Bracketology

Articles can be found at : http://www.ncaa.com
sports.espn.go.com/ncb/bracketology
sports.espn.go.com/ncb/tournament/bracket


Object Name: The Coliseum
Title: March Madness 2009 Bracketology Flow
Creator: RL Name: Cameron Church and Charlie Chavez
SL Name: Jim Wellesley and Viti Capelo
Date: 4/1/2009
Summary: The Coliseum gives the user a well understanding of bracketology and how NCAA College Basketball teams advance through the tournament tree in hopes for a National Championship. The user is able to interact with the coliseum by watching the bracket advance through a state machine which advances from the 'Sweet 16' to the 'Final Four.'

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stqjnvp_7q4

Interaction: The model depicts a Coliseum structure which inside the arena you will find two basketball courts representing the final four games which are to be played 4/3/2009, with the championship game soon to follow on 4/6/2009. The user interacts with the Coliseum by controlling the state machine as the control of information within the tournament tree advances to the final four. The user can also click on any the schools from the initial 16-team bracket and will be directed to the universities website allowing the user to find more about each team/school while interacting with the coliseum.

Motivation: The motivation for this project was design and implement a tournament tree allowing the user to discover more about bracketology as well as information regarding the different universities and flow throughout the tournament. The bracket can be updated when final scores have been reached allowing the user to 'interact' with the news rather than witness it on TV. March madness is a very exciting topic to cover and we hope that fellow avatars/classmates will enjoy interacting with the coliseum.

Description: The textiles used were mostly wood/concrete/and textures for teams/schools. The scripting was implemented as a finite state machine allowing the user to control the states throughout the bracket up to the final four. Basketball hoops were made and given backboards showing which bracket side the user was looking at (16-team vs 8-team) as well as chrome bars to give it a 'realistic' look. Wood structures were designed to depict the actual bracket turning the tournament tree into 3d!