Group Research Project Reflection – Sagar Risal

Interaction is very broad, but the way that I’ve come to define it is, an action from a user followed from a response from certain object. The reason I see it this broad is because instead of just defining interaction to a confined definition, I see it more as a open definition that can in turn be seen in terms of levels of interaction.

When researching projects for inspiration for our group project, two really stuck out to me in the way that the interact with the user, as well as the way that it can benefit the user. These were TAMI, an interface that helps students better understand calculus, with both physical elements as well as a digital display, as well as the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset. As Crawford states in his book Art of Interactivity, there are degrees to interaction, and these two projects are perfect examples of those. TAMI I would consider to have a very high level of interaction, since it combines both physical and digital elements to it’s interface, as well as the interaction of knowledge that the user gains when using the product. It’s very high level interaction allows for students to better understand the intricacies of graphing certain formulas, because it allows the user to interact with the product in different ways in which the user feels fit. The oculus on the other hand is a little bit lower in level in interaction as a product itself, since it can only show you the view of what you are doing, but it shows how if one can combine the oculus with other types of technologies, one can reach a higher form of interaction. 

Our group project was called Knowledge Transmitter 2.0, since the first one killed someone due to some malfunctions, showing how even 100 years in the future there are still missteps with technology. The device is meant to transfer the information from books into ones brain, as to gain that new information and use it to create new ideas. The device transfers all the information from the book into ones head, but that information disappears from one’s memory unless bought again, making the seller make more money.

I would consider this project to have a high level of interaction since, just like reading a book, there is a transference of information from one object to another, and the output is what the user does with that information, as well as the information that the user chose to receive. Just like when one learns something new, it is up to them to come up with how they want to use this new information and for what purpose could it serve to better themselves interact with the information given as well as what they want to forge their output of that information and knowledge. 

Works Cited: 

Crawford. “What Exactly Is Interactivity.” The Art of Interactivity, pp. 1–6. 

https://www.creativeapplications.net/openframeworks/tami-an-intuitive-approach-to-the-learning-of-trigonometry/

https://www.oculus.com/?locale=en_US 

Feel Me, Catch me——Cindy Xie——Rudi

  • CONCEPTION AND DESIGN:

Introduction

My project is called “feel me, catch me,” which is a game model. In this game model, there are three kinds of players, devil, angel, and ordinary people. Angel player’s task is to find the devil player; at the same time, the devil player’s mission is to find the angel player. Ordinary people don’t have a task. They will continuously move around during the game, interference with the identification of angels and devils. Because each player doesn’t know who the other player is, the angel and devil recognize each other by listening to background music (which is why it’s called catch me, feel me).Each player holds a game box. As the angel approaches the demon, the background music continues to produce a heartbeat, and the heart image on the computer continues to beat.  

Because this project is a model, the complete game version can be applied to life as an ice-breaking game. For example, this game can be played in school, at this time only angel players and devil players, while ordinary players are students who do not participate in the game. The play site is the whole school, and angel and demon players will wear Bluetooth headphones, which will be connected to the computer. When they get close to each other, they will hear intense heart beatings in the earphones. Whoever recognizes the other’s identity first, namely shout out “catch you,” who wins.  

In what ways did your understanding of how your users were going to interact with your project informed certain design decisions you made?

In this work, the most critical decision I made was to establish the connection between players, instead of the interaction between players and the machine. In real life, we spend most of our time communicating through eye contact and oral communicating, but we ignore the role of listening. So I want to use “hearing the heartbeat to judge each other identity” as a new way to build a new kind of interaction between players. When the angel and the demon get close to each other, both two sides will hear intense heartbeats. This design goes beyond the purely visual influence but adds more hearing element. Also, this design goes beyond the connection between the player and the machine, establishing a relationship between players and players directly.

what form, material or elements did you use? What criteria did you use to select those materials? Why was it/were they best suited to your project purpose, more than any other one/s? What might have been another option? But you rejected it—why?

In this work, my primary materials are radio frequency link, Arduino nano, and power bank.

