World café activity

Start with "altered landscape", I discussed several themes with other people this week.

Enhanced Mundane Space

In the discussion of this theme, we talked about the mundane spaces and what can be changed to make them interesting. The common answer would be office, housework or homework, but we thought about some unusual things like playing instruments(children practice instruments).

I also thought about the mundane things in our life, things that always appear and we are getting bored with. I remember when I move to a new place, my mom would never forget to do something with the light switch, Either by using stickers or hide it inside a picture. So, what if I can make the switch playful. I remember when I play Minecraft, I always use Redstone to link lights in my house. So what if I link all the light in the room and make it as a super Mario game. The light switch would become the controller and light become a interesting game.

Guided Movement

In this discussion, one student said that this technology can be used for pets. This is what I haven't thought of but really useful. It gives the possibility that pets can do things for people without so much training.

Another idea is about the emergency situation. I think technology can be helpful in extreme situations, as people are easy to panic.

What's more, this theme can be useful for old people. Especially people with dimension, they cannot remember what to do in daily life, easy to forget some normal things like taking drugs or brush their teeth. So guided technology would help them to remember the schedule. Also, it can help to track the lost elders.

Sassy Tech

The idea of shaking the hand door is quite interesting and a bit creepy. I mean, it is interesting to replace the traditional way to open a door, but if imagine that each door would have an arm on it, it's like the doors have become monsters.

Musical Things and Musical Metric

These two themes are all about music, so I put them together. My original thought is about music, so I want to see other ideas about music. Music visualization has become a hot topic. Many ideas are about how to make the music concrete.

I have contributed to one of the ideas, control an aline across a square city to trigger the music. I suggested allowing the aline not only to walk a straight line but also can walk through a curved way. What's more, the aline can walk upon the top of each building and give a solo.

Conclusion

I have tried world café in DECO7180, but this time, with more people and more space, I feel more advantages of this activity. I changed to different themes every 30 minutes and think about different questions each time. This requires me to think really fast. And also, when listening to other people, I have learned a lot of interesting ideas. I enjoy the moment when others agreed with me but in fact, I think it is the disagreement that could be most helpful. When came up with an idea, we discuss it, whether it is really that situation, whether is acceptable or some other problems.

However, for me, the activity is largely depended on who I was discussing with. Because I am not good at beginning a conversation in this kind of activity. But I would love to join a conversation. So, at two or three tables, I was stuck in an awkward atmosphere. And at other tables, where there are at least two talking people, I was more comfortable and quickly join the conversation.

Preference for the theme

My first choice is "Enhanced mundane space". At first, I just think this theme is meant for most people's life. We have high technology now. So, why not making life more interesting. But in fact, I don't have any idea about this theme right now.

I also chose the sassy tech as I can see the potential in this theme. In daily life, we always ignore things, taking them for granted. But actually, this theme could give us a chance to view the world from another perspective.

The last one I chose is the guided movement. I think this theme might be widely used in the future as it can replace people to guide others.

In class on Wednesday, Lorna invited Bash to give us an online talk. Bash is currently a UX designer working in the UK. In his lectures, he talks a lot about the future of work, including how to find a job, how to participate in internship projects and so on. In the process, he also made some small interaction, let us write a description of their own paragraph, and then step by step from the screening, and finally left the most important word! So that we know more about our shining point! I think these activities help us to know ourselves, in other words, inspire me to tell my future boss that I'm unique. This is something that is very important to me and worth mulling over.

After a short break, we went through the grouping process for our next team project. Based on the intentions submitted the day before, I am happy that my themes and teammates are aligned with my preference. The first thing to do is to get to know each other and set some rules for our group, such as our work standards, our time allocation and our regular meeting time, etc. . Of course, The most important thing was The group project. The four of us took another look at The posters under The topic of ability-centric installation and had a long discussion about The Umbrella, we wanted to add more interactive experiences to the design, such as displaying weather information, arranging different weather patterns through the contraction of the umbrella, or alerting passengers to the upcoming vehicle, or providing information about train times. Other students also want to add information such as time, the umbrella wall will be changed every hour pattern and so on. Also, we wanted to add sound effects to provide some interactive experience for the blind.

Then we talked about designing a game for the blind, but it wasn't a great idea after all. So we decided that each of us would look up some more material and then discuss it further in order to stimulate some new ideas!

On Tuesday, we have a very exciting world cafe event. In the activity, I participated in many topics, including Enhanced mundane spaces,Emotional totems,Emotional intelligence, Digital sensations,Sassy tech,Ability-centric interactions and Body as controller. My favorite theme is Enhanced mundane spaces. We talked a lot about this topic, such as what interactions people can have while waiting for the elevator to make the elevator less awkward and quiet. Or what people can do when they take a bath to make it more fun. I think the theme is both close to life and full of interest.

Another theme that impressed me was the Body as controller. I see Walley's idea of running hands. The idea of a finger-controlled game is simple and playable! I also saw The Umbrella designed by Horace, and I thought the visual effects of this interactive installation would be very touching. I was thinking that if I could apply this idea to other devices, there would be a huge visual boost!

In addition, many of the subjects in the emotion group were thinking in terms of stress relief. Among them, there is the use of smell for design. I think this starting point is very novel. But it's not an easy thing to identify smells, and my idea is that it's a chemical thing, and for some natural flavors, it might be possible to detect some particular chemical component through some chemical reaction, to pick out specific odors.

The theme of Ability-centric interactions is design for the target groups which focus on some specific people. This theme got me thinking, because a lot of the cases are products designed for people with disabilities. Compared to the other themes, this one is a little more serious and less interesting. My thought was, how fulfilling it would be to be able to design an interactive device that provides some entertainment for disabled people! So at the end of the voting process, I gave my vote to the topic, and I look forward to further discussions with the rest of the group!

All in all, the world coffee event really brought me a lot of new ideas as expected, and some of the inspiration can be applied to the design of Future group projects, this is the most gratifying point for me!

