of a sudden we had the idea to create a tool for the museum. This idea caused confusion and slowed down the concept design process a bit. Eventually we evaluated the situation rationally and went back to the original idea of creating a use-case of a ready guiding tour and we focused on the needs of the Goethe Museum specifically.

Turning points

Our two breakthroughs were when we changed our concept to a basic, more feasible idea and then we came together towards the end and started implementing everything.

The decision on 19th December to describe the future prototype clearly and in detail, was a crucial and truly pivotal decision. From that day on, each of us knew what part we were responsible for. And even though the Christmas holidays were approaching, the decisions we made were our compass until the day when the prototype was ready.

Also the final choice of a Quill as a guide was the moment when all parts of the app harmonised with each other. Everything just made sense. When we decided not to make a ghostly or very futuristic design of the guide, it made it much more clear for us, what the vision is. Also, a sentence that a professor mentioned was:

“The guide should truly be embedded within the context of the Goethe House and fully integrated into the experience.
It should deeply engage with the theme, focusing on Weimar, Goethe, and literature!“

Out of that was the idea of the Quill guide born, as well as the implementation of the poem and Goethe’s handwriting. We think Tatiana also created a very good UI, fitting to the topic of Goethe.

So, the crucial changes at the turning points made a big difference from our initial assumptions to the final outcome. Polishing the idea and the concept was very important, because now, we have a clear goal for the user, a clear problem statement and prototype that handles the mentioned, that made a huge difference.

Challenges along the way

As you can guess, our journey was not straight and easy, there were moments of turbulence, but we made it through.

There were a few moments of uncertainty and also setbacks. For example, when at the concept stage we were floundering between two opposing approaches. Our professors during the coaching sessions helped us to decide on this.

There was also uncertainty when one of the group members announced his travelling plan. We dealt with this situation through direct communication and redistribution of responsibilities.

The most significant challenges were:

★ to focus on the real needs of the stakeholder and choose a concrete and understandable project idea;

★ narrow down the idea to a feasible scale;

★ organize the team’s resources in such a way that the prototype is completed.

The professors supported us to cope with these challenges during our weekly coaching sessions. There were also helpful moments when we let the situation go a bit and gave ourselves time to digest and reflect.

Last but not least, intensive group work in a creative collaborative flow (often accompanied by appropriate music) was very important to overcome the challenges.

Presentation and feedback

Then, all the difficulties were overcome and the day of the presentation came. A day before the finals, we tried our best to decorate and arrange everything in our mock-up museum rooms, so that the ambience at least resembles the one in the Goethe Haus:

What we learned from the feedback we got on the presentation and user testing, is that even if the prototype is not fully fledged out, the users notice and appreciate the details very much.

In addition to the details, the users also clearly saw the potential and possible scope of the project’s potential.

What we did not expect is that most users found the poem audio too long. The reason could be, that we only recorded the poem and general information audio one day before the finals.
Because of that, we could not really test it much. In the prototype showcasing, we could literally see the people getting impatient, while waiting for the poem to finish. Therefore, a function we would like to implement in the future, is that the visitors are able to stop and skip the audio and maybe also a text of the audio next to the exhibit.

But regardless of this, the users clearly understood what was happening and how the navigation process was organized. Each user was also curious about what the next exhibit would be like, and they were pleasantly surprised when they saw the progression of events.

What else surprised us, but no longer in such a positive way: Many users held the Quill in their hands and did not want to let go. This prevented the guiding process. This is fixable, but it was interesting to see such unexpected behaviour.

However, not all user assumptions we completely agree with. There was a suggestion from a user to make the appearance of animations and virtual exhibits more spontaneous. For example, the exhibits could be activated automatically when you approach them. However, this was one of our original ideas and is contrary to our intention now, as we take user diversity into account and want to make sure that at every moment the user understands what is happening and is fully focused on it. Therefore, events follow only after the user has made a conscious choice about the next step.

