Context
GameTruck is a national franchise, and I was employed at their Beaverton branch as an Assistant Manager. Through this experience I discovered new ways to utilize my creative skills in this position every day. One of the services offered by the company is laser tag. However, with the growing threat of gun violence in schools, the verbiage of “laser gun” became potentially triggering and inappropriate for our target audience which is children roughly between the ages of 8 and 12. Our solution was to take the black, military style “guns” and transform them into more fun and safe looking “taggers” by painting them our brand’s colors, orange and green.
Method
The plan was to strip, prime, tape, paint, tape again, paint again and then seal. I made some quick and dirty prototypes for the design (including a space invaders stencil that was phased put in the end).
Execution
This project was completed in the driveway of our depot in Beaverton. I laid out a drop cloth and got to work. The project was completed over 5 days (taking into consideration the two days I had to abstain from working on it to avoid going into overtime)
The Result
Challenges
Time
My manager asked me to begin this project a week out from an event where the taggers would need to be dry and ready for use. I committed to that timeline knowing that I could put in however much time it would take to finish the project before then, but I didn’t know that our corporate team would place a limit on how many hours I could work for that pay period. I lost two days of time which pushed the project out til the night before the event and put me in a position where i needed to rush the paint job and ask my manager for help with some of the labor in the end.
Environment
Our branch runs out of a portion of someone’s home in Beaverton. Typically we don’t run into many issues, but I had to move the still drying taggers several times during the process which led to some cosmetic damage. In addition, since they had to dry outside and uncovered, some of the taggers have a bit of leaf or dirt stuck in the paint.
Lack of experience
Since this was my first time painting laser taggers, I underestimated the time it would take to finish the project in my initial conversations with management, and we needed more supplies than we budgeted for in the end