“The Labyrinth” Final Project – Jennifer Cheung – Young Chung

 Partner: Jonathan Lin

Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/157TcDINGDDBCXFQA7j2hS8LGTQBwk2NKFEYD5TLOgdk/edit?usp=sharing

Concept and Design

In the initial stages of designing our maze game, the interaction between the user and game was emphasized on using heart rate sensors to determine a faster speed with a higher heart rate. In moving the players within the maze, we decided to simply use a joystick, since it would easily control the X and Y axis. However, after receiving class feedback, we determined that using a joystick would not make the game challenging  or unique enough, since people are already so accustomed to using joysticks in many other games. We decided to go along with advice that Malika gave us to use a Dance Dance Revolution foot pad to control the players, since it would simulate walking within the maze.

Foot pad setup

Since we did not have access to an actual DDR pad, I made a similar one out of arcade buttons encased with packaging foam conveniently found in the cardboard room and secured with wire. I chose to use foam because it would safely encase the buttons and prevent them from breaking when people step on them. While it was not the most aesthetically pleasing construction, the material was easily customizable to fit the needs of the project. Using cardboard, 3D prints, or laser cut boxes would not have been as successful, because they are not as forgiving to people’s forceful stomps. 

Fabrication and Production

Maze Design
Instructions

I took over design and production, while Jonathan covered code. I began by designing a maze from scratch in Photoshop. I didn’t want to use a preexisting maze because I needed to make the game fair for both players and thus needed to put their characters in different parts of the maze to start, since they compete against each other and cannot start in the same location. Once the maze was done, we tested the playability with the computer keyboard first. A video summarizing the myth of the Labyrinth and instructions were added in the beginning of the game so that users would be able to get the full idea of the context and how to play the game.

Schematic

Then, we moved onto constructing the foot pads. Jonathan thought of making an additional function for the Minotaur to sprint by using pressure sensors, so for user testing, we had Player 1 (the Runner) controlled with buttons and Player 2 (the Minotaur) controlled with pressure sensors. However, we discovered that using pressure sensors were not as effective as buttons in moving the players, because the foam encasing the pressure sensors weakened the force of the foot steps. Additionally, coding would’ve been too much of a hassle to get the same result, so we decided to scrap the pressure sensors and sprinting function and use buttons for both players. The footpads were mostly effective, but when people would step too aggressively, wires had a high chance of disconnecting, so sometimes the game would not work properly in the middle of the game.

Additionally to the interactive foot pads, we added a heart rate sensor to Player 1 (the Runner) who would be able to run faster by getting their heart rate up. However, the nature of the long and unstable wire attachments made it difficult for the player to efficiently apply this function to the game. The wires would often disconnect, and the player would be too focused on moving within the maze to remember to get their heart rate up to go faster. 

IMA Show Setup

Conclusions

Our goals in this project were to create a fun, engaging game that also educated users of the myth of the Labyrinth. Our project aligns with interaction because users control their players’ movements in a cyclical cause-effect relationship by stepping on the foot pads. It does not align with interaction in some other ways, because our attempts to make it more interactive with the addition of the heart rate sensor were not that effective since people did not really make use of this function. Ultimately, players interacted with the game by engaging their bodies and mind to control their movements around the maze, making it a fun experience for both players. If I had more time, I would have wanted to make the heart rate sensor a bigger part of the game. Instead of only having one used within the maze, both players would use it at the start of the game, so they could first get their heart rate up then focus on playing the game. I’ve learned that it takes good communication and clear goal setting to reach a solid finished product, since both collaborators need to be on the same page to jointly create good output. Our project not only engages the body and mind at the same time, it also seeks to educate others on Greek mythology and inspire them to further explore more of the genre. It was a valuable learning experience for me to combine both my visual design in creating the maze, as well as functional design in creating the foot pads.