Overall, the feedback received was mostly positive. With more time, we would primarily apply the wishes to give more choice to the user, e.g. finish the activated exhibit early and move on to the next one. We would also add a choice between languages, at least between English and German, as well as adding an Accessibility option for choosing between right and left hand control, so that the Quill would adjust to that.

Lessons learnt

Our three key takeaways from this project are:

1. Large-scale ideas are more valuable than a large-scale prototype.
2. Frequent and clear communication with mutual feedback between team members is a must.
3. It is critical to start testing the prototype very early and continue to do so throughout the entire production phase.

We would also like to highlight our the biggest learning moments throughout the semester in each of project development stages:

1) Ideation — the moment of realising that our most favourite idea is not directly related to the needs of the museum and it contains a weak core, lacking a strong and clearly understood value for the stakeholder.

2) Concept — the moment when we focused specifically on the Goethe theme. This helped to shape the concept more concretely and create a complete harmonious use-case.

3) Development — almost at the final stage of development, we realized that we had put all the disparate parts together too late. This should have been done at the beginning to avoid unforeseen descendants of the prototype.

We also learn a lot about presenting and communicating our project. Before the midterm presentation, our concept was not clear at all and it seemed like that led to confusion of the coaches. Now, we totally understand that point, as our vision and prototype got more polished. The simpler we made the concept, the better it got and different than we expected. It was still very engaging and interesting, as we tried as much as possible to polish the details.

All in all, although the concept stage took a very long time, that time paid off and we were able to effectively present this large scale idea with a relatively small prototype.

Connecting the entire experience to the Quill we believe helped us to present the concept and also helped people follow, as whenever they got confused about something, they went back to the quill and they were able to find their way. Much like the way the app works.

The group and our skills

It’s time to talk about our skills improvement and how effectively our team collaborated and what our key learnings are, regarding communication and workflow.

In the first 4 weeks and the last 2 we were most productive and we could mostly see that we communicated most in these times. We think that productivity is relying on clear, frequent communication and it helps the whole team, as you stay in the loop.

Below we describe in detail which skills each of us improved and developed during the project.

Elorm:
My main area of learning on this project was Shader development. It is generally a difficult area to find learning material given how relatively unpopular it is in the industry, so it was very helpful to throw myself into this area. I was able to learn performant methods of doing various things with shaders that I did not even imagine were possible. I was also a generalist on this project so I believe all my skills in general went up by a bit.

Stiliyan:
The main thing I learned, this project was animation and keyframe animation. I’ve never had to actually animate anything throughout the years and now tapping into that world seemed foreign to me. But after working through it I managed to achieve a satisfactory result. I also had to 3d model because some of the assets were not exactly useable, but its an important skill that I hope to improve and use faster in the future. Last but not least was research, it was very important to keep everything authentic which is something i don’t really care about but this time it had to be perfect. Using a mix of sources to combine and analyze all information was something I haven’t had to do previously.
After all of that I think I am now much more capable.

Lilli Belle:
I learned some very new skills, like creating a custom font and using Blenders Grease Pencil tool to animate 2D handwriting. I also drew the whole storyboard from our concept stage, where I learned how to make the environment recognizable, but not distracting and focus on the main action in a still frame.
Additionally, I went a little more into coding, nothing very complex but still I could learn things from how Tatiana implemented the guiding logic and how to implement sound, as well as what audio fits best and enhances the objects themselves.
As a generalist, I did a little bit of everything — coding, modelling, design, drawing, sound design & implementation — in each I learned at least a little bit new.

Tatiana:
In this project I practiced programming through problem solving. I consider this a major achievement, because I intentionally avoided the use of various tutorials, but found appropriate solutions on my own.
Although we made major decisions about the guiding together as a group, I had to make a lot of decisions quickly myself, taking responsibility for those decisions. In the end, I built a working scalable guiding logic that was sufficient for a prototype (but of course still not perfect at all). Also at each stage of the project I did intensive research, both on historical data about the exhibits and on the market of mixed reality applications.
Another achievement is the work on UI, not only in terms of functionality, but also design. And finally, with the help of the document provided by Elorm, I improved the organization of the Unity project files in the part I was working on, the subject I usually neglect while working alone.