Interesting Fact About the Brain

When we take on a certain task, one side of the brain will take on the task even if it’s not specialized for the task, and our brain will not switch to the other side of the brain, even if the task is better suited. It will just take the task and run with it. Our brain defaults to what it’s used to and the parts that don’t get to used atrophy.

Left Hemisphere Thinking: Practical, mathematical, analytical, scientific

Right Hemisphere Thinking: Creative, focus, intuitive

It appears to be common knowledge that each side of the brain have its own function. In reality, both sides of the brain handle both analytic and creative elements

Benefits of Whole-Brain Dominance

Shifting in hemisphere dominance (left-right brain dominance to whole-brain dominance) are likely to enhance mind-body integration and overall improvements in physical and emotional health. It is believed that during moments of whole brain synchrony, the reduction of cognitive anxiety is experience.

Brain Coherence creates homeostasis in our central nervous system and allows for more flexibility in thinking. You are able to draw upon the strength of your brain in both the analytical and creative sense, allowance for super learning and more energy.

Ways to Synchronize the Brain(I think that is helpful for our assignment)

1) Exercise & Movements: Using both sides of your body help to strengthen both sides of the brain improving coordination. (Might be useful for incorporating with motor skills)

2) Switching Up Your Routine: Variation in movement activates both sides of your brain. (Might be useful for incorporating with motor skills)

3) Binaural Beats & Hemi Sync Technology: Delivering sound waves of different frequencies through headphones into each ear to produce brainwave entertainment.

4) Listening to or Playing A Musical Instrument: Listening allows more engagement of the brain associated with emotion, listening, motor skills and creativity. Improves the amount of neural response to stimuli for increased coordination and sensitivity (Might be useful for incorporating with motor skills)

Link : https://consciousnessliberty.com/unlock-your-genius-through-brain-synchronization/

5 Categories of Brain Wave Vibrational States

Alpha: Oscillates between 8 to 12hz

Alpha brainwave promotes creativity, problem-solving and a flow state or “getting into the zone”.

Link : https://consciousnessliberty.com/5-brainwave-states-you-should-know-about/

Reflection:

Based on my research, this is something that I am really interested to find out more about. Which are ways that I can enhance intelligence to promote creativity learning for people. It came to my surprise that brain synchronization can actually help with cognitive anxiety and mental health conditions and there are many ways to do so! Right now, I am currently researching on Binaural beats and there are many brain vibrational states but there is one vibrational states that promotes creativity, problem-solving which is the Alpha brain wave. More researching regarding how binaural beats actually helped with creativity learning but this is a good start !

The topic I was distributed was enhanced mundane space. We introduced each other and made the team agreement.

We planed to discuss ideas no later than Saturday. We generate about five ideas at first. The first one is a physical mailbox that can connect to the phone. It can check the email and accept e-mails by vomiting out the real mail. It also contains facial recognition which is used for sharing between different people.

The second one is a backpack that can show reminders on the surface. It is designed for reminding people to take things in a physical way.

The third one is a diffuser. It is like dumping and can be used in the office. It can bring happiness and relaxation when they work busily. When the user receives an email, the diffuser spread the smell of essential oil. The user will realize that they have received an email by smelling the smell. Different kinds of smell represent different kinds of e-mail. It looks like a dumpling because the dumpling can be steamed to eat. People can connect it with steam by this aspect.

The fourth one is an altered reality headset with a knife. It is like the improved version of the game I mentioned in the last journal (Zatoichi). It can sense the chop sense and sense the state of the monster by the feeling of cut.

The last one is an indoor pong game. It aims to provide happiness for people when they do boring housework, let people feel the warmth of family and encourage them to share the housework. The general form of the game is conveying ball. The ball is virtual and can be passed between two people by sending the signal produced by the movement of "rackets". The "rackets" could be a vacuum, the mop, the broom and anything else which could be the tool in housework.

We determine to choose between the dumpling steamer and the indoor pong game. The backpack reminder is really hard to add meaningful interaction, so we dropped it.

About the dumpling steamer, we get some ideas from Lorna that it can be optimized by adding different kinds of smell depends on different people. But I think multiple smells could not be quite useful for people like me who don't have a good sense of smell. In addition, constrained by the steamer itself, its interaction methods are relatively limited.

For me, I think the indoor pong game is really interesting and has enough interaction. However, it can be a little bit difficult to achieve. I think the difficulty is not in the installation, but in the programming. How to resolve conflicts between different actions is a point that is worth discussing.

.

The principle of the motivation of the ball.

The general model of the whole game.

Reflection of individual work:

I generate the idea that when people chopped vegetables/meat,

A three-dimensional projection will appear. This is a game that turns boring chopped vegetables into games and aims to change people's impatience with chopped vegetables. This inspiration comes from the secure knife in the enhanced mundane space. In detail, when people cut something that cut easily, it will generate a little monster. Every time you cut it; its blood strip will drop a section. When people cut vegetables in a limited time, the monster will be killed. When people cut something that cut hardly, it will generate a boss.

However, due to the fact that people need to focus when cut things and this interaction could not change the boredom of cooking itself. Therefore, this idea was dropped.

Apart from generating the idea, I have investigated how to link every part of the indoor pong game fluently. In addition, I keep thinking about how to make the dumpling steamer more interactive in case the indoor pong game cannot be achieved.

On Tuesday

On the contact session, we were doing the World Cafe, which helps us get to know different themes, and tried to help us get clear what kind of concept we want to do in the following semester.The following three is the most interesting fun theme for me.

Altered Landscapes

There is a good idea we got is to make a sharing painting board, which can display people's paint on the landscape, such as the building's wall. Its purpose is for entertainment, sharing and social. It also can encourage people to express themselves.

Emotional totems

That is an interesting theme. It can be anything that tells people whether their mental health is in good condition. So it can be a public thing in the company which can help the boss know the emotional condition of their employees to see whether the mission is too stressful for them. And like one classmate said it can be a thing that helps people be calm when they are emotional, which can promote people to speak in a calm way.