Radio frequency link:

 

               (receiver)                                           (sender)
The most important reason for using a radio frequency link is pairing. That is, the sender sends a signal, such as “hello,” and the receiver can receive many signals. Still, it only responds when it receives “hello.” In this work, I used two sets of receiving and sending terminals in total, one for matching devil and angel, and the other for matching devil and computer. The computer connected to a receiver, the devil box had a receiver and sender, and the angel box had a sender. The sender in the angel box keeps sending “hello”.

But only when the receiver of the devil box receives the “hello” signal, the sender of the devil box will send another specific message “ghost” to the computer, indicating that the devil and angel have matched so that the Processing can start.

the receiver of the computer receives the “ghost” and completes the heartbeat instruction through the Arduino to processing program. 


In the beginning, I was hesitant to choose Bluetooth or rf, because both can use to match, but I decided rf at last for two reasons. The first reason is that the radio frequency distance is very long, which can reach 40m~100m, which means that the game range can be broader. However, the stable Bluetooth range is only 3m to 10m. The second reason is that Bluetooth pairing can only be one-to-one, but rf is not limited to one-to-one matching. Rf receiver can receive multiple signals, which means that a demon (receiver) can accept various angel (sender) signals so that more players can be added to the game.
Arduino nano


Compared with uno, nano is smaller in size, but with full functions and is easy to carry, so nano was chosen instead of uno.
Power bank


The power bank can provide independent power to nano. However, the power bank has a disadvantage that it needs a specific resistance to provide a constant power supply. So I connected a 220-ohm resistance to the breadboard so that the power bank can provide continuous power supply to nano.

  • FABRICATION AND PRODUCTION:

the most significant steps in your production process, both in terms of failures and successes.

Using radio frequency link as pairing is one of the most critical steps in production. I used the Bluetooth pairing between the player’s device at the beginning. I then used the radio frequency link as the connection between the computer and the player.

 

But during the User Testing Session, one of my classmates suggested I can add more players into the game. In this case, the Bluetooth’s one-to-one match is not appropriate. I need a device that can send and receive a particular signal. I consulted a faculty of IMA, she recommended me to use radio frequency link, because its sender can emit a specific message, but the receiver is not one-to-one matched. As long as the specified signals can be recognized, it can be paired. At the same time, the radio frequency link can reach a distance of 40m~100m, which is similar to my game design. Therefore, after the user testing session, I gave up using Bluetooth and used radio frequency link as my main element.


When I used radio frequency link to do works, there was a relative failure that troubled me for a long time: there would be mutual influence between the senders of radiofrequency link at a close distance so that the receiver might confuse the two signals. That is: there is a sender in the angel’s box. The demon box at the same time also has a sender to send signals to the computer. The computer has a receiver, while it is possible to distinguish the signal of the demon box. Still, because of the interference of the angel’s box signal, the receiver is often disturbed. On the control panel of the Arduino, there often appear signals that should not be received, leading to the wrong action of the processing. To solve this problem, I optimized the Arduino code of the computer’s receiver. Previously, my code was to generate specific effects for processing when the computer receiver received the signal from the devil box. The optimized code means that when receiving the signal from the angel box, no operation is generated. When receiving the signal from the devil box, Processing is performed. In other cases, no actions are made. After this optimization, the Arduino didn’t give the wrong instructions because it recognizes the signal separately.

  • CONCLUSIONS:

How do your project results align with your definition of interaction? How do your project results not align with your definition of interaction?

My goal is to build interaction between people by using machines as a bridge in the form of games. After a semester’s study, my definition of interaction gradually changed from the four mechanical steps at the beginning to focus on the interaction between people. In my opinion, when people interact with machines, they should pay more attention to the interaction between people, and machines should act as a bridge to promote interaction or connection between people. My model of the game wants players to connect through machines, but their attention isn’t on the machines, it’s on the players. They can identify each other by the box containing the machine. Still, in order to win the game in the end, one of them needs to shout “catch you,” which means that the two parties are no longer independent existence, but build a kind of connection based on the machine. This is what I called interaction. The machine is an essential medium here. Still, the ultimate purpose of the product is to allow players to recognize each other and interact with each other.

Based on both your definition of interaction and your expectation of your audience’s response, how, ultimately, did your audience interact with your project?