A glimpse into the future

Ideally, the project idea can be used for almost every museum in the world. Even more, the idea of guiding in mixed reality can be applied not only in the cultural spheres, but also in many industrial sectors.

Looking at more achievable and closer goals, the project can be used as a basis for a bachelor’s research.

The next steps of the project will be polishing, restructuring the hierarchy and from there on making a more clear code structure. Basically a second round of reworking everything. Some of our group are actually planning to keep on working on this project for ourselves, to learn more.

If we had unlimited time and resources, we would definitely expand and improve the project. Expanding the project would be made by adding more exhibits, figuring out how to lead the attention even more to the enchanted exhibits and making a non-linear version.

What if?

If we could start this project over, we would do many things in a better way.

We initially wanted to implement the anchoring a couple of weeks earlier, but we lost track of it. We only managed to make a basic, imprecise anchoring 5 days before the finals, which turned out to be very critical. Originally, we wanted to have a precise anchoring for each object with a save and load function, but we had some implementation issues.

In the future, we will focus again on these technical implementations that serve as a base of a project and incorporate them in the beginning. In that way, we would also have time to polish it.

In the next semester we want to have more frequent meetings, give updates to the group members, so that everyone knows about each others state and implementation. It is very hard having to find out how someone implemented something, when you have to build on top of that and the person can not tell you how it was done.

We would like to have more tests of each other’s implementations, for example APKs, as in our group till some later stage of the development stage one member was mainly building and testing them and the others watched the videos. It’s critical to give feedback to each other and coordinate the individual parts of the prototype with each other.

The understanding of our users has remained more or less the same since December. As a target audience we chose average museum users, according to the provided analytics. They are educated people aged around 50. We made all decisions regarding the user experience with this category in mind and tried to make the app understandable and accessible to people who are not active users of virtual or mixed reality apps. Also an additional target audience were tech enthusiasts, but this did not have a significant impact on the project.

After the user testing conducted on the day of the presentation, valuable feedback was received from users. With more early frequent user testing, a clearer understanding of the needs of our users could be achieved.

Sadly, some features did not make the cut, for example the Quillustration of the Painting that Lilli Belle started and the 3D handwriting at the end, that we could not implement. We will work on that in the future.

Closing words

What would we tell ourselves at the start of the semester if we could:

Make decisions as early as possible.

What advice would we give to future students working on a similar project:

Think big on the idea, but set realistic goals.

Thank you!

We sincerely thank the Klassik Stiftung Weimar for having us, providing valuable feedback, and sharing their honest insights throughout the process.
A heartfelt thank you to our professors and our coaches, Maren and Franziska, for their guidance and support.
We also appreciate the Motion Pictures study program for generously providing props on such short notice.
Special thanks to Linus Z. for his work on voice audio implementation and construction support.
Lastly, we’d like to extend our gratitude to Martin, Thorsten, and Jakob for their additional contributions and support.

See you! And thank you for staying with us during this journey!

Semester: P5
Group Name: RealityMixers
Group members: Elorm Katsekpor, Belle, Tatiana Gvozdenko, Stiliyan Dimitrov
Author of the story: Tatiana Gvozdenko, Belle , Elorm Katsekpor, Stiliyan Dimitrov
Date: 13th February 2025

The Mixed Reality Tour Guide was originally published in P3 & P5 blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This week, we started slowly preparing our project to enter the wrap up phase. We have most of the main mechanics and interactions ready, and now it’s time to replace placeholders with stylized models and integrate previously coded mechanics.