Creative Learning

Creative learning is also one of my favorites themes. Because learning is one of the vital parts of my life. And trying to makes learning fun is one of my biggest wishes. We discussed a lot about how to make different learning materials fun. Such as coding, art, pet training, language, mechanism. And for the methods, like how to make things fun, we talked about the game, collective activity, dancing. The most inspiring one for me is coding creative training, I will talk it later.

And there are also fun themes I saw.

Digital sensations

Musical Metrics

Guided Movements

Finally, I picked the Creative Learning as my top one theme.

On Tuesday

In the contact session, firstly, a graduate shared his experience of finding a job for us and made me understand the preparations needed to find a job. Immediately afterward, I met with my group members. We confirmed some team agreements, shared our views on this theme, and some ideas I thought of and agreed to meet on Friday.

On Friday

Me and my teammate in Building 78, firstly we shared our opinions about the creative learning, we took down all the topics we came up in the Google Drive.

Then we discussed each topic, and we all thought that creative coding training for beginners, especially for children is an interesting idea. We decide to develop this idea in the following days.

We identified the target audience, purpose and some details about the concept.

Basically, the concept is like a board game with block, the player can control the character to move by grabbing the script blocks, the character will follow the script command of the script. And there can be a maze on the board, or it also can be a city image, like roads, trees, and buildings on the board.

Sketch

Team profile

Bash

As a UX designer, in his long speech, he narrated the basic abilities that a UX designer needs to have and some things that need to be faced and handling methods in real work.

For example, in real work, the boss or Party A will directly indicate the price of making pictures/videos or participating in project research, and will also give a final prediction direction and result.

Besides, he asked us to describe ourselves with 50 words, then improve and delete them, and finally get a most personal representative word.

Team Ideas

This is all the ideas that our 4-person team came up with. Three ideas, then select the three cases that you are most interested in and collect the knowledge of these ideas from friends around you. Finally, the shopping basket was determined (originally a shopping cart, then changed to a shopping basket after discussion and specific operation)

Idea Process:

In the beginning, we discussed the conclusion of the shopping cart:

Results of the first discussion:

When the user enters the car, he/she enters the price, scans the bar code and puts it into the car when he/she buys, at the same time, the meter will calculate the total amount, and when it is closer to the set price (20% starts), it will start to beep; when it is closer to the total amount, it will be louder; when it reaches the total amount, the beep will be maximum and the brake pad will start to work; with the amount exceeding, it will increase a little; Up to 20% will directly stop.

Results of the second discussion:

1. Bar code scanning machine
2. Programming of the pricing board: get the price, calculate the price, display the price (current total price + set total price + difference), trigger the voice of annoy and trigger the brake
3. Car assembly (drawing required for 3D printing of carton board)
4. Wheel purchase + brake + line connected to pricing board + installation

Tips: 3D drawings need to be drawn with CAD

Ideas discussed by the middle four:

Considering the wheel function of the shopping cart and some large items will occupy a lot of space, we changed the design to the shopping basket. Then we think again that we need a function to replace the function of the wheel. In the end, we get a workable idea. Use a cover or auto-retractable Bezel on the shopping basket. According to the budget reduction, the baffle will slowly cover the whole shopping basket. Then, we have a team meeting on Sunday, and we focus on how to implement the idea based on what we have learned over the years. Once again, we have some formidable challenges in the process. For example, a cover is set on the top cover to control whether the user can put items into the shopping cart. However, the size of the shopping cart is too large and we think it might be easier to implement the idea on the shopping basket, like a cover on the top, which control whether the user can place stuff inside the cart.

Final discussion results:

We've found a few of the most critical ideas that can support the whole design. Users go to the supermarket to buy what they want, so the budget plan is not necessary. The key point is that users buy what they want to buy, so controlling purchase is the most fatal point. We're going to put something we want to buy into a device in some way, and then change that long bar meter into a small screen. Then when you put an item in the basket (it will be scanned). If the item is on the list, the screen will display "√". If not, the machine will sound and ask "this is not the thing you are looking for", "are you sure you want this? ", then the user needs to answer" yes ", and the machine will ask you" are you sure? ". If the user answers "yes" the second time, the system will say "I will give you 5 minutes to think about it", but the item you selected will not be put in the basket. At this time, we will use the aforementioned baffle, but we will change its function to:

the shopping basket is closed at the beginning and can only be opened after scanning. Among the additional functions, we consider an idea: the function of importing the items we want to buy. It can make a supermarket menu. The menu is exported directly to the Internet, and then we can design a QR code. After the user scans with his mobile phone and selects and confirms, the product information to be purchased will be sent to the machine of this shopping basket.

Noisy Bookmarks:

Physical bookmarks will make noise if they are not read after being put into the book for some time

Biting box:

Square solid colour box, 6 sides all look the same. 5 of them feel unresponsive, but one of them will bounce in the opposite direction to bite people's fingers when touching. (with electric shock function) (soft Russian turntable)

Cup without water:

People can see bubbles, but people can't drink water

Treatment of procrastination

A physical device that can be attached with a countdown after a task is planned, and then, over time, will be noisy if the task is not completed or started. You can pause but not permanently until the task is completed.

Telephone box

If you are around a meeting, you can put all your people together or separately. Then if someone's mobile phone receives the message in the ring state, all other people's mobile phones can also receive the message.

Annoy: it's embarrassing everyone received this message

Significance: improve the attitude of being serious, not playing mobile phones or remember to turn off the ring to stay awake

Door handle lock

The doorknob is a hand, and then the interior space is a nine palace lattice. The user can set a sliding password for opening the door. Like Z or square. With 3 times of automatic locking

Annoy: I haven't thought of it yet... Ugly? Or unlock every time you open the door?

