Context
We want to document Northfield (particularly Division street) businesses in a virtual space to allow prospective students/incoming freshmen to explore this quaint little town that will soon become their second home for the next four years.
Objective
Document key buildings, businesses, entertainment venues, and restaurants around Division street neighborhood, and present them in a format that is easy to access and is tailored to prospective Carleton students.
Final Deliverable
A story map overlaid with 3D models of some of our favorite buildings/businesses on Division Street (either through SketchUp modeling or photogrammetry). Story map might contain historical photos of the street, a numerical dataset of businesses, and some context into the street’s tenant history. Primarily though, the focus of the story map to introduce the businesses from a more personal angle — through student testimonials and descriptions– something you cannot get from a simple Google map.
Similar Projects
Harlem, NYC: African American Design Nexus
Dance Halls, Police Stations, and Prostitution in Shanghai from 1920–1947
Proposed Methodology
Sources: Dataset of Northfield Division street business history (?), student testimonials, building history documents
Processes: We will get in touch with our reference librarian for help in finding related documents and photos. We will first digitize and analyze the reference materials, possibly creating a comprehensive dataset that we can then conduct statistical analysis on. We can also conduct a poll that gages which buildings/businesses students frequent the most and which buildings/businesses students know less about. After that, we will build a story map out of the testimonials and documents, overlaying the map with 3D models of key buildings/businesses.
Presentation: Our finished product will be a story map that the users can “look around” and interact with virtually, through engaging 3D models and guided tours that shed light on Division street’s history as well as some insights as to how to best enjoy all that it has to offer. We do not anticipate any intellectual property liabilities for this project.
Proposed Timeline of Deliverables
7th Week Tue
Gather documents, photo, create a dataset if possible, create poll to send out to students
7th Week Thur
Data should be collected by now, poll should be sent out
8th Week Tue
Do some analysis on the documents/dataset, finish polling, gather results, start building models
8th Week Thur
Start creating the story map, continue building models
9th Week Tue
Continue building both story maps (incorporate gathered data/documents) and 3D models (more than half of what we set out to build should be complete)
9th Week Thur
Finish fleshing out the story map, 3D models should be completed and imported into the map
10th Week Tue
Last minute editing of the story map
Individual Tasks
Sunny Kim – 3D modeling
Grace Lee – story map
Hodan Mohamed – data gathering/cleaning, story map
Mem Awad – story map, 3D modeling
Ali Ramazani – 3D modeling
Daniel Kim – data gathering/cleaning, 3D modeling
Yemi Shin – data gathering, 3D modeling
Yemi’s Blog: http://shiny.sites.carleton.edu/uncategorized/hh-final-project/
Sunny’s Blog: http://kims3.sites.carleton.edu/uncategorized/final-project-hacking-the-humanities/
Sorry, wrong link! http://kims3.sites.carleton.edu/final-project/final-project-hacking-the-humanities/
Mem’s blog: http://memawad.sites.carleton.edu/hacking-the-humanities/hacking-the-humanities-final-project-proposal/
Daniel’s blog: http://kimd.sites.carleton.edu/final-project/
Hodan’s blog: http://mohamedh2.sites.carleton.edu/uncategorized/final-project-proposal/
Ali’s blog: http://ramazania.sites.carleton.edu/welcome/final-project/
Team Northfield Gems,
This is a strong team and an interesting idea. I especially like the framing of it as a newly needed resource with the large number of students on campus that have more experience of virtual Northfield and dorm room takeout than physical restaurants in the covid era!
A few thoughts on how to proceed and make this both a useful resource and a veritable DH project:
– I really like the Harlem NYC project as a template, but would love to see yours be more than just a single storymap. A website with separate pages for the interactive map views, the 3D tour, and/or a historical narrative of the development of various options would allow different users to have multiple points of entry.
– As a DH project, and not just a tour guide, make sure to include some humanistic analysis of the eating scene on campus. That could be historical development, or demographic change and ethnic diversity, or the rise of corporate chains vs. local businesses, etc. but make sure there is analysis in addition to testimonials and descriptions of the current restaurants.
– For the 3D tour, you may want to consider whether one or more of the locations would allow/want you to make a “digital twin” of the interior as well as the exterior. Matterport is one option with a free tier, but there are others that do similar things.
Looking forward to see what you come up with!
Austin