Completing the Detailed Blockout

I finalized the city park scene blockout, ensuring it’s now ready for the level artists on our team to take over. The blockout provides a clear layout of the main pathways and key areas, such as the insect hotels and other points of interest.

It’s a transition point in the pipeline where stylized props and textures will replace placeholder geometry, bringing the environment closer to the final vision.

Integrating Brumble’s Model

A major milestone this week was replacing the placeholder for Brumble with its fully animated and textured model.

Now, the riding mechanics feel much more polished and immersive, as Brumble’s character comes to life through smooth animations and stylized visuals.

Preparing the Status Report Presentation

As we get ready for the first session after the holidays, I prepared a status report presentation to summarize our progress.

We will cover key accomplishments, including completed mechanics, environmental blockouts, and our roadmap for the upcoming weeks.

Reviewing Blog Consistency

I also spent time reviewing our Medium blog posts, ensuring consistency across our updates. This included verifying that each team member contributed an equal number of posts, keeping a fair workload.

I’m excited to see the level design transform as the level artists bring their vision to life and to continue refining the gameplay experience.

_
Semester: P3
Group name: Hivemind
Group members: Lara, Mutlu, Jacopo, himanshu.dahiya, Antonela
Author of the story: Antonela Matanović
Date: January 14th, 2025 (Additionally written on February 12th, 2025)

Week 12: Back From Holidays was originally published in P3 & P5 blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Takeaways from the User Test and Presentation

One of the main takeaways from the user testing was understanding the importance of accommodating users with varying levels of experience. Some users struggled with the controller interactions, and others found the guidance unclear. We learned that a balance needs to be struck in order to make the experience intuitive for everyone.

Surprising Insights from User Tests

One surprising insight was the amount of struggle users had with the climbing mechanics. Despite our expectations, it was more challenging than anticipated for users to navigate this feature. Additionally, many users expected more freedom in the game than we had designed, which was an important point for us.

Feedback and Our Response

We didn’t disagree with any of the feedback, but one piece stood out: users found the font unreadable. This feedback was interesting, and we would have made adjustments to improve readability if we had more time.

Evolving the Project

Our initial vision evolved significantly as the semester progressed. Narrowing down to a single exhibit and refining it allowed us to dive deeper into our concept and fully focus on it. We also made adjustments to the art style and reduced the complexity of tasks to resonate better with our theme.

Key Moments and Learning Experiences

The most important moments in our project were narrowing our scope to focus on one exhibit and the moment everything came together for the final presentation. We learned a lot about time management, prioritizing tasks, and focusing on what really mattered. One of the biggest challenges was connecting all the elements toward the end. With time running out, the last-minute push was intense, but it taught us the importance of being adaptable.

Crucial Decisions and Setbacks

Some crucial decisions were made around the art style — the low-poly look and the specific shader choices we settled on. We also decided to focus on Brumble as our main character, cutting out the butterfly and dragonfly tasks we initially planned. While there were setbacks with Git conflicts and bugs, we overcame these by leaning on the team and our colleagues for help.

Collaboration and Communication

Our team worked well together overall, although we encountered some minor communication issues. We realized the importance of using collaborative tools like Jira to keep track of our workflow and everyone on the same page.

Looking Forward: Potential and Improvements

We would have expanded the project with more interactive tasks, livelier scenes, and a larger variety of insects. We could see this project developing into an educational tool for school students, teaching them about insects and nature in an engaging way.

We are incredibly proud of the progress we made and how the project has come together!

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Semester: P3
Group name: Hivemind
Group members: Lara, Mutlu, Jacopo, himanshu.dahiya, Antonela
Author of the story: Antonela Matanović
Date: February 12th, 2025

P3: Final Reflections was originally published in P3 & P5 blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Through our journey, user testing proved to be an incredibly insightful process. One of the biggest takeaways was that for users to truly absorb a specific fact about jellyfish, we needed to guide them toward a more conscious decision-making process. This became a crucial element in designing a more engaging learning experience.

