Presentation Text:
If One Day, We Can Communicate With Aliens
——Alien Language Translator
by Reon Chen
The Elevator Pitch: Have you ever wondered how to communicate with aliens? This project enables us to communicate with aliens by building a language translation system.
Abstract:
As shown above, users can enter any English letters in the communication box, and the translator is able to convert them into designed alien characters to communicate with the aliens.
This work was first inspired by Arrival, a work that depicts people deciphering, imagining, and communicating with alien texts. In Ar’rirrival, a mirror-like object serves as a vehicle for communication between humans and alien civilizations. In this work, I used a similar compiler as a vehicle to hook us up with an imaginary alien civilization. Of course, the work I did was the opposite of the linguist’s work in Arrival. I created a text that did not belong to the Earth’s civilization by designing movements, shapes, and transformations of the text, which had the advantage that the user could fully enjoy a sense of curiosity and unknown without any prior preparation. And by combining words and sentences, you can experience the feeling of deciphering a language. Of course, the design of the language is so variable that just when the user thinks he has understood the rules of my design, he will find that the next letter changes more than he could have imagined. This process is to express that people’s decoding of words is a long and difficult process.
Reflection
Process: Design and Composition
I first designed the main part of the alien language translator, the implementation of language translation. In it, I designed the 24 English letters corresponding to the alien language symbols and iterated them so that users could create the feeling of communicating with aliens.
version1
version2
version3
If you look closely, you will see that the design goes from simple to complex, from single to whole. In version 1, the system is only able to recognize one user input character, which is far from enough to achieve language translation and communication. In version 2, the system could recognize strings (sentences, words, letters), however, this system was too monotonous to make the user feel futuristic, so I made a new iteration on this version. Of course, on the interaction day, I also came to the conclusion that sometimes the system is too complicated for users to know how to interact with it, based on which I designed a note on the right side to guide users.
Process: Technical
The logical framework for the theme of this work is the class function; specifically, a nested class structure is used to split the input sentences into words and finally into letters to achieve the translation process of an alien language
Also this part is the main challenge point. The other part is the creation of the submit fucntion and the design of the letters.
In general, all the technical difficulties were basically overcome, but if we can do it again, some design ideas can be refined in some. During the design process, due to the huge workload, I set the output pattern of upper and lower case letters to be the same, and I can make the design further in a more refined way later in the process. At the same time, since each letter is designed in groups, the combination sometimes does not match the aesthetics, and I will pay more attention to the overall effect of the design in the future.
Reflection and Future Development
Combining the three versions of my project evolution, I have drawn some critical lessons. In the first version, I over-controlled user interaction, which was not satisfactory in leon’s evaluation, so in the second version I started to shift to increase interactivity and immersion. In the third version I added radar, sound waves, and details on the spacecraft to enhance the environment. In general, the overall part of the project goes deeper and deeper towards the futuristic. This part looks good in my opinion.
Of course, there are some parts that can be optimized. In the exchange, the professor pointed out that the rule I set of not typing more than five letters at a time could be optimized. Perhaps I could design it in such a way that the alien brain cannot accept more than five letters. Such a design is more intriguing. At the same time, the visiting professor pointed out that this work is a complex one, so I can set more interactions, such as moving the mouse or keyboard to move the rocket and other changes, instead of just emphasizing the effect of the text.
Special Thanks
Sam, Leon and Yixiao Wang
reference list:
https://editor.p5js.org/AugustWang/sketches/jW7RLohmw