Meaning: no need for expensive smart door lock, save money, power and resources

Smart shopping cart

Significance: prevent over shopping

Design: install a meter on the shopping cart

Before shopping, the customer needs to enter his budget on the meter. Every time an item is purchased and placed in the shopping cart, it is recorded with a scan meter. Once the budget is exceeded, the cart will stay where it is, screaming and flashing DJ lights until the assistant comes.

Consequence: customers can't move. They can only accept the gaze of passers-by and wait for assistant in embarrassment.

Bonus: as the total price approaches the budget, shopping carts are becoming more and more difficult to drive and so on?

Nightmare pillow

Meaning: prevent from staying in bed

Design: in the pillow, there is a sensor connected with the alarm clock of the mobile phone, which will vibrate slightly when it's time to get up, and the vibration amplitude and volume will be increased with the time of staying in bed until the user's head leaves the pillow to get up.

Consequence: automatically contact mobile phone to send the ugliest selfie to your ex (don't hit me, useful and annoying Technology) after crazy shaking and fruitless

Bonus: can I turn on the light when I connect to a smart home?

Notice

Move the little red dot on the iPhone app to real life, and there will be a little red circle around everything you need to do. For example, when you are in bed, there will be a familiar iPhone tone. There are three small red circles on your desktop, and there are also small red circles on the kitchen desktop. There are also small red circles in toilets. It will disappear when it is finished.

Annoy: I believe some people hate those red dots

Meaning: change living habits and ways

Insidious alarm clock

Don't get up directly and automatically call a random friend. Or input some sentences in advance. And call each other

Annoy: embarrassing

Meaning: get up / wake up

Piggybank

Every day a child randomly receives a certain coin, the right one will take it, the wrong one will spit it out (there is a small robot cat in a box deposit jar, and the silver coin will stretch out its claws to take it in.) If it's not what you want, you'll spit it out

Annoy: don't put in the money you want

Meaning: no / cultivate the habit of saving money?

Socks

Sometimes it's annoying to walk into a small stone. If you do something about XXXX (negative/bad ), socks will have little bumps, and then walking will be very annoying

Annoy: small stone annoy

Meaning: change your habits, but it seems that you can't create them

We had world cafe this tuesday. Every table has a theme, and we changed to another table after generating related ideas and refining ideas. During this session, i really got inspired by some amazing ideas, however there were sometimes people talking too much irrelevant things.Anyway, worldcafe is really a effectice activity to touch massive ideas and generate new inspirations if treated seriously.

Sassy tech

This is quite weired theme,it took me a while to understand its meaning. It's related to bold, cheeky thinngs.There's idea about floor, which can rise up the area fallen on dangerous things to warn people not to step on. Beyong on this, i came out another idea that the area fallen on stuffs can bright differnet colour to inform people, in case cannot be seen at night or when. we drop something and cannot find it.

I think the majority functions of smart wardrobe has been realised. To make it "sassy", i wanted it to be like the magic mirror in Snow White, which can tell whether you look good with different outfits. Like"you are beautiful today" or "you suck today".

Musical metric

We came out several interesting ideas to measure things by music. For example, we can generate a music by the grades of a semester, obviouslly, the good grades would get beautiful music. Similarly, we can apply this idea to a long tern, like a whole life to summarize a person's life time by music.

Ability-centric

My Zatoichi is in here, which i wish could be developed through this semester. Someone said it' not too playable, which means player would feel boring in a long time. So i was thinking expland it with more modes, weapons and movements. Like player has to take different actions to cope with different attacks. The emeny could attack you with arch, sword or even gun from different directions. Correspondingllly, there should be different reactions. Or even i can apply plot to it. Like the blind superhero saving the world. In this case, the voice system can be added to help make options. To realise this game, i can put audio equipments in four directions instead of the original single headset, which is difficult to control the provinical roads and connect it into the whole system. Correspongdingly, i would put four sensors in the four directions as well. In this case, the whole process sounds easier to work.

individual work done:

Bothersome Design is the project our team is going to focused on in this semester. This is the first stage of the design iteration, and we need to form a concept for this project. So, each member in our team has been asked to form a number of initial ideas so that we are able to choose the most suitable one for this project.

I have done some simple research. Firstly, I asked some of my friends and neighbours few questions such as is there any thing that makes you annoyed but you need to do it every day. Their answers are mostly related to something like they wake up lately, or other daily routines. Also, there is a funny answer which is he’s annoyed to the notifications on his iPhone, the red dots on the top right of an app’s icon. He really does not like those dots, and he has to update those apps in order to make them disappeared.

Based on how I understand this project, I think the design should make people feel ‘annoyed’, and help them to change something. It can be bad things like bad habits, good things, or maybe something they don't have. The experience it created is related to something negative. For example, make them feel uncomfortable; do something they do not want; make them awkward; force them to do something; create an unsafety feeling.

Based on all information above, I come up with some ideas. For example, transfer the red dots on iPhone to every day’s life. Let’s imaging that there are lots of red dots showing on your coffee table, kitchen table, study table, and toilet with notification sound when you wake up. All of these dots are trying to remind you things you need to do today or you haven’t finished yet. That’s really annoyed. The second idea is Tricky Alarm Clock, which is if you cannot wake up at the set time, then the clock will automatically trigger a phone call on your phone, to one of numbers on your contact list, which aims to change habits by creating an awkward feeling to not just users, but also people around users.

