Final Project: My Boston Tea Party Ship

Final Project: My Boston Tea Party Ship

In this final project we are recreating a ship that was overrun during the Boston Tea Party. In this instance I used Eleanor as my ship and created it as close to reality as I could, I hope you enjoy.

Laying the foundation for "Eleanor"

And building the levels up...

This looks dark but that is because I am constructing the keel underwater. The keel is the part of the ship that sits under water and where the two sides meet.

Continuing on the keel.

As you can see the water line hides much of the spruce and the first real color you see is black along the port and starboard side and white and the bow and stern.

Then the next level is yellow and here we are laying the ground work.

On top of the yellow is a thin layer of red.

And another small layer of blue...

Now we construct the deck...

Finishing up the deck...

After the deck is constructed we create the front mast...

Add some banners to play as sails...

And again on the main mast...

and finally the back mast used predominately for steering...

Under the deck I am creating the bottom of the ship as the keel doesn't seem to work with the physics of MineCraft...

finishing up...

and again...

Now we add the tea, as a supplement for the tea I used bookcase blocks...

And created a cargo hold to put them in...

Cargo hold tea...

No ship is complete without the Captain's quarters... 

A look at the outside of the Captain's quarters...

Nice bed Captain...

No ship can run without her crew and you need to berth that crew so I created a berthing area to keep the realism...

And the other side...

So stairs from the deck to the cargo and berthing area...

The deck, littered with tea.

And a view of the final product the HMS Eleanor.

and from the front...

Decided last minute to add a painting to the Captain's quarters...

And there she is in all her glory as the sun fades...

Wanted to make sure to get the windows in the bow.

There they are.

View of the deck from up top.

And there is the final product. 

This is a 3D recreation of the HMS Eleanor a ship that was overrun during the Boston Tea Party. The Sons of Liberty boarded the ship and threw their shipment of tea overboard as a protest for the unfair taxation that the British were doing to the colonies. This 3D version was built in MineCraft and is the best recreation I could do with the technology we were working with. It is a final exercise from the Immersive Education course that I am taking at Boston College. The course is called Discovering Computer Graphics. For details, visit the immersive BC portal at http://ImmersiveEducation.org/@/bc

Identity in the Context of Virtual Worlds

Identity in the Context of Virtual Worlds

Identity is something we all struggle to understand, whether we believe ourselves to be bold or brash we are always questioning who we are and who we want to be. While reading the articles "Identity in the Virtual World" and "Neutralizing Identity: Exploring Language and Gender in a Virtual World" it became evident that these are not just "real world" frustrations but that they translate to our identities in virtual worlds. SecondLife offers its user the chance to create an avatar and explore and interact in their virtual world. The constraint on the user are only limited by their imagination and this brings the question of "who do I want to be"? to light. Why is it that a man would want his avatar to be a girl (or vice versa)? These questions all lead us to ask what identity is and how it effects us.

  While taking this class we have many times enter virtual worlds, and in doing so we have created a virtual avatar for ourselves. I never thought much of this practice during class, to me it was simply pick an avatar, join the world and go. It is maybe that lack of thought that plagued most of us in this course because 99% of the time the males in the class would choose a male avatar while the females chose female ones. Is this a huge deal? No, because subconsciously we have already identified ourselves as man or woman. The thing is that we didn't have to but we just did, we could have took all the creativity we wanted and created a representation but we already limited ourselves because of our gender.

For many users they feel that their SecondLife character is a more accurate depiction of who they are on the inside. SecondLife offers them the ability to be the person they want to be and to identify however they see fit. My personal experience in these worlds weighs on my feelings on the matter. I have portrayed both and male and female avatar and the difference in treatment is something to behold. I personally identify myself to a male character and while I don't necessarily consider to be the real me I easily see how someone could truly immerse themselves into the character. How truly letting out your feelings with the anonymity that SecondLife offers is not only therapeutic but necessary. People often won't say what they feel (in real life) due to fear of persecution or simply being embarrassed. SecondLife and other virtual worlds take that factor out and empower those who may not feel that way.

There is something to be said about the freedom these virtual worlds give us and how we take that free reign and create human constructs. Clothing, homes, social constructs, all of these things can be found in these worlds that are supposed to give their users the ultimate freedom. Why is it that we feel the need to have real world constructions in this digital world? Could it be that our identity is so engrained as not male or female, not black or white, but as human? That even in a world that boast Eden like purity we feel the need to bring in something real, something comfortable? It is almost as if the user wants the ability to reinvent themselves but also wants a tether to the real world, a way for to base themselves in something comfortable similar yet different.

