Final Project: My Boston Tea Party Ship

This is my rendition of a ship from the Boston Tea Party, done using minecraft. 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

Here is the beginning of my ship.  I first built a platform, or hull, to keep the boat afloat.  

Second, I began building the sides of the boat.  There is a brown stripe down the side of it, with the rest being yellow.  So I used gold blocks to give the illusion that the side is yellow.  

Next, I added chests of tea to the interior.  

Here, I am building the stairs that lead to and from the upper deck to the cargo hold.

Here is a shot of the completed upper deck.  The second screen shot is better, as it is day time.

Here, I added two masts and some decorative sails, as well as a little extension off the bow of the ship and a protective barrier by the stairs leading into the cargo hold to stop people from falling in.  

Here is a small staircase to assist in boarding.

Here are some more cases of tea on the deck of the boat.

The following are overviews from all the different angles around my boat.

Here is the actual photo that I used as motivation for this project.

  Hope you enjoyed my work as much as I had constructing it!

Identity in the Context of Virtual Worlds

     In today's society, many of us have succumbed to the actuality that we might not ever become the pro baseball player we always dreamt of, or the firefighter we emulated as a child.  Some of us, including myself, realized that those dreams were not practical, found our niches, and moved on with our lives.  However, virtual worlds create an outlet for our "boring" everyday lives.  Programs like Second Life and Minecraft allow us to interact with other people anonymously in exotic, exciting landscapes that sure as heck beat our office cube, work truck, or classroom.  

     

     First, I would like to focus on the positive aspects of anonymity in virtual worlds.  Take, for example, myself.  I grew up watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  However, when I came to the realization that I would never fight crime, live off pizza, and live underground, I was disappointed.  However, in Minecraft, I could design my avatar like a ninja (seen below) as an homage to my days of imagining my future with a talking rat as my sensai.  My teammate Greg also had dreams of being a superhero when he grew up, and this came to fruition in Meshmoon when he was able to transform his avatar into a bulked up, cape-wearing, muscleman (2nd screenshot).

     Next, comes my another one of my favorite things in Minecraft and Second Life; the ability to fly.  Although it doesn't have as many personal traits as an avatar itself, it is still something EVERYONE dreams about, but never has the chance to do.  I, myself, STILL have dreams about just fluttering my legs and being able to soar above the clouds.  Finally, my dream came true!

(who else can say they went swimming in Boston in March?)

     Although I believe there are far more pros to anonymity in virtual worlds, there are also plenty of downfalls.  For example, in my exploration of Second Life, I ran into some pretty vulgar commenters and even some nude avatars.  I now know how to avoid places like that for the future, but as a newbie (which I was at the time), I didn't know what I was in for.  Some discretion is definitely recommended, especially for younger browsers.  

     All in all, I believe that anonymity and the ability to be essentially whoever/whatever you want to be in virtual worlds is a good thing.  There are far too many judgmental stigmas attached to people nowadays, even just after a quick glance.  But tools like Meshmoon, Minecraft, and Second Life allow people to introduce themselves to the world as what he/she WANTS to be.  Not only is this pretty darn cool, I believe the therapeutic benefits are countless.

Examining Gender, Race, and Body Image in a Virtual World

Here is my first you-around with Second Life interacting with other people.  Admittedly, I was a little nervous about doing this, because nowadays, there could be any kind of weirdo/pervert behind the keyboard of the other characters in Second Life, which, unfortunately became evident in this particular world I was in right away.

In this screenshot, I have just arrived in the virtual world and I am walking around toward the other people in it with me.

Here, we can see the gentleman in the suit telling one of the women in the world how beautiful she is.

Here, another woman comes in between the man in the suit and the scantily clad woman he had been complimenting.  She, herself, is also wearing a pretty skimpy outfit, and insists that she is "hotter" than the other woman.

Here, I was flying around the world to see if there were any other people in it (preferably normal people).  No such luck.

On to another world in a DIFFERENT avatar.

For this world, I chose London and I transformed my avatar into a girl in a dress.

There were quite a few other people gathered at the first place I teleported to, however, I was disappointed to be greeted with more of the same semi-inappropriate talk, especially aimed toward the girl seen below in the skimpy dress toward the right hand of the screen shot.

 Here is another exchange between the girl that was cat-called and the cat-callers.  She clearly doesn't have a problem flirting with back with these seemingly complete strangers.

 And here is one last futile attempt to fly around the world, looking for some normal people.

On to the next world.

I picked the "Blarney Stone Irish Pub" and I changed my avatar to an Asian girl wearing a red leather jacket.  As seen below, it didn't take long at all for my avatar to gain some attention and I had someone saying hi to me.

 This is the dance floor at the Blarney Stone.  As you can see, there is another scantily clad woman on the left of the floor.  The man directly in front of me was EXTREMELY excited about this girl, so much that I actually can't show the message board in my screen shots.  It got pretty vulgar.

In the next screen shot, I had ventured upstairs.  I ran into another person sitting on a support beam of the building.  Once again, I can't show what he said to me.  At this point, I'm pretty sure this will be the last time I venture around in Second Life.

And finally, here I am again, outside the pub, just looking for some normal people to chat with.  Again, no such luck.

Overall, I am pretty disappointed with these findings in Second Life.  In all 3 of the virtual worlds I entered, I was bombarded with sexism and inappropriateness.  In fact, for one of these experiments, I was in a world right around mid-day.  And the vulgarity was the worst here!  Who's to say there isn't a young curious child in the world at that point?  Call me old fashioned, but I definitely will be putting parental locks on Second Life whenever it is I have children!