Studio:

There are two activities in the studio this week. Firstly, a guest was invited to share ideas about how he prepared for the job hunting, and what we need to do before/after graduation. Few things are quite helpful to me. For instance, a small activity that asking us to write down why we are unique. I almost could not write anything on the paper, and I realized I need to enrich myself with extra knowledge or something else. Also, be confident is really important when seeking a job or even in daily life. On the other hand, project theme sharing session was hold in the studio, we share our ideas and also get new insight from other students’ ideas.

to-do:

During weekend, our group collected all ideas we formed, 12 ideas in total. We hold a simple voting session, which is asking people around us to vote out the best 2 ideas. We collected 12 people’s feedback based on how it is annoyed, playable, and interesting to them. Then, we hold a team meeting on Sunday, and we mainly focus on how to implement the idea based on what we have learned during these years; can it create an annoying feeling to users; does it meaningful to them. Each member shared opinions, and we made a lot adjustments based on the initial idea. The initial idea is a shopping cart with a tiny screen. People scan stuff, and the system will count the current amount of all stuff. When the total amount is higher than the budget, then the cart will stop moving and giving out a noisy sound until a support staff coming to the user. We talked lots about this idea such as how to connect the wheels to the system, and what are things need to be done in order to implement this idea, and how they feel when they use it. We got lots answers, like it involves lots of coding such as scan system, count numbers and displaying numbers on the screen, draw and print out the shopping cart 3D model, wheels design and connection with the system. So, we might not be able to finish it before the deadline. Then, we talked about how to make it more easier without stopping the cart, and we came up with some ideas like a cover on the top, which control whether user can place stuff inside the cart. However, the size of the cart is too large, we think maybe it is easier to implement the idea on shopping basket.

Finally, the ‘Smart Shopping Basket’ is selected based on whether it is playable, involving physical computing, and bothersome. The structure and appearance of the Basket are similar to the Baskets in Coles/Woolworth. The difference is there is a closed cover with a small screen and a sensor on the top: users need to upload the list of stuff they want to buy; then, when a user wants to place something inside the Basket, the user needs to scan it over the sensor. If the stuff is in the list, then a green tick will show on the screen and the cover will be opened and user can place it inside the Basket; if it’s not, then the system will say “this is not the stuff on the list, r u sure you want to buy it?” user needs to answer the system, “yes”, for example, then the system will keep asking questions like “are you really sure?”, “Do you really need it”, which aims to make people uncomfortable/annoyed/awkward. After asking few questions, if the stuff is not related to the stuff on the list, then the system would say “I give you 2 min to think about it”. So, if the user really wants to buy it then he/she needs to turn back again after 2 min. The idea aims to stop people to buy sometime they do not need through repeatedly asking questions to them, and let them rethink about whether it is the stuff they are looking for.

A to-do list is formed in this meeting for the next week:

1. A pitch to share the idea (including draft sketches, pictures of the process of how to use it, maybe role play can be added).
2. Things involved in order to build it up:
• A sensor that used to scan stuff’s barcode, the system is able to read the information of the stuff such as the category and price.
• A rectangle cover with a tiny screen, and the cover can be opened and closed by the system based on the stuff’s category.
• A voice system that receive user’s speech and talk to user.

Guest Speaker

On Wednesday’s interview with Bash Isai, we get some useful suggestion about the employment. I'm very touched by his words because I did an internship in a large domestic company during the summer vacation, and I did find the difference between a large company and a small company. In my opinion, the division of labor systems of large companies is more rigorous, but it also leads to very low processing efficiency of some projects. In this regard, I think that small companies do better, but at the same time, it is difficult for small companies to reach some large projects. specification. As an interaction designer, I found that communication with colleagues in various departments is very important. If this is not done well, it may lead to a lot of duplicate work.

On the 15-word part, I write “I’m unique because I’m a designer”. Compared to others, I wrote more general, but I think this is the confidence a designer should have. Afterward, I know I should think of something specific. This session really deepened our clear understanding of our advantages. “I need to find what makes me unique” is a useful sentence.” Don’t be afraid of failure” give me the motivation for carrying out our selected project. I think we can figure it out even we even if we still have some technical doubts.

Wordcafe

On Tuesday, we learned a lot of new ideas and came up with a new idea based on all the posters on the table. Here are the ideas and inspirations we get on different tables.

Guided movement

Fitness blankets that guide people to do the right moves. This blanket is made up of many small squares. When people do dangerous moves, they will stretch out the small squares to support them. This auxiliary behavior gave me some inspiration, maybe I can use this mechanism for other operations. At the time, I thought, maybe we can make the barrier-free ramps portable so that in any case, people don't have to worry about the obstacles of the steps.

Sassy tech

The door shaking hands impressed me. But I think its interaction is not enough. Maybe it can also set some error penalties to play the anti-theft function, such as getting a hot or slight electric shock when the wrong fingerprint is detected after entering the wrong password.

Altered Landscapes

The one we discuss the most is a poster is Zatoichi, a blindfolded game. We think the idea is interesting but the game may be boring. We suggest adding more actions and more weapons to the game. For example, the weapon can be shield, sword, knife or ax. The voice could be different because of the distance. In addition, it can set online PVP mode. The player can rotate on a rotating chassis to attack the enemy around them.

Enhanced mundane spaces

The topics I chose, at last, were guided movement, sassy tech, enhanced mundane space.

The idea of floor coloring in enhanced mundane space inspires me. Maybe we can generate some ideas about housework and make boring housework as a kind of game. I think we can use garbage as a little monster when sweeping the floor. Different garbage can be represented by different types of monsters, and different amounts of garbage can be represented by monsters of different strengths.

Creative Learning

my ideas are scattered, I can't integrate them into 4 complete ideals or titles, but I still write them up, I recorded 4 inspirations, I hope to give you some inspiration!

1.What can we do in the context of virus?

• During self-isolation, everyone is experiencing or about to experience online teaching, but is online teaching enough? Is there anything that can be improved? Including group discussions, online videos, what other ways can people better understand what is in each other's brains and achieve cloud learning? Cloud conversation? Cloud work?
• In the face of language barriers and dyslexia, can online education be diversified to graphic education? Pictographic education? For example, international students may have group discussions that rely heavily on non-native languages. What should we do in such cases?
• Holographic projection. This should be the most realistic way that technology can achieve remote communication between people.
• Redefine the communication between people. At this time, everyone can't go out. The way everyone communicates has become online, email, slack, Instagram. Our relationship has become virtual, and our learning style has also become virtual.

2.How to create a zone that is impressive?

