Our goal was to create an artifact that is interactive and fits in the setting of one of the short stores we read, specifically, The Fish of LiJiang.
Our Creation: THEATER – a virtual reality device that effectively encompasses all of your senses so that you are able to escape everyday life and enter the location of your choice. It is interactive because the device is able to communicate with the user by interacting with the senses and the users are able to communicate with the device by selecting the setting of their choice and the experience of their choice. It fits in the setting of The Fish of LiJiang as those subject to testing of time compression were brought into a world where virtually everything was artificial for the sake of their well-being. A product such as this would be extremely useful for the recovery of those being experimented on.
The Process of Creation
Ideation Meeting
We first met briefly to share ideas on what our product would be like. We quickly agreed on the idea of a virtual reality set. We had to further discuss how we would make this unique from existing VR’s.
Creation Meeting
Next, we met to design and create the product.
1. We drew out a quick sketch of our product and found materials to use that fit our design
2. After finding a unique material to work with, we took a quick safety orientation to use the laser cutter.
3. We looked at the shelf of free materials for anything that would be useful to add. This led to our microphone creation. We connected a bendable wire and hot glued a pipe cleaner on the head of a birdie
We ended up taking away this component because it seemed unnecessary. We wanted the product to be very minimalistic as we imagine they will be in the future.
4. We then created the goggles with hot glue
We ran into problems with how unstable the set was. So, we used extra glue reinforcement and had to re-glue the set.
Presentation Meeting
We created an iMovie to portray the exploration of different settings.
Analysis of Another Group
Another group created an artifact similar to ours. They used goggles to show how everyone was able to put on the googles and escape into a virtual reality where they can visit multiple places and try other activities (such as fishing). This would also fit very well into The Fish of LiJiang as a recovery tool. I really liked how they showed the positive aspect of being able to step out of reality; making new friends and having a relaxing and interactive escape by doing healthy activities (fishing). They also showed very well the potential downsides to a product like this. It would be very easy to become addicted to escaping the difficult parts of life. The actors all spoke about how they experienced trouble for using it in inappropriate settings (at work or while taking care of a baby for example).
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