Group Research Project Report

Our productions are bands which parents and children wore. These bands are like smartwatches in that they have interactive screens and functions like making phone calls. The difference is that Bands are directly attached to nerve and can monitor heart rate. Through bands, parents can sense the agitation and pressure of their children and calm them down through bands.

I think our idea can be related to “Shadow Orchestra” by sensing heart rate. Our invention can “listen” to children’s heart rate and nerve and “think”. Then if the invention “thinks” out, it would “tell” parents the children need to cool down. Our invention can be also related to “Mind the Uuh”. The machine recognizes when a child needs to calm down and alerts them via the screen.

I think this artifact is mostly successful. It combines many interactive functions that have already been existed now and it also has something new, including being connected to nerve and can cool down children. We have made many details for the bands. This is imaginative and unique. But whether this kind of strict nursery could be really good for children is still undetermined. Children would be almost totally monitored. After seeing other artifacts, I think ours is still too simple. We can make it more interactive, not only in the meaning and story, but also in itself during performance.

There is a group working on a project of a so detailed helmet. During the plague, personal feelings can sometimes be trouble. So a helmet that can stop these emotions could be so useful to make people do what they should but do not want to because of emotions. This is quite relevant to their story: There is no way to treat an infected loved one, but there is no rational way to clean up the infected. A helmet to stop thoughts and emotions is a straightforward solution. This is really imaginative and I don’t know if similar technology has been existing. I have come up a question that this helmet can not be wore all the time so emotions would come back after taking this off. Then how can people deal with heavier emotions caused by what they’ve done wearing helmet? If there are someone forcing people to wear a helmet with malice and control them, what should we do? The story of this group is complete and has sufficient communication and interesting performance. I can easily know what was going on. When the girl had to kill her infected brother, she was forced to wear the helmet and suddenly became so rational and calm. So obviously that was because of the helmet. I like this performance. However I think they can use the story to tell more about the helmet’s function and operation.

In the first meeting we had, we talked about everyone’s idea about this project. Most members chose The Veldt as a background, so we decided to use this story and combine the details of ideas, including both devices transmit signals and sensing heart rate. The design of the equipment body is completed. At the end of this meeting, we divided the work. Jaidyn and I would make the band for children. Finn and Michelle would make the band for adults. Ryan would write the scripts. After we finished the work we had a meeting again, for some detailed adjustments on scripts and productions. We also chose our own character of the story. Finn and Jaidyn would act adults, Michelle and I would act the children and Ryan chose the psychiatrist. We also read the scripts together in the meeting.