During the presentation, because a wire of the devil box disconnected accidentally, the effect did not play out. But at the time of the IMA show, I invited four players to experience the game. They don’t know how to play at first, but after explaining the rules, they are scattered in the classroom and began to walk. When the demon player and angel player approached, the computer made a loud heartbeat. Still, when they separated, the heartbeat stopped. At this point, the demon player immediately locks on to the player who approached him, then walks up and says, “catch you” and wins the game. The results were similar to what I expected. Still, there were some differences because the ordinary player (has no special missions) was moving back and forth, so they didn’t enjoy themselves.
Moreover, the devil player quickly finds the angel player, which is also different from what I imagined, so the interaction is not reflected. In my opinion, this problem mainly arises from the fact that this project is only a model rather than a real game. In the actual game, the identity of the ordinary player is the students who are not participating in the game, so they do not have a sense of game experience. At the same time, if you play this game in real life, there will be a lot of uncertainty, so the devil or angel will not quickly identify each other’s identity.

How would you improve your project if you had more time?

If I had more time, I would have constructed a complete game and planned a more specific rating rule. For example, if the angels want to win the game, they need to identify all the demons and send their names to the computer. If the angel finds all the names first and there are no mistakes, then angel wins. But if there’s a mistake in the name, they lose. Such ratings make the game more exciting and complete.

What value have you learned from any setbacks and/or failures? What do you take away from your accomplishments?

This is the only big project I’ve done on my own this semester. Without my previous dependence on my peers, I need to be responsible for myself, take responsibility and consequences on my own. Because cooperating with my classmates, I used to feel my partner can share the burden, or when it is close to the deadline, we can depend on each other. But this time is different, this time I only have myself, I need to create the plans by myself – how to arrange the time, do research or ask information from the faculty. Although it is hard and tedious for me to work along, the excitement and thrill can’t be described when my project is successful. It is the happiest thing I feel. At that moment, I felt that all my efforts were worthy. I think this is the most important lesson I have learned from this project.

In this high-tech age, people are more and more immersed in the interaction with electronic products such as mobile phones and computers, while ignoring the most direct communication between people. Machinery, no longer as a tool, but as an interactive partner, replaced the role of “human.” Maybe this is the current trend in society, but I still want to make a little change of myself. I think the interaction should be based on the human-mechanical, but the goal is the human-human interaction. And the machinery should be just a medium or a bridge. Although we can interact with the mechanism, we should still feel the existence of people behind the machinery and the emotions and intentions of the people who created the machinery. “To communicate with people through machinery”——this is my understanding of the interaction and the original purpose of my product design. It is also my most significant gain in this course.

Final Project Reflection

FeedBot – Russel Sy – Rudi

As I have said previously, the conception of my ideas were based off of the goal to encourage a new and beneficial idea. In this case, the original goal of my project was to encourage a user to eat healthier. The original plan was to lay out different healthy and unhealthy foods on a table, and the user would but the food into a basket and then a screen would tell the user how good or bad the food is for you, as well as nutritional and health facts. 

  

After user testing, I listened to the feedback given to me and made adjustments to my final idea. In order to incorporate the physical part of my project with the digital, as well as creating a more cohesive and creative take on eating better, Rudi helped me think of putting a robot head on top of a computer that eats food cards, while the screen displays the robots body. If the robot were to eat a bad food, the robot would malfunction and then the screen would show bad facts about the food. On the other hand, if the robot were to eat good food, the robot would work perfectly and facts about healthy eating would appear. Later on, the idea expanded beyond food and went into life habits as well like smoking. One thing that I did not think about previously, but heard from user testing, was to incorporate sound into my project. Thinking back over it, the final project would not be very interesting at all if there was no sound and auditory feedback when the user interacted with it. I incorporated background music, as well as positive and negative auditory feedback like “yay” or “malfunction” when a good or bad card was placed into the robot mouth.