A pleasant surprise was the overwhelmingly positive response to the art style and overall experience. People from all age groups found it interesting, which was something we hadn’t fully expected — but it was definitely a welcome surprise!

The feedback we received was truly uplifting. Many expressed that there was almost nothing they would have changed, and we felt the same. In our minds, the project came together in the best possible way.

If this project were to be expanded, we’d put a stronger emphasis on improving the learning experience and refining the onboarding process. Making sure that users feel engaged right from the start would be a top priority.

Key takeaways from this project:
1. Project management software isn’t always a must-have. In some cases, it can actually slow productivity down, and simpler tools — like WhatsApp — can be more efficient.
2. User testing is everything. It’s the defining moment that tells you whether your experience has truly succeeded or not.
3. A well-managed team ensures that every member plays an important role. When everyone feels valued and sees their contribution in the final outcome, the project becomes even more rewarding.

And so…we got home all happy and relaxed, but before I end this, here are some final words from the amazing team members who made all of this possible!

Julong Yan

“It’s been a great experience working with all of you. I’m really glad that I could contribute to this project, especially thanks to Mykyta, who managed the project and helped me realize my potential. Thank you all!”

Mykyta Pasternatskyi

“At last, final group blog post for our P3 project.
To summarize the entire project, I have to say it was a great pleasure working with everyone on the team. Really, the synergy was amazing and only thanks to this synergy and some form of “compatibility” with each other we achieved the final product. I truly don’t think that we could’ve done any better given the time window.
Everyone on the team did a great work, and each person has impacted the project in a massive positive way, so I am really proud of all of the team members and wish all of them best of luck in the future!
I am very happy to have been a part of our team and even more happy about the final result.
If you’d like to try out Atolla Rescue, feel free to do so!”

Mirabella Hohenlohe-L.

“I could not imagine a better outcome than this, our team did so well that this journey was not just work but also a fun experience! Everyone did a fantastic job and worked hard until the very last moment. Seeing the final result feels truly rewarding and inspiring. Please go and try it out too!”

Danylo Vynogradskyi

“Working on the project throughout this semester, was awesome! We had a great take off and quite a smooth landing, all thanks to our captain Mykyta! Managing so many tasks and keeping track of everything, as well as contributing to a huge portion of the project, really deserves recognition and gratitude from us! I’m happy I was able to become friends with my teammates, as we had this dynamic from the start of the semester. I thank everyone for the work that they’ve done, this project really showed me how hardworking and dedicated my teammates are. I thank our coaches for always supporting our ideas and leading us towards a better outcome. It was a very pleasant experience and I hope everyone feels the same! ❤”

And with that we have reached the end…

Many thanks to Mykyta for being the best team leader and everyone who contributed. Lots of thanks also to the Professors and Maren for guiding us through this journey and made it a fun one. See you next time;) Capycondas!❤

Semester: P3
Group name: Capyconda
Group members: Mykyta Pasternatskyi, Daniil Nazarkin , Julong Yan, Mirabella Hohenlohelangenburg, Danylo Vynogradskyi

Author: Mirabella Hohenlohelangenburg

Date: 12.02.2025

P3 Group 5 “The finish line” was originally published in P3 & P5 blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How It Started

In the beginning, we brainstormed a wide range of ideas, each focusing on a different side of Goethe — his scientific work, like Goethe’s Plant Morphology, and his personal reflections, such as his journey to Italy. We didn’t want to simply present facts; we wanted to create a story that would capture Goethe as a person — not just as a historical figure, but as someone with passions, struggles, and a curiosity for the world, much like anyone today.

It wasn’t easy letting go of so many great ideas for us, but with limited production time, we had to make tough choices. In the end, we decided to create a Goethe collage with his collections. This shift in direction took us from a more conceptual approach, which would’ve required a detailed storyline and more development, to something more practical. Yet, we remained focused on keeping the core spirit intact: the experience had to feel experimental and reflect Goethe’s own curiosity and exploration of life.

