10

Wow, I haven't posted in what seems like forever. It's been a busy semester, but for this class, I've learned so much. We had the opportunity of speaking with Tom Zuidema and Brian Bauer, both experts in the field of ancient Inca culture in Cuzco, and they provided tremendous insight into the details of the culture and the layout of the city, the Ceque system, etc. Clark and Norm have both helped us understand the archaeology component of the project and the computer science component (aka how to make our project look cooler and more fascinating), and I think that the final product for the entire class was better than I expected for the short time that we actually worked on the project.

The class finally decided to create one huge collaborative project which involved some research papers, some ethnographical work, some 3D modeling and animation, and then putting all this information onto Power Points and onto a website, which was my job for the project. The final product, which still needs work done on, can be found here:

http://visualizingthepast.webs.com/

I had a lot of fun making it. In the next post, I'll detail the actual process. It took a lot of time, a lot of remembering old code that I used to use, thinking about the implications of the web design and the information presented in it, and communication with everyone in the class. I feel like I got a lot closer to everyone, even if it was not too much talking with them, but there was a closer sense of community that was absent from the class in the beginning of the semester.