• Looking back at the previous ID exhibition, the most impressive ones are basically some rooms. There is a kind of zone, which is particularly easy to make an impression. For example, music room, light pollution room, movie sound room. Based on this inspiration, the existence of a zone should easily convey sensory feelings. It's immersive.
• Dark blue room. Learn to control breathing. Or learn to dive. By detecting the heartbeat, the room projects different colors. For example, holding a sensor in the palm of your hand will detect your heartbeat, and the room can change color at any time according to the speed of your heartbeat. Or produce different marine life. Awaken people's awareness of marine protection and feel the beauty of the ocean.

3. Bigger and simpler.

• Use big things to expand your ideas and your senses.
• Geography, big globe. There is a large sphere in the room. When you touch different sea areas with your hands, the room projects different underwater worlds. Simulate the environment of diving in different seas. Marine life is different. If your breathing is short, you will consume oxygen and the screen will become darker. If you exhale, you will sink and the projection screen will sink. If you inhale, you will float up and the projection screen will float up.

4. Coordinate with the left and right hands.

• Draw a circle with the left hand and a square with the right hand, or write with the left hand. Can train hand coordination. Develop left and right brains simultaneously.
• Playing of instruments, left-hand chords, right-hand melody. Instruments are also coordinated by left and right hands, whether it is string music such as a violin, keyboard instruments such as piano, or percussion such as drumming. It is the coordination of the left and right hands and even the feet.
• Press a chord with your left hand and play a simple melody with your right hand. Let people get a taste of the composition of popular music. You can start with a simple chord C major. Combining some popular songs, everyone can experience the composition of music from shallow to deep. Everyone can participate. And training simple right-handed cooperation in real-time.
• The essence of music is sound waves, so it can be transformed into graphics. The left hand is pressing the chord, and the right-hand draw the sound waveform, which can create music.

On Wednesday we finally were allocated our groups for the project. I had come in to the course with a few people I had worked with in previous courses that were interested in the same topics and themes as me. Unfortunately I did not end up being allocated with these peers and was assigned my second choice, creative learning. Due to previous experiences with group-work-heavy DECO course where I ended up having to pick up a large portion of the work because of absent or unmotivated team mates, I was hesitant to work in a group with people who's work ethics and aims may not align with mine.

After meeting my group, I am pleased as after discussion we all aim to achieve the same result and have similar opinions on time and effort input. My group members are Michelle, Chuike and Autumn. Autumn was absent for most of the contact but arrived as we were discussing our plan for the next week. We initially read through the notes written on the butchers paper from world café and looked through the related concept posters. We all were drawn to the project inspiration idea, "Chroma" and decided we wanted to go in the direction of creative learning through body movements and potentially also focus on teaching colour theory if research support this decision. We decided that our target audience would be primary school children and the intended setting would be a classroom - this will be dependent on if we find supporting research however. Whilst discussing potential concepts, Michelle mentioned incorporating a 'Twister" mat. I loved this idea as it would foster a fun and collaborative environment. As we all liked this interaction mode, we continued to ideate how we could expand upon it. This sparked the initial inspiration of the game Twister. I am drawn to the playful manner of the game and feel that there is much potential for tranformation into a tech concept: https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/306526318379593861/

Chuike suggested we complete an initial probe by casually interviewing people we know that would fall into the target audience. Michelle, Chuike and I all have multiple cousins that are primary school aged. I spoke on the phone to my two young cousins and received the following results:

These reponses seem quite limited but actually provided me with valuable information about whats interests primary school students about learning and how concepts should be designed to cater towards this demographic. The main themes evident include "play", being with "friends" and doing physical activities such as "running and jumping" and "glueing stuff". These themes will be used to guide the designs going forward.

I also conducted some research into the area of creative learning and its benefits. I looked into the benefits of learning colour theory and teamwork at a young age. I found information that strongly supported our current loose concept that focused on teamwork, colour theory and creative learning. Using technology to teach creatively is extremely effective as traditional methods can actually restrict learning, especially for those with different learning styles. Learning colour theory is a very valuable topic for young students as it helps to build cognitive links between visual cues and words. Teamwork is essential for early development as it helps with communication, social and emotional skills and can improve self-esteem in children. Therefore, these will also be topics considered throughout the design process.

Reflection:

I feel that I have already learnt quite a lot about our team theme and designing for the target audience, however, I understand that this is just the tip of the ice berg and these topics are all very nuanced and complex. I look forward to exploring the domain and problem space further throughout the semester.

I am also really happy with how the team allocation turned out and am glad that my team members expectations for the course seem to be inlign with mine. This is really important for me as I have had negative experiences in the past where team mates have lower expectations for course outcomes which ultimately means that my grades are impacted.

We plan to meet next Monday for an hour to finalise our concept and prepare our pitch before the initial proposal deliverable.

Team process:

Dur to the rapidly spreading of COVID-19, our team had an online meeting yesterday. During the meeting, we assigned different roles for next week’s pitch, and what should each team member be responsible for when preparing for that. We firstly broke the brief into different components, like design space, concept introduction, goals, contexts, intended experience, benefit, etc. By doing that, we were able to get a better understanding of the key things we should cover in the pitch. That enables each of us to know our responsibilities and contribute to and participate in the first part of team project.

Individual process:

As for the individual part, I was assigned the role to take charge of the ‘intended experience’ and ‘interactions’ parts in this pitch. So, I firstly wrote the script of these two parts, and then drew some sketches to demonstrate the ‘controller’ part of our concept. And also made an aircraft cardboard as the supporting material of body storming in the pitch.

Intended experience

There are mainly two aspects that we try to focus on. First, enabling users to directly control and manipulate the digital information in the game by just controlling their left and right hand in the physical world, so that to provide them with the immersive interactive experience. Another thing is that because the interaction is mainly composed of two parts, the left and right hand, so our system also supports single or multiple players modes by allowing a single user to use both hands as controllers, or one user controls weapons and another user controls aircraft. That means we intend to offer users a collective experience.

