A. PROJECT TITLE: A broken heart
B. PROJECT STATEMENT OF PURPOSE:
According to my research, depression is a common disease worldwide. An estimated 3.8% of the population is affected, including 5.0% of adults and 5.7% of adults over 60 years. Sufferers can be significantly affected, performing poorly at work, school, and home. At its worst, depression can lead to suicide. More than 700,000 people die by suicide each year. Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death in the 15-29 age group. The causes of adolescent depression are closely related to heavy school load and less exercise. In addition, over-reliance on mobile phones, computers, and other equipment, daily exposure to a large number of overly complex information also has a significant impact on the psychological of teenagers. So I want to use this point to introduce my project to the vital theme of depression, to use close visual and sensory contact to understand people who suffer from this phenomenon. I think my biggest challenge is how to get people who aren’t depressed to empathize with them.
C. PROJECT PLAN:
I decided to use Processing to create a game-like interaction with a heart in the middle. The audience uses Arduino’s vibration sensors to trigger the processing switch. At each command, a sword is fired and thrust into the heart. When the blade is inserted to a certain extent, the heart can not bear it and then burst. But if a spectator fires a sword simultaneously, it will also explode. Here, the audience cannot be repeatedly poked at the same point, and it is believed that everyone’s psychological acceptance degree is also different. The only issue that resonates with the audience is when the needle is inserted in the heart and how humans can harm a heart. In the next few weeks, I need to finish making the game by Processing and controlling the game with Arduino’s vibration sensor. Next week, I will first complete the processing trial and design the visual effects of the interface. Such as the reaction in the heart and beware of the explosion’s impact, with the selection of color and sound of the auditory completion of the audience interaction action. In early December, I began to test the application of Arduino and bought vibration sensors to connect the control of the original Processing mouse. I will take the user test on Friday to test whether my concept is reasonable and then modify it from there.
D. CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
Most of the content will be the same as my plan; I suddenly changed my original idea. I recently found out that I have a friend with depression, and she usually confides in me. I thought she just needed an outlet, but on November 21, I heard from her parents that she wanted to kill herself. I just remembered everything she had told me. I think this one injury after another finally broke her apart. My point about audience interaction is that people will mock and cause more and more depression; after all, everyone’s psychological acceptance level is different. I hope to create a storyline that allows the audience to feel this patient’s pain. The principal value I want to convey is not to make the audience think that getting hurt is funny but to hurt a person’s heart.