Secret codes for kids
Description
This is a file that can only be opened by my kids or someone else who may know the answer to the question posed to enter the drawing.
Reflection
I decided for this week to make a project for my kids, and possibly consider how I could expand this project into a larger secret code for kids project in the future. The inspiration was the Museum of Math (MoMath) Code Breakers class, that my older son took during the summer when they didn't have a summer camp in New York. We became members of MoMath just before the pandemic hit.
At the time, I was taking Digital Fabrication. When I couldn't print or laser cut because the studios closed, I spent some time playing around with origami. My sons and I made some animals and built an protoype of an nderwater exhibit with blue paper under our table to pass the time and imagine what it would be like to be somewhere else. They loves light blues and greens. It reminds me of the ocean where we spent the last few weeks before the pandemic hit New York. We did a lot of things to be creative and enjoy some time in a difficult situation.
The kids also learned a lot about passwords and security as they started doing school online. My younger son didn't want anyone to know his password. Smart boy!
In the summer, we made some secret codes and replaced letter with other letters. I enjoyed playing code games with them. I wanted to make this project something they could play with and bring them joy.
Design Process
This project took a lot of thinking. I wasn't quite sure how I would make it interesting and meaningful. The examples I saw with P5 felt like optical illusions, which is cool, but not meaningful to me.
At first I had a bunch of ideas related to what's going on in the world and in my life.
Then I decided to focus on a fun project for my kids, that only my kids or someone who knows their interests could get into.
I was thinking of cretive passcodes related to their favortie animals. But then I wanted to do something without images of animals or figures.
I then decided upon the a passcode with the answer "train" and showing railroad tracks as the image behind the passcode, because that is a beautiful repeating pattern that could be styled in different ways.
These railroad tracks are styled in greens and blues, all light and fun colors that they love, which also reminds me of the under the sea exhibit we created during the pandemic.
I wanted there to be a little message for them when they arrived inside the project. So I brainstormed some ideas of fun yet powerful messages I could share with them.
These are the two variations I came up with as messages with the full picture showing.
I'm mostly happy with the way this turned out. The aesthetic and the content is perfect for my kids. They will love it! They would love it more with accessible subway stations with covers so people won't get wet in the rain. Perhaps I could have the train move over the tracks and smoke blow. They will love that even more. I might be able to figure that out in the future and add to this.