Operations

The left hand stands for the weapon part, and players can choose different weapons (or switch the levels of ‘attack’) by adjusting different finger gestures. For example, the thumb and index finger gesture correspond to ‘Normal Attack’; the thumb, index and middle finger gesture correspond to ‘Power Attack’; and the thumb and pinky finger gesture correspond to the ‘Ultimate Attack’.

The right hand stands for the aircraft part, and players can switch flying modes by adjusting the degree of closure between fingers. For example, if the user's fingers are all closed, then the aircraft is moving forward in the level 1 mode, where the flying speed is slowest, but the attack accuracy is highest. If the user's index, middle and ring fingers are closed while the thumb and pinky finger are open, then the aircraft is moving forward in the level 2 mode, where the flying speed and attack accuracy are moderate. Finally, if the user has all fingers open, then the aircraft is moving forward in the level 3 mode, where the flying speed is quickest, but the attack accuracy is the lowest.

Apart from that, users can also use their hand to control the movement and direction of the aircraft. Like if you move you right hand horizontally, then the aircraft will present the corresponding movement in the game, and if you tilt you hand to the left and right, the aircraft will also show the corresponding tilt.

Improvement

1. Compressing the image file size for better display in journal post.
2. Adding the alt text description of each image

For contact this week, we conducted the world café. Brainstorm with different themes I chose emotional totems, Change through discomfort, Music things. I got to the second topic and had a meeting with my team members. We came up with some reasons for discomfort. One is physically and one is psychological. How people feel physically uncomfortable, such as changing the ambient temperature or making noise. How to make people feel uncomfortable is to make them feel embarrassed or anxious. For example, what I'm thinking about is that the computer camera turns on when you're not looking and takes pictures that don't look so good and automatically uploads them to social networks. But our discussion is that these discomforts should be kept within the limits of what people can tolerate and that it is acceptable for people to feel some discomfort or to feel anxious or embarrassed for a while.

First Team Meeting

This Friday, we held our first group meeting, and before the meeting, each team member prepared at least three ideas, and by discussing together, we finally come up with an idea related with programming learning.

Final concept:

• Board Game with Block (Contains Script/command)
• Characters on board need to move Based on the script
• Players need to finish the script first before the character can be played. Players need to press the start button.
• This is a race game(multi-player)

Purpose:

• help people learn basic programming
• improve people’s logic ability
• cultivate the coding interests

Audience:

• Teenagers
• People have interest with programming

Description

Our final idea is to help teens and coding enthusiasts learn coding in a creative way. We will make a maze from cardboard or wood, and players can control the robot to walk in the maze. The control method of the robot is to arrange and combine different instruction blocks. Depending on the order of the instruction blocks, the robot will give different feedback.

Inspiration & Live Stream Presentation

Today we were very fortunate to have had Bash present to us live from the UK. He provided invaluable insights into the industry and this experiences thus far in his career and life. He shared some key point regarding employability, the importance and significant of this course, as well as life in the UK, interview questions and how to negotiate wages. Regarding employability, the major take away I received today was the importance to engage in a recruiter and growing a solid relationship with them. It is important for the recruiter to have a solid understanding of you so they can help position you in the best way possible. Also, he shared how an recruiter can help negotiate salary and have those awkward conversations on your behalf.

Bash also highlighted the importance of being unique. He had us conduct an activity whereby he had us write 50 words about us:

My name is...

I am a ...

I am unique because...

Then had us cut the paragraph down to 25 words, then 10 words, then only 5 words. He then asked us to share those and focus on those 5 words.

This was a very unique and interest exercise/experience. It provided me with an opportunity to reflect and provide added focus.

Team Formation

Today, we also found out about our teams. The lead up to the announcement was one of both anxiety and excitement.

I am proud to announce that our team comprises of three very like minded, diligent students. Collectively we are aiming high and will work very hard during the semester to achieve the best possible outcome.

In our team we have: Jen-Wei Sin, Rine Laegreid, Laura Pham and me and collectively as a unit we are excited to have embarked on this journey together and will continue to inspire each other to deliver!

Feedback of Mind Speaker in class:

– simulate physical shape

– touch interaction

– meaningless

– use mind or other sensors?

– similar to the project by MIT, think about to make it more unique by adding specific human value

– the visualisation ideas sound good, but it may hard to understand how someone would use it

– could be useful for blind people, different size for different situations

– what is the physical interaction

– didn’t really understand what the project is about

– interesting but i don't think i totally understand the usage

– don’t quite understand how to engage/interact with the system

– Could think about using pins for games

– novel idea, like how it visualise the weather rather than just reading it

– similar to many concepts, not really interactive on the user’s part, good explanation

– a little confused with the main purpose of the idea, it is interesting to visually show different information & playful interaction

– good, playful interaction

– not sure what other interactions it has and the scale

– reflect emotions in shapes

– can’t clearly see the connection between the 3D screen and weather

– not really understand the purpose of it

– it sounds like it can everything but not clear how it does so

– by using tangible user interface, the interaction is more visible

– all the technology already exists, just used in slightly different ways. no essential physical interaction.

In short, the feedback are mainly focus on the following points:

- What is the physical interaction

- Don't understand how to use it/ the purpose

- add specific human value

- using pins for games

- what other interactions it has and the scale

Based on previous feedback, I would like to narrow down the function of Mind Speaker into weather expression only. To distinguish them, I would like to call the refined idea Smart Weather Room. Continuing with previous idea, Smart Weather Room uses a tangible user interface to simulate real-time weather condition.

Weather forecast has become very accurate now, but different people have different feelings for the same weather. Instead of telling people the degree of temperature that may create an illusion of feeling in words, Smart Weather Room can reflect how it really feels in hands and how the weather feels in real world to represent the weather. The temperature variation is within a certain range since some places in high latitude are below zero which is hard to simulate that situation.

Smart Weather Room provides a smart interface on the table to let user choose weather condition and clothing.

- Choose a city to simulate weather condition

- Choose the clothes to wear will affect the feeling on the globe

The choice of weather condition will affect the function of physical devices in the room, which includes the effect of wind, rain, sun and fog.

