Documentation & Reflection

Explanatory Post for Smart Weather Room

Elva Li - Sun 15 March 2020, 4:29 pm
Modified: Sun 15 March 2020, 4:39 pm

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.

Sketch of Idea

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.

Sketch of Smart Weather Room

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.

Poster of Smart Weather Room

Explanatory Post for Mind Speaker

Elva Li - Tue 3 March 2020, 8:48 am
Modified: Tue 3 March 2020, 8:50 am

Title

Mind Speaker

Mind Speaker

Description

  • Mind Speaker is a pixelated Tangible User Interface (TUI). It uses sensor or bluetooth connected to the shape to be present.
  • Add LED with electronics on the pins

Concept

3D holograms in real time

How to use it

Basically it can be used before people take a real action as a simulator.

  1. Use sensors to capture the movements
  2. Use bluetooth connect to IoT devices

Use Cases

1. simulate a physically shape

Display a wave to represent the ratio of wave height in the sea comparing to a person

Wave

2. As a smart home IoT device, be an alert of phone or cook

phone alert

Connect to smartphone to alter you the message or coming call

When you are busy in another room and the food is ready in kitchen

Touch the weather

Normally we use different colors to represent changes of temperature in the real world. Blue means cool. Red means hot.

Instead of telling you the degree of temperature and vague weather in words, Mind Speaker can change the temperature on the surface to represent the variation of how it really feels like.

3. Accessibility

It can also be used for blind people to touch the shape of things that not easy to reach

Tags

  • accessibility
  • LED
  • vibration
  • TUI
  • tangible

Inspirations

Link to resources

  • Sci-fi concept - Holographic interfaces from Iron Man
Iron Man
  • 3D Metal Pin Art Board
2D Metal Pin Art Board

2D Metal Pin Art Board

inFORM is a tangible bits displayed in low resolution to present dynamic 3D shapes on a surface. It can capture the human movements and also can be a tangible smart home device.

alert for phone calls

Introduction

Elva Li - Fri 28 February 2020, 4:53 pm

About me

Hi everyone! This is Peiwen's journal for Physical Computing and Interaction Design. You can call me Elva if it is easier for you to remember. I'm in my 3rd semester of Master of Interaction Design program. I'm looking forward to making something playful for everyday life in the final exhibition and show it to public audience. It is very exciting to work with people from various backgrounds and skills. Making a physical design sounds like bringing up a baby. I hope this can be a pleasant journey.

About course

I was glad to attend exhibit last year and it was very impressive. This course is challenging for me as it combines all the knowledge and skills from what I studied last year as well as new components in physical computing I will pick up soon. It is also interesting for me because I can use those machinery to do some hand work. I'm open to try new things and develop creative idea throughout the process. I hope through this course I could also gain experience in project management and exhibition setting up apart from basic course content.