Part One
- About our ideas
When my team members and I first brainstormed together, we actually came up with a lot of interesting thoughts. Luckily, we shared similar opinions and quickly reached the consensus by narrowing down all our options and focusing on two concepts: “VR”, inspired by the first fiction story, and “emotional sensor”, inspired by the second story. Having decided to combine these two concepts together, we planned to build a set of devices—a VR headset (see it in our sketch below) and a pair of gloves together, which were inspired by two existing interactive projects: FRAME-Lab and emotion sensing clothing. According to our settings, the devices are connected to people’s head in order to detect our feelings and emotions. Subsequently, based on our current emotion, the device would “take” us into a vivid scene by offering us four virtual senses—vision, hearing, smell and touch, which is supposed to effectively deal with our negative feelings. By designing this prototype, not only do we want to express the vision of future technology, but we also try to closely connect technology with human emotion, exploring the possibility that technology can have positive and soothing effect on our negative feelings.
Speaking of my contributions to our team, I provided the idea “emotional sensor” and were actively involved in the discussion.
- About the building process
After we all agreed on the proposal, we set about building the prototype. But we didn’t expect that problems popped up one after another:
- Since people has different head measurements, how can we ensure that the headset fits every user? After all, we want it to be user-friendly.
Solution: We made an adjuster on the left side of the headset(inspired by the slack adjuster found on the schoolbag’s strap ) which enables everyone to fit on.
- We had problem in materializing the nose part of the headset because the position drawn in our sketch was too ideal.
Solution: We simplified the nose part, making it an inconspicuous vent hole which allowed the scent to give off.
- How can we make the prototype seem as if it is connected to people’s head?
Solution: We utilized black and red long wires(which look really cool) to link the gloves with the temple part of the headset.
Each member in our team had a clear division of work, but we were also more than willing to help each other when encountering problems. I was responsible for measuring and cutting the cardboard, making the gloves and designing the adjuster.
- About the rehearsal and performance
- Surrounding the topic “mental therapy offered by future technology”, we came up with a relevant scenario as follows:
A student in NYU Shanghai was overwhelmed by endless deadlines, assignments and quizzes. Therefore, he went to the health&wellness center to ask for help. The doctor there offered him a powerful set of device which could present vivid scenes to its users by offering them four virtual senses—vision, hearing, smell and touch. With the instruction of the doctor, the student put on the device and engaged himself in the virtual reality. He slowly calmed down, alleviated his pressure and regained positive feelings.
- In order to let the audience understand the show and “enter” the virtual world with the main character, we materialized three out of the four senses felt by the device user:
Vision: draw pictures and items on the cardboard to show the scene seen by the boy
Hearing: let one of our team members be the voice actor
Touch: shown by the expressions of the actor
- Listed below is the role assignment:
Lesley: the overwhelmed NYUSH student
Ragnor: the doctor
Xiao: holding the “wellness center” cardboard, vision
Ruilin: vision, touch
Riley: hearing (aka the voice actor), holding the “ddl” cardboard
- Conclusion
Overall speaking, our interaction and cooperation went smoothly. I really appreciate our joint efforts and shared opinions to materialize this artifact from scratch. It’s been a pleasure to work with my team. After our performance, one question asked by the professor have left me deep impression, that is, do you think the invention of such a VR headset would bring harm to the real-life interaction between individuals? Actually, I’ve pondered on this question myself. It should be the basic principle that any interactive technologies shouldn’t get in the way of real-life interaction, which is a vital characteristic underlies the meaning of humanity. Thus, in the context of this performance, the proposed interactive technology is merely used as a mental therapy, helping people better cope with real-life work and emotion. It serves as a supplementary of our life, instead of a dominance, which is in accordance with our expectation of the relationship between future technology and humanity.
Part Two
Group 6
The artifact built by group 6 is a robot that helps meet the need of plague-infected people in daily life. It perfectly fits the background of the plague story, since it can detect the silicon percentage inside human body.
Their project meet the criteria of the assignment by using merely cardboard instead of other advanced technology. What’s more, the idea that the robot cannot operate without a human, whose movement directly controls the robot’s actions, embodies the concept interaction.
From my perspective, their project has impressed me the most, not only because the wearable device is well-designed and has catchy appearance, but also because of the way they exhibit it. The reason why I think their performance is smart and creative is that when they introduced real case scenarios happening in the world of the story, they managed to clearly integrate the functions of the robot into the storyline, making it naturally and easily for the audience to understand.
For the suggestions for improvement, I believe it would be more interesting if some plot twists or conflicts can be added.
Reference:
- Visnjic, F. (2021, October 29). VR Projects @ ECAL mid 2020 – object, body, movement and environment. CreativeApplications.Net. Retrieved October 16, 2022, fromhttps://www.creativeapplications.net/environment/vr-projects-ecal-mid-2020-object-body-movement-and-environment/
- Emotion sensing clothing wins National Young Design Award. UNSW Sites. (n.d.). Retrieved October 16, 2022, from https://www.unsw.edu.au/news/2017/06/emotion-sensing-clothing-wins-national-young-design-award
Special thanks to the photographer: Wenbo Lu 🙂