What's the story?

Well Saturday was a great success, we had a great group and the sun shone, which for this summer was a surprise! 

But what was it we were doing? Well all the current walks are tricky to install and have flummoxed the minds of scientists and would be walkers alike. So there has been diligent work behind the scenes on developing a browser based walker, sounds easy but in fact rather a tricky job. If it were easy then the player would have been live long ago and tweeked to run all the stories for Art Week.

 

Well the best minds rose to the task, and the player was built, tested, then rebuilt, and on Saturday we did a full live test with eager kids and inquisitive adults. But there had been so many technical obstacles that this became the first full field test (yikes) but with some confidence in the smaller tests we had done, it was all systems go.

After a brief chat and intro at the Tantivy Cafe we set out up towards the Church (Chapter 1 of The Watching Way) On the player it showed how many metres we needed to go to trigger the images, text and tale. As we walked up hill the distance numbers reduced - perfect but then they started to rise!!

So quick as a flash, I dipped into the back-end of the system on the iPad, swapped the first two chapter zones around (my mistake) and refreshed. Then straight away we were live, the story revealed and the tale telling began. 

Wow (phew!) and testimony to the strong user interface of my code man Mr Joiner.

The walk progressed with ease, going from zone to zone, making mental notes as to what worked and what needed to be improved, alongside quite a few comments and questions from the children who came. But I kept focused and all was good.

One of the hurdles was that a few of the walkers had come with smart phones which were actually not smart enough, and it was rather disheartening to say, I'm sorry but you're phone just doesn't cut the mustard for this task. But the tech requirements are pretty high as the ask is so big, and some of the HTML5 code used is as pioneer as it comes.

I lead the walk, so I read it out showing the images to the group as we progressed, then deep in the woods we stopped to make clocks out of leaves and twigs. When that was done, we finished the tale on the hill top with a great vista of Dulverton whilst the kids climbed trees and signed the journal.

All in all a fabulous day, and the kind which makes you pleased that you wrote the tales, and made everyone come and step inside your world just for an hour or so. Personally I shy away from the public reading, I created the walks to be enjoyed by you and your family, which make them personal and special in a different way. Everyone invests a story with a different voice, a style and I think that's just what makes them shine.

So keep on shining please.