 

The conception of this final idea started with a drawing, which then went to 3D designing and finally printing. The thing about the 3D printing process that I would have liked to change is the size of my 3D printed robot head, as well as the amount of inside cross fills. The robot head for the purposes of my project was too big, which made it a little heavy for attaching to the screen of my laptop using a hook. If the laptops screen were to be angled too far back, the screen would bend all the way down due to the weight of the robot head. Other than making the head smaller, another way to solve this problem would be to reduce the filling crosses in order to make the robot head lighter. This would make it so that the screen wouldn’t fall backwards due the the the robot head weight. Other than those problems that I couldn’t fix, I also had to solve problems before the printing process. For the design of the robot head, the outside was quite simple, but the inside was hollow. From experience, 3D printing something that is hollow on the inside can lead to problems and bad printing. In order to solve this, I printed the head in 2 separate parts – the bottom which housed the hole and the mouth opening, and then the top which just acted as a cap for the hole. Since the cap was printed separately from the main part, the plastic did not get the chance to melt and start sagging into the hollow space. I also made the inside of the mouth opening angle downwards so that when a card was inserted into the mouth, it would slide down with ease. One thing I wish I could’ve done after the fabrication process would be to spray paint the whole unit, in order to give it a more final and polished look.

  

In the IMA showcase, I was able to show my project to strangers who had no previous knowledge of the class. Although I had to prompt them to put the cards into the mouth, they were able to figure out the purpose of the project without any further explanation. After going through all the cards, the users would ask me if they were correct in their thoughts on the purpose. Most thought it was a good way to teach young kinds about good life habits, and that the idea could be expanded upon further using more cards and visuals. In this sense, the goal of my project was met. For my definition of interaction, I think that my project was interactive. The audience was able to participate and even children were able to use my project. Inserting a card into the mouth of the robot was like feeding a little pet or baby, which added to the interactivity. And the audience was able to leave learning something new. A great comment I had received was from a teacher who said this project would be really useful in her classroom since her class was just starting to learn about balanced meals and healthy diets.

If I had more time, I would have liked to create more food cards, as well as improve the design of the cards to make it more obvious as to what the cards represented. I would have also liked to redesign the head to make it less bulky and a lot lighter. As for the visuals, I would have liked to create an animation to complement the “malfunction” animation, since there was no animation for the “yay” part of my project. For the future, I now know that 3D printing is a whole process and the first 3D printed object may not be the best representation of your work. Subsequent versions have to be made after the first in order to improve and evolve with your ideas.

To conclude, I feel like this project can be used to give a different approach to teaching children good life skills and habits, as interactive learning is always better than reading bland and boring texts.

Happiness Vending Machine – Jiayi Liang(Mary) – Rudi

PROJECT TITLE

Happiness Vending Machine

CONCEPTION AND DESIGN:

For my final project, I am working on how to connect my project to the society. As an unique individual, I think every one of us has the duty to take care of each other as a community.  My project is called “Happiness Vending Machine”, which is an interactive vending machine that sells happiness. Happiness here is “those happy moments that can make someone feel happy”. It can be a small incident in life, an interesting picture, or a beautiful song. We can put this vending machine in big shopping marts or university campuses to spread happiness and comfort more people.

The vending machine focuses on urban people’s prevailing mental issues that they always feel stressful and upset in their daily life. According to my research, there is a popular new trend called “丧文化“ –“disheartenment culture”, which means people’s pessimistic attitudes towards life. Just simply takes me as an example. When I was working on my EAP final project, I cannot help complaining about the huge workload and difficult tasks that are impossible to fulfill. I always say, “I feel like I am a waste” “Why do I choose NYUSH?” “I will definitely get  F”. However, I ignore that there is also something enjoyable in the project. It is nice to cooperate with my group member. It is fun to interact with others to get more information that is useful for my research. After I finish my presentation, I feel a sense of self-pride. These are all good moments in my final period, but I just choose to ignore them and fall into a mental mood of sorrow. 

.