Week 7: VISION Final Project – Jennifer Cheung

Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1T204A53vwnwHKGVBPYU3YFZL1fwYiCmfTC-jDsz1hxw/edit?usp=sharing 

After working with speculative design on the group project, I knew I wanted to work with this framework again for my final project. With speculative design, there is so much freedom in choosing how the future will turn out, so design possibilities were very broad. By brainstorming my interests in visual and graphic design, I settled on a broad idea to visualize thoughts into something that could be physically seen. 

I refined my idea to take the form of a communicative necklace for travelers to use in foreign countries. The necklace would use futuristic technology to emit holographic images that represent what the wearer says to ease with foreign communication. I chose to use a necklace to be the mode of emission because it would easily display images in front of the wearer but not obscure their face. Similar products, like translating earbuds, also do the job of translating, but they obscure the speaker’s voice with an AI that speaks the translation into the wearer’s ears. I find this to serve as a barrier between people’s interaction, since the aspect of hearing the other’s voice is lost. Therefore, I think using visuals while being able to hear what they are saying makes a more personal connection. 

I soon realized that this necklace had much more potential to help others besides travelers. Our world is getting so much more interconnected that people of all different cultures are engaging with each other. Language therefore still remains a barrier in people’s homelands. Personally, I face this within my family, which speaks many different dialects of Chinese. Though I have basic knowledge of Chinese, I don’t have the time to master other dialects they speak, which keeps me from bonding with older generations. Additionally, I see barriers within the different cultures at our school. Even though many nationalities are represented, people tend to stick with people of the same background as them, which I infer is because of language and culture differences. In the future, I see people having to interact more with different cultures, but not having the time to fully learn other languages. Therefore, I changed my target audience to anyone who wishes to create deeper connections with people of all different cultures without the challenge of having to know their languages. Additionally, I realized how much of the conversations we have cannot be efficiently translated into simply visual representations. Therefore, I decided to include word translations with a visual supplement so that people are able to get the full picture of what is being said. 

Since I don’t have the technology to make an actual prototype, I decided to make a user manual to show how the necklace works. Using Photoshop, I designed all the pages to be as minimal in text as possible so that it would be easier to digest. I then printed a physical copy that was small enough to fit into the product’s box.

   

In designing my product, I tried to make considerations about the many ways people would interact with it, for example the two modes of use, but there were some drawbacks that I did not catch. Some feedback I received included how people would be distracted by the holograms and not be able to fully concentrate on the speaker, the inconvenience of pushing buttons to activate the necklace, a more feminine design not geared to men as much, and the possibility of creating class differences between the rich and poor. Regarding the last point, I feel that all new technology has the potential of creating contrasts between people of different socioeconomic backgrounds. New technology is bound to be used by a specific group who can access it first, but as it stays in the market for a longer time, more and more people begin to use these products and they do not become niche anymore. This can be seen in Apple’s AirPods, which many people were opposed to when they first launched. However, now that they’ve been out for three years, it is commonplace to see all kinds of people wearing these. So, I think this could apply to the VISION necklace as well. 

Recitation 11: Workshops by Jennifer Cheung

In this recitation, I attended the Object Oriented Programming workshop taught by Tristan. We learned how to organize our code to better control many objects. We followed his code to create a couple of “people” made of ellipses and strokes to move when their head was clicked. By using OOP, we were able to create many different versions of the people with a few lines of code. 

I altered the example code by having the people interchange between moving horizontally and vertically when their heads were clicked. Katie helped me achieve this by showing me how to use the % syntax, so that when the divided remainder was even, the people would move vertically, and when the remainder was odd, they would move horizontally. 

