• Many people visit Fayuan Temple on holidays and weekends to burn incense and worship the Buddha inside.

• Over-crowded space and inconvenient transportation: in order to accommodate more residents, the original Siheyuans (traditional housing style in Beijing) have been reconstructed into a cramped courtyard with extremely narrow space in between that barely allows one person to pass through.

• Lack of recreational public space.

• Most visitors are around 30-50 years old.

• Parents often bring their kids to play at the park. Seniors would walk around and play pokers.

User Interview

I conducted deep user interviews with the residents in the Fayuan Community, in an effort to understand the way they perceive and participate in community activities and decide the event design direction.

I interviewed 12 residents in the Fayuan Community:

Some kids also accept interviews when I talk with their parents.

Middle aged residents:

• Are the most open group of people.

• Said there was an extremely popular community market organized in the park in front of the Fayuan Temple.

• Visit the park in the morning or after 5 pm.

• Are very willing to participate in activities.

Kids:

• Were surprisingly open to the interview.

• Lack space to play near their homes, so they often play at the park in front of Fayuan Temple.

• Play at the park on weekends, since they go to school from Monday to Friday and usually stay at home after school.

• Expressed interests in participating in interesting and fun activities.

Seniors:

• Were the most cautious group of interviewees.

• Mentioned that other organizations have hosted events about Buddhism before and felt that there was not much difference between each event.

Old Buddhists in the Temple:

• Were very open to talking to us and mentioned they will “likely participate” in activities related to the Fayuan Temple.

• Were very conservative about participating in community activities.

• Mentioned they couldn’t make it to the activities because they have to take care of the little kids at home.

Monks

• Mentioned Fayuan Temple often organizes its own events.

• Did not show enthusiasm towards externally organized activities, as Fayuan Temple should be a tranquil and sacred religious land.

Design Process

Persona

Jason Yang
10-year-old boy

• Elementary school student in 4th grade.

• Lives in Fayuan Community.

• Likes playing badminton with friends in the park in front of Fayuan Temple on Sunday mornings.

• Active participants in various extracurricular activities.

May Zhang
36-year-old mom

• Despite her busy work schedule over 50 hours a week, she still manages to spend quality time with her son.

• She participates in parental workshops with her son one or two times a week.

Ideation

We want to design a game-based event for the kids in the Fayuan Community to have fun as well as learn about the cultural heritage in the Fayuan Temple.

We pick “treasure hunt” as the theme for the event and constraint the area of the event to the Fayuan Hutong, with the three Assembly Halls as the key locations for the treasure hunt. This way, we can naturally weave in the historical stories into the games and make sure the events are fun and interesting.

During the game, the kids need to partner up with other kids or their parents. They develop a deeper bond through this collaborative treasure hunting activity.

First Iteration

• I divide the players into three teams and send them off to find hidden pieces in Fayuan Temple.
  

• The players head to three key points: Shaoxing Assembly Hall, Liuyang Assembly Hall, and Hunan Assembly Hall. After they find the pieces hidden at the three locations, they will combine them into a complete key. The players can then use the key to open the treasure box.
  

• The combined key can send a special pre-programmed blinking frequency to the box. The box will open after sensing the corresponding signal.
  

• The key consists of three components, and the players will find three potential pieces for each component. Only one out of the three pieces are “real”. The player can only open the treasure box after combining the three “real” pieces.
  

Design shortfall:

If the three “real” pieces end up in three different teams, no team will be able to complete the “real” key and open the treasure box.

Second Iteration

I used physical keys in the first interaction as the media to convey the message to open the treasure box. However, there were number constraints for physical keys due to our limited budget. The limited number of physical keys caused the teams to compete for the same keys, which was not what we intended. What if we could design a virtual key for the treasure box and bypass the resource constraints?

I got inspired by the safety verification puzzle we often see when logging in online:

picture source: JD.com

1. Assemble

   When the game starts, the players assemble at the “base-camp” and receive the Puzzle Cards and Treasure Map.

2. Look for clues

   Using the information from the map, the players go looking for three clues and assemble the Puzzle Cards and Clue cards to complete the puzzle and obtain the information they need to complete the game.

3. Open the treasure chest

   From this point the players need to look for the Treasure Chest and open it using the information they obtained from the puzzle.The first players to open the chest then win the treasure.

Puzzle Card
This is the puzzle card that I distribute to players at the beginning of the game. Each puzzle card has one missing piece (the clue cards). The team needs to find the missing piece from the marked locations on the map in order to complete the puzzle and receive clues.

Clue card

Each Clue Card is attached to an Interactive Talking Box that matches with a Puzzle card. When users complete the puzzle with the correct missing piece, the Interactive Talking Box will play a recorded audible story that happened in the assembly hall. This function is powered by Arduino.

Treasure Map
Indicates the location of the Clue Cards and the Treasure Chest.

Treasure Chest
A chest protected with a password which is indicated in the audible story, that contains the treasure.