Creating a Model Factory Town

• Town Name- Frostford Village
• Company Name- Frostford Productions
• Resources Available- Wheat, livestock, water, crops, coal
• Elements of The Town- Textiles factory, coal mines, shelters
• Population- 236
• Explanation / Brief History- In the early 1800’s, a man called Robert Frostford came upon a wide spread of unclaimed land. He built a home for him and his family where they lived off their own crops. Robert decided he would like to make a business that could be passed down the family line, so he sought out to find workers who could get his company running. He found 30 people within the first two years who were struggling to afford to look after themselves and their families, and he hired them. In return for working at Frostford Productions, they were given decent meals and each paid 10 cents an hour. When Frostford died from an unknown sickness, the company was handed to his son William. By then, there was over 200 people living there working for him, and he didn’t like paying them all their share of money because he was becoming greedy. William lowered their pay rate to 5 cents, and overtime, his labourers left him to work at a higher paying company.

Media Fluency Reflection

1. How was the ease of access in building the town, and what software did you use specifically? I used an app called MyCraft, which is basically a knock off, free version of Minecraft because I’m too broke for that. It wasn’t too difficult but since I haven’t played Minecraft in a few years (and when I did it was only at friends’ houses) it took me a little getting used to. Also, when I did play it I used a computer or an Xbox which I think would have been much faster than using my Ipad (mostly just since I’m more used to it that way).
2. Were you able to apply the skills you learned in the planning stages appropriately to a digital environment? I immediately had an image of what I could make my factory, so I looked online to be sure that my idea was accurate and created it right away. For the rest of my town, I found it helpful to checkout some examples made by my classmates.
3. What were the sources you researched to make this an “authentic make-believe” town? I mostly relied on my knowledge from class, but at one point I looked at some images online by searching up “factory towns from the 1800’s”.
4. Is there other software online that could have done the job better? Explain. I think that using the original Minecraft might have been better because there’s more building sources in that, but otherwise it was practically the same. Both are pretty straightforward and in my opinion, perfect for this project.