↑A super popular image that stands for 丧文化 —— a middle-aged man lying on the sofa with a sad face

Thus, I come up with an idea that maybe I can collect those  ignored but joyful things in our lives to comfort more people who has faced the same dilemma as mine. Then, I work on finding ways to share those happy moments. I find a vending machine may be a good way by the use of interaction. Usually we can see vending machine selling food or drinks, but it is rare to see it selling abstract products like happiness, which can draw users’ attention and arouse their curiosity. The vending machine here is a metaphor. You don’t actually needs to pay money for it, however, you just use your interaction– raise your hand in front of your sensor– to buy it.  This machine creates a utopia that you don’t have to take great costs to get happiness. It is the one and only vending machine that doesn’t require money stuffs just like a fairy tale, which is healing for us who live in a busy metropolis.

Recently, there is a kind of toy which is popular among youngsters called blind box. Not knowing what exact cute figure really is in the box, buyers feel a sense of surprise when unpacking the product, which adds playfulness in the process of purchasing. Thus, I am going to take the random policy on my happiness vending machine , which makes the buyers feel more surprised.

FABRICATION AND PRODUCTION:

My first step is to collect the happy moments from my friends. I send a message on wechat, and many people share their own ideas to me. Actually the process of collecting information has already healed me. Their contribution ranges variously. Through the process, I feel I am more engaged with my social circle. 

Then I make these contributions into cute and adorable pictures. I classify these information into three categories. A. simple sentences B. photos C. songs.

A.

B.

C.

see more on google docs: 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UwE5T8zDDEsuJ1LK87foyfl99ZrMSl5MsjROrVcUBrs/edit

the songs

https://music.163.com/#/song?id=1336856864

https://music.163.com/#/song?id=1366036963

https://music.163.com/#/song?id=1314353013

I make my vending machine into a model in wood. All the users need to do is to stand in front of the machine, raise your hand to collect the “happy power” and wait for a little while. Then, you can select a button to  purchase a happy moment shared by others by paying the happy power he or she collects. I made a instruction front page to guide the users.

To make my project work, I list two main codes to write. The first is to write a code to count the happy power. The second is to make the button work — if you press it, the machine will show you a picture.

For the first task, I use “analog write” to get the information received by the distance sensor. If the distance sensor senses something is getting closer, the code will add one point to the total happy power. 

Code for task 1 in arduino:

The second task is much more complicated. I set a value called “button state”, if the first button is pressed, button state goes to 1, second to 2, third to 3 and forth to 4. At first I get lost when I use the example while code on the internet. I face a problem that the distance sensor only works when I am pressing the button. Then the fellow tells me that I should just us if sentences to realize my goal. I face another question that I misconnected three pins of the buttons. The result is that the buttons do not work for a long period. Luckily I find the mistake at last. The biggest problem is that if I keep pressing the button, the image keeps changing. I add one more value of the previous button state to solve it. The picture only changes when the button state is different from the previous one. (This also leads to one more problem that I cannot press the same button twice, so I add one “return” button). I also add some lines that once a button is pressed, the happy power will be reduced by 20.

The complete arduino code:

I use the processing to store different pictures. Once Processing knows that the button state from arduino has changed,  it will randomly show the relevant picture( and song). I use the array function to store the information. I edit the songs into clips of about 15s.  I also add some sound effects to make it sounds like a vending machine.

Finally, my project works like this.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, my project pays attention on people’s mental issues that they have a pessimistic attitude towards life. The happiness vending machine sells happy moments to people in order to heal and comfort them. My project aligns with our definition of interaction because there is a procedure of “input, process and output” as Crawford claimed . The vending machine interacts with the audience by noticing the users’ action to collect “happy power”, receiving their request of buying happiness, and offer them a funny picture of music as an output. The uniqueness about my project is that it is raising people’s awareness on the tiny but certain beautiful moments in their life. By sharing them an adorable cartoon image, they feel more relaxed and happier. This vending machine create a utopia space that is different from the busy and boring social life. In front of the machine, you can get rid of the busy life and confusing material stuffs, gaining pure happiness without paying money. All you need to do is spend a little time to relax and enjoy the happy moments.

However, there are still lots of space for revising. I get feedbacks that maybe it is better to add more interesting instructions on the buttons instead of just using ABC. For example, “if you are angry, press this”. And I will also add more descriptions at the beginning to let the user realize what this machine is for.