- Heat Lamp: Provide heat in the room to increase temperature

- Dry Ice Maker: Create the fog effect, and lower the temperature in the room

- Wind Fan: Change the speed of wind

- Rain Spray: Create rain drops

The choice of clothing will affect light and the sense of touch on the surface of the globe.

- LED light: Change feeling people see the circumstance. Cold colors express cool weather. Warm colors express hot weather.

- Temperature Touch Globe: Using hand to touch and feel the variation from the lowest to highest temperature

The purpose of Smart Weather Room is to create a circumstance of a place that people haven't been to, so that user can feel what the real feeling of the weather there and decide what clothes to pack for travelling.

What we have done

This week was mainly World Cafe, and we had a group discussion on everyone's posters, trying to get new inspiration from everyone's posters. I have understood and discussed about Beautify the Self, Enhanced mundane spaces, Emotional totems, and Body as controller. I found that some design concepts seem to be abstract, such as Emotional totems and Beautify the Self. Everyone ’s emotions and experiences are there. Differently, it seems that more detailed investigations are needed in the design of emotions. From my personal experience, the impact of the environment on human experience is relatively abstract. In fact, as I browsed all the posters, I discovered some very interesting ways to interact, such as smell. There are a lot of scent experience projects in some cities, such as the scent museum, which have attracted great interest. If we can reasonably use scent for interaction design, I think it will be very interesting. On Wednesday we organized the group. I chose the Body as controller direction. I met new team members, and after communicating, I found out that they have a different understanding of this topic from me. I believe we will have a very special design.

I also participated in the course of UQ innovate, which introduced some production and processing machines and laser cutting machines that we may use. The content includes how to use the machine, safety regulations and safety measures. I used similar machines in my undergraduate period, and I am very happy to be able to contact them again, and hope to use more of them in the future.

What to do next

Immediately after the team was formed, we arranged for the next plan. Based on what each of us thinks, we will determine our next design field. Discuss some interaction methods and interactive devices in the field. Eventually we will conduct brainstorming and concept map activities to evaluate our interaction methods. In the end, we will come up with a solution that best suits our field and has a strong interactive experience.

Bee Bear Lions

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Our team's name is Bee Bear Lions composing by our spirit animals. It is really exciting to have another chance to cooperate with my old squad - Owen, Solomon, and Liony. Credit to Owen, our chief visual designer, every team member has a cute symbol now.

Idea Inspiration

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During the contact section, our team conducted a brainstorming based on the theme - creative learning, so as to decide the learning goals and target audience for our design. Here is the organized set:

After team voting, we finally pick the coding education for teenagers. The game "7 billion humans" inspires us on how to make the script into physical and gave us the initial idea. The game is actually digital but the mechanism of playing is interesting. The player places the command box in a certain order and the character in the game will execute the instruction as the precise order. The game helps people to learn the coding logic and simple functional commands like if and while, rather than teaching a particular coding language.

Therefore, if we can make those commands into the physical cube and using a camera to recognize them with a certain order, users also can manipulate a character with scripts. That is a raw concept, so we need to drop more details into it. Liony gave us a hint, it is about a smart automated chessboard, which every chess can move by itself.

The technology can be applied to our design, after the system record all the script blocks, it can control the character(physical model) movement based on the order. In order to make the process more attractive, there are two versions of the idea. The first one is a puzzle game, using the script to help the character escapes from a maze. (Details will be presented at the proposal pitch) The second version is an adventure game, there are multiple ways for users to select and there may have enemies, traps and bouns weapon in the different paths. User all needs to operate is to measure the best way and compose the script blocks into right order to fulfill the plan. That aims to help newbies getting to understand the coding logic and commands.

1. Work Done and Relevance

This week consisted of taking the ideas and themes from last week, cutting down those ideas into little giblets, and then throwing them into the communal wok to see what permutations we could make of them. In hindsight, with some of these I think there ended up being ... a feeling that "I have to add something meaningful to this"... but especially in later rounds, this internet resulting in too many ideas being on the table, and a whole bunch of them being ignored unintentionally.

This led to a feeling of the board being quite cluttered. Some ideas worth discussing got tossed aside for being too complex to read, or just because the host miscommunicated them and / or didn't want to be hosting.

We also formed teams, and I think a critical part of this was just trying to understand our teammates as people - rather than the descriptive "team". With so many interactions to hold every day, it's faster to dismiss and ignore people than get invested in who they are - so I don't hold it against anyone - but when it comes to people you're going to be working with over a long period of time, if they don't feel like a priority t get along with, then every interaction becomes a chore.

An unfortunate downside of working with a dozen or so teams throughout your syllabus... you're going to end up blanking out a vast majority of them once you leave university and putting them behind you - unless you keep in contact with them. To that end, I'd like to work hard to make this process as painless as possible, complementing what my teammates do so that we can leave with something interesting.

2. Work to Do

We've had a whole lot of ideas, discussion thoughts on where we could go with the project... but decisions and research are still ongoing. The downside to this is that it can seem like progress has halted, when in truth it's just ongoing but in multiple directions. I should collate what we have into some brief notes that the team can use more easily.

3. Things that Inspired Me

Less so than before... while I saw a number of new pieces of technology this week, nothing really struck me as "that's awesome"

a. Mira by Alonso Martinez

Tabletop robots that are super cute - I really liked that something so simple - uncomplicated designs could convey so much emotion just with angling eyes, and the smoothness of their movement.

But more importantly than that is the whole approach and process that led to them being created... Bringing life to creatures by focusing on their movement, as opposed to their features, like being able to talk or use information. A subtle combination of aesthetic appeal and mechanics that works enough to provide the illusion that the thing you're looking at is a small creature, rather than a bundle of electronics.

Thought Train & Carriages

• Help
• Fix up the notes and such for this afternoon
• Some sketches of yesterday mornings brainstorming would be nice