Overall code

Object Code

Week 5: Speculative Design Group Project – Jennifer Cheung

Group members: Jamie Wang, Peter Huang, Zeyao Li

Framework: Speculative Design

Agenda: Responsible

Goal: Performance

Presentation Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1FvM8pernTuJZ1sgARgjLJlMN4kNEDOBVX309vK9ux84/edit?usp=sharing

Website: https://zw1745.wixsite.com/website 

In thinking of a design for the future, our group had a lot of freedom in choosing how the future would turn out, and what scenarios would give rise to problems to design for. We settled on the problem of overworking in China, specifically on the 996.ICU movement. Many major tech companies’ workers spend 9am-9pm at work for 6 days a week, leading them to overwork until they physically cannot sustain themselves and must go to the Intensive Care Unit. We envisioned this problem exacerbating greatly in the future, to the extent that the government would have to intervene and establish a new way of working. 

Under these circumstances, we created SmartWork, an office system that would help manage workers’ time in the office and relieve their stress. It considers the health of overworked workers, who are usually valued for their output rather than how well they working, thus fulfilling the responsibility agenda. Instead of keeping workers in the office for the entire day, we wanted their work to be based on how much good quality work they got done. This would give them more time to live their lives outside of work and relieve their stress, thus improving their performance at work. 

We contemplated designing an implant that could measure brain activity, but we decided that this would be too invasive on workers’ privacy. Instead, we decided that in this time period, technology would have become so advanced that it would be possible to measure concentration and stress levels with an external tool. Therefore, we designed a webcam called SmartCam in workers’ computers that would monitor their facial muscle movements for signs of stress and their measure brain waves to gauge concentration levels. Values of stress would be sent to a product called SmartLight, while values of concentration would be sent to SmartChair.

SmartLight is a monitor for managers to see individuals’ stress levels, indicated by colored lights. When managers see that a worker’s stress level has exceeded the normal amount and lights up red on SmartLight, the manager will tell the worker to take a break to lower the level of stress. Managers are encouraged to relieve the office’s stress, because if the average stress of the whole office exceeds a certain amount, the company will be fined by the government. 

SmartChair is a chair for each worker that acts as a signaling device. The more hours of concentrated work put in, the more intensely the chair will emit a blue light. When the worker has met the amount of concentration needed, the chair will blink, telling the worker that they can leave for the day. This helps prevent workers from having to stay in the office for excessive amounts of time. 

In creating the project, we split up the work. Jamie worked on the website and video that simulated the SmartWork environment, Peter worked on the blinking lights that represented SmartChair, while Zeyao took over illustrating the different uses of the three products. I took over making the presentation. 

After presenting, we received lots of constructive feedback that allowed us to rethink parts of our project. Functionally, having the SmartChair light be put on the backs of the chairs would not be the most effective in signaling to the user, because they do not see the backs of the chair. Additionally, blinking lights throughout the day could also be distracting. Furthermore, the system has the potential to discriminate against people who work differently, have stress in their personal life, and who relieve stress in different ways. The system also has the possibility of being sinister by invading people’s privacy and making them work in abusive ways. Despite the many drawbacks that could come from this design, it was a provocative project that got people talking and questioning about future implications. 

Week 6: Empathy Workshop – Jennifer Cheung

The lego empathy exercise was a great way to practice collaborating with someone. It was difficult to figure out how the legos were stacked and how to describe them well to my partner, but in the end her legos were stacked very similarly to the original. Patience and communication was key to being able to effectively do this exercise. 

The following activities of designing our partners’ projects were great to be able to get out of our heads and see other people’s viewpoints. When Kennedy asked me about different aspects of my project, I realized that there were many things that I had not thought to account for. Hearing her opinions was very helpful in narrowing down what exactly my project was going to do. Asking about her project also gave me an idea of how much freedom there is in speculative design, since we can envision the future in whatever way we like.

Ideas for Kennedy’s project

The next step of researching for our partners got me thinking of new ways to approach her project. Sites I found gave me insight on different ways to incorporate Hawaii’s culture, resources, western influence, and future clean energy into a fashion editorial. With these in mind, I was able to come up with more aspects that Kennedy could address in her project. Overall, this activity was a great way of “peer reviewing” each others’ projects so that we got a second opinion of which routes we can take our projects.