For the subsequent projects, I will add one more function to the vending machine to make it more interactive. The buyer can upload their own happy moments to the machine too. Thus, the project can also work as an illustrated handbook that record people’s various kinds of happiness.

References:

http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0712/c90782-9240823.html

The Art of Interactive Design, Crawford (pages 1-5)

Blind Boxes

https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%A7%E6%96%87%E5%8C%96/19892924?fr=aladdin

Final Project:Chicken Little Is Afraid of Sky Falling Down-Hangkai Qian-Rudi

My Project on IMA Show
My Project on IMA Show!

Chicken Little is Afraid of Sky Falling Down-Hangkai Qian-Rudi

CONCEPTION AND DESIGN:

We have played so many games on our computers and phones and it seems normal for people to play games using multi-touch or keyboard and mouse. What I wanted to do is to change the way the players play this game (how the players interact with the game) from click or touch or something to move the whole body to act in order to control the object. The root of the games is the idea 3 in my proposal of getting the fruit on the top of the window. However, I find that If the fruit is only on the top of the window, then the whole gaming process time will be very slow, so I decided to make an infinite game with score system. Moreover, in my proposal, I said it will be two players ‘game. However, when I considered further, there are two bad things if it’s a two players game: firstly, lots of people who come to IMA show are alone, so that it will not be comfortable to compete with a stranger. Secondly, if I make a two-players game, the device will be extremely big. Also, with the score system, we are in fact already can compete with each other. So, in my final version, the game finally come up with a form of single player game. The game’s concept seems simple: the object flying up try to get rid of the obstacles falling from upward. I used a distance sensor, an accelerometer and a hair band to make this game. I want to make the game easy to play,so I chose these sensors. The player needs to wear a hair band with an accelerometer behind his/her head which will detect the angle of inclination and move the chicken Left, right and up and down.

FABRICATION AND PRODUCTION:

My final product is very different from what it is in user test. In my user test, the player cannot move on the y-axis and can only move through x-axis using a distance sensor. There are many feedbacks of my first version of product. Firstly, the height of different people is different, so that I have to adjust the height of the distance sensor to fit different users. Secondly, the velocity of the pillars is the same, so that it’s not like falling from up to down. Even more, they want to move on the y-axis and also, they do not know the story of the game. Luckily, Tristan gave me the story of chicken little and it fit very well in this game. So I changed my title from helicopter to “Chicken Little is Afraid of Sky Falling Down” (much cuter!) The biggest change is that I changed my sensor in the suggestion of Rudi. In fact, the biggest problem I got is that the distance sensor often lose track at some time, which tend to get choppy in the UI. So, I studied an afternoon trying to figure out how to use the 3-axis accelerometer to detect the movement of the user.

sketch

CONCLUSIONS:

My project’s goal is to create a gaming experience with the player’s body instead of interacting with mouse or keyboard or button. My inspiration comes from a game by Nintendo “RingFit Advanture”. In that game, player  need to move their body to continue the game. The project is align with my definition of interaction: the player receive the gaming animation and move their body in order to move the chicken on the screen, which is a continous loop. Moreover, a good interaction should create joy, and I think I had done it perfectly because all the players loved this game and want to try again when they finished.

Though it is a good interactive experience, there still exists something that need to be improved. Firstly, I used a hair band,which is unfriendly for the users with long hair because the hair band is hard for people with long hair to fit in… I didn’t expect it because both Rudi and me are short hair users… If I have more time I’ll change my design into a pair of glasses and put my sensors there so that it would be more easy for players to play.

Since I did my project alone, it is very hard for me to go over some difficulties, especially for coding (most of my project is on processing) at that time. But when I kept on working on it and ask fellows for help, I will finally get over those obstacles like class, OOP, boolean, switch,and the logic of checking position(quite hard to figure out! The chicken is moving through jumping, so that I shouldn’t write like if x=h but h-50<x<h+50),etc. I find it very interesting to work with my interactive project though it’s hard. When I finally accomplished my project, I felt true happiness that even bigger than when I play computer game! (Seriously!) And I’m really thrilled to see that my project runs perfectly and gain responses like “interesting!” that’s enough for me. That is my goal of my interactive final project.

ending

ring fit adventure