Developments — challenges and obstacles

As we entered the development phase, we began to think more critically about what the users would take away from the experience. Would it inspire them to learn more about Goethe? Or perhaps make the experience memorable enough to encourage them to revisit the museum? These questions brought a sense of uncertainty, especially around our collage concept. We weren’t sure if users would connect with it, as not everyone has the same passion for or appreciation of art.

Additionally, we were unsure about how the collage would come together visually once it was filled with 3D objects. This was a challenge we kept in mind throughout the process, constantly questioning how the collections would fit and how the final result would feel. It wasn’t until we had most of the 3D objects finished that we began to get a clearer sense of how it would all come together.

On the technical side, one person ended up handling most of the main mechanics, which were crucial to the whole experience. With limited time, others didn’t get as involved, and that can be a lot for just one person, especially in bigger projects. Plus, the communication around programming got tricky since everyone had their own style. Going forward, I think it’d help to have a clearer timeline with divided phases, so the workload is spread out and everyone knows exactly what they’re responsible for.

Among our team

Overall, everyone was responsible for their tasks and met deadlines, with regular weekly meetings to distribute the workload. If anyone felt overwhelmed, someone was always there to help. For me, the ideation phase was where I learned the most. Seeing how sharing and building on ideas opened up so many possibilities was eye-opening. Everyone was open to exploring new ideas, but sometimes it was tough for me to keep the ideas flowing. Still, that’s where I grew the most. As a team, we really worked hard to present the whole concept as fully as possible within the timeframe, though it could be overwhelming at times since the project required so many interconnected parts.

Feedbacks

During our final presentation, after showcasing the trailer, the idea was well-received, and the audience could easily follow the concept. However, representatives from the museum expressed concerns about whether the interactions might be too challenging for their visitors.

As development progressed, we had already received feedback suggesting the snapping mechanic could be improved to make it more user-friendly, particularly for finger manipulation. Before the final presentation, we worked on refining this feature to ensure smoother functionality. On presentation day, the museum reiterated their concern that the snapping mechanic might still pose challenges for some visitors, based on their past experiences. Reflecting on this, I thought that adding size adjustment buttons could have been a useful alternative to address this issue.

Overall, the feedback was largely positive, especially regarding the playfulness of the experience. However, users often wished for a more flexible Undo option, such as being able to reposition objects on the canvas. Another insight was that many users didn’t spend much time creating their pieces. We speculated that this might have been due to environmental factors, the selection of available objects, or the level of engagement not being strong enough to hold their attention. Despite these points, the experience was generally regarded as both informative and interesting.

Reflections and Visions

If we had more time, I’d imagine making the experience more complete by adding features like a virtual gallery. This would allow users to view past collages and see their own creations displayed as part of a growing collection. It could be a fun, interactive way to give everyone a sense of contribution and community. During our testing sessions, I noticed how unique and diverse each collage turned out, which made me realize the potential of showcasing them.

Another exciting possibility is making the experience highly customizable for the museum. For example, the collections could change seasonally or for special events. Imagine a Goethe birthday feature, with exclusive visuals, designs, or even a themed collection. This kind of flexibility could keep the experience fresh and relevant for returning visitors.

For future students taking on similar projects, I’d suggest maintaining close communication with the museum or institution. Their insights are critical, especially for user feedback during major updates, as they understand their audience better than anyone. Lastly, start small but creative — ideas don’t need to be grand in scope, but they should be achievable and grounded in reality through thorough research on users, personas, and historical context.

Semester: P5

Group Name: Marvelous Five

Group members: Mariia Kostiukova Zornitsa Dimitrova Ryoma Oka Colin Drobek Chuanting Kuo

Author of the Story: Chuanting Kuo

Date: 10.02.2025

P5 Group1_Final group post was originally published in P3 & P5 blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.