 I found that virtual worlds offer something new and something different. It is these traits that we need and crave as our real life rarely go as we want and expect. It is here that we find escapes and we can be the hero, or the woman, or the cat, and behind that we can just be who we want to be without fear of judgement or comeuppance. Is this always for the good? No, there are some who tend to blur the lines on reality and virtual worlds but for most I think it to be a therapy of sorts. An escape thats the the real you exist and flourish and it is for that reason that identity in virtual worlds is whatever we want it to be.

Examining Gender, Race and Body Image in a Virtual World

Examining Gender, Race and Body Image in a Virtual World

This assignment challenges the user to change their perspective and I will be honest and say that I didn't think there would be a difference and if there was it would be minimal. After spending over three hours talking and socializing some honestly surprising revelations came to me. There was not only a difference but at times is was glaringly drastic and uncomfortable. Below I will post my screenshots of the experience along with my feelings during those screenshots.

The first world I visited as a black male and I was greeted by the host, I quickly made my way around the room personally chatting with most everybody in attendance.

Most everybody gave me a one word answer or just responded to my greeting, some did neither and simply didn't answer.

This process continued and I quickly realized people didn't really seem to want to talk to me.

So I tried to get in on the group chat and add some quips in here and there but most of my statements went unanswered.

I felt like the creepy guy in the room that no one really wanted around.

I tried to get in on the fun but nobody seemed to want me there. At the end of the time I changed my avatar render and went to another place hoping for better results.

I changed my render to a white male and went to the Blarney Stone Bar. I was wondering if maybe I was to bland with my chat techniques so I added a mate to my hello trying to leave the impression that I was Australian.

I got the same host greeting and saw some who was interacting a lot on chat so I approach and tried to break the ice. The DJ seemed to take a little bit better than the last place I was.

The conversation continued as I ask if the clubs was theres as well, they answered it was not. I immediately feel more invited in the place than the last.

The conversation continues and I ask where their club was, then almost suddenly the correspondence stopped, I didn't know why but I moved on.

Again I found myself finding people who did not respond or seem to want me in there area. The hour ended and I felt somewhat more invited in The Blarney Stone bar but not much more than the last place. I would say that the experience in both places was incredibly similar with not much to differentiate between the two.

For my final experience I rendered my avatar to a asian female and entered into London where there were more people than in the previous two places I had been. I was hoping that with more people my chances of interaction would go up. 

I interacted with the first person I saw, their name was "Tyson" and quickly I realized the conversation flowed much quicker and "Tyson" seemed to be much more interested than the people I had previously spoken with.

After I had left "Tyson" the conversation continued and quickly got inappropriate. Because my avatar was a female this person felt comfortable with say and implying and asking about lewd things. For the sake of this class I will not include that conversation. Needless to say I informed the person that I was not a woman and that this was for a class and the correspondence stopped and he left the world.

All of a sudden I was receiving chats from people complimenting me on my name, the same name that I had used for all the levels but somehow it was now cool.

The users felt more comfortable and forth coming with me, for the first time I was not the approacher but the approached and people seemed generally interested in chatting with me.

People wanted to talk with our voices but for the experiment I declined tell them I had no mic. I feared if they heard my voice the gig would be up.

I found this experience to be very enlightening.

I joined the group chat and added some quips that I had used before but this times I received multiple responses.

At the end of the hour I thanked the host and people for their hospitality and exited the server. I had found that while posing as a male avatar people seemed less interested in me and even less interested with speaking with me. While I did receive slightly more correspondence as a white male than a black male I could not determine if that was simply the location or my appearance. The drastic change, as I stated earlier was when I became a female character. People suddenly approached me, enjoyed my conversation, liked my name, etc. Things that I had used for all of my avatars were suddenly appreciated, but with that came the other side of the coin. Some people took the idea that I was a woman thought it was alright to suggest inappropriate things. It was uncomfortable and made me feel for what women in gaming and simulations must go through. My experience happened within the first five minutes of me posing as a female avatar, I can only imagine what regularly must happen. Overall I see the drastic difference race and gender have in a virtual world and must admit that it has opened my eyes to the effects of these traits.