This week I finished my first prototype, I also make the Project Objectives and Success Criteria help me estimate the project is successful.

The main purpose of this project is to solve the problem of excessive stress caused by lack of exercise among young people. So I think my project evaluation criteria should be as follows:

• Sport

This project should help users to increase exercise time and exercise initiative and should meet the amount of exercise required by users.

• Relieve the pressure

Do you feel relaxed during the use? Although the difficulty of each level is increasing, you need to be able to pass it easily without bringing more pressure.

• Boring

The purpose of this game is to make users like sports, a single sport is boring, so the game mode needs to make people feel interesting.

• Playable

This is a game, the purpose of the game is to make people interested in it. Does this mode of passing the game make users feel that this game is playable?

• Suitable for the target users

The game is designed for students, whether it highlights the characteristics of designing for students.

• Interactive

Have enough interaction

Video:

For the video part, at first, I drew a draft listing the features I wanted to describe, then wrote a speech for recording, and finally added background music and video recording

I think I got the feedback that is useful for my next step.

This week I began to connect my sensor and do the research for that. I am unfamiliar with the sensor connected, thus I search online to complete it. And I found this tutorial picture.

follow this, I try to add another sensor for my project. I need more than 4 of the sensor, so I change some of the code which I found. I use 2days on it, I try to connect them together, and make sure the sensor can control the LED light.here is a mini mat which I use to test my project.

When I finish the connection, I have to test this.

Interaction Plan:

This is a sports decompression game, the user achieves the interactive effect of fitness by touching the machine with his body.

Step

1. The user needs to click the start button on the screen to start the game,
2. At the start of the game, the lights on the carpet will light up in sequence with the music
3. Users need to remember the order of lights
4. When the music stops, the user can choose to replay or continue
5. If you choose to replay, you will return to the second step.
6. If you choose to continue, users need to step on the buttons next to the corresponding lights in the same order
7. If there is an error, a prompt tone will appear and a choice will appear: prompt or try again.
8. If the sequence is correct, the next level will be entered.

This will be a level-breaking game. The speed of the current level will affect the score of the level, so the user needs to run to the corresponding light to achieve a higher score. Each level will be more difficult than the previous level, this gradually increasing difficulty game method can make players more interested

Future

In the future design, I will add the unity part. My idea comes from a piano game. Unity can display different colored squares to prompt the user to touch off the corresponding color lights on the mat, and then the music will automatically be played with a button. Users can play a song by this exercise method. Users will listen to soothing music to relieve stress in this way. I think this game mode can make this game more playable

Next week

Summarize and analyze the results of the first test

This week I work on my 'Design preliminary prototype' part.

Concept

After the following research, I got an idea, I would make a mat to let the student do exercise on it. Because, the lack of exercise is one of the reasons for the excessive pressure on students, so I designed this prototype for this feature. The concept of this project is a fitness sports game designed to reduce the Pressure. Users can be doing the sport by using this mat. At the same time, this is a sports game. You can enjoy the games while doing exercise.

As shown in the picture, there are cue lights with different colors on the blanket. There will be a button next to each LED light. The lights will turn-on in a different order. The user needs to step on the buttons next to the lights in the same order with the fastest speed. When the user presses the button, music will be emitted. If the sequence is correct, the lights will all light up, and then a sound of victory will be emitted. If the sequence is wrong, a sound will be emitted when you press the wrong button.

This design combines running and music, users will run on the carpet in order to achieve faster speed while listening to the sound of music can be relieved. On the other hand, the different colors of LED light is to help users remember the order in which the lights are a turn-on. This type of exercise does not become boring and has the positive effect of encouraging users to exercise.

I made a related investigation of the choice of music. A study (Thayer, J. F. 2010) found that light and soothing music can activate the parasympathetic nervous system and help relieve stress.

The connect of Arduino

I have several options in the choice of sensors

Color sensor

My project is related to color, thus the first idea is in my mind is to put the light of the corresponding color and the color sensor together, and trigger the sensor when the light is on. However, this mode is too complicated, which adds a lot of difficulty to later programming.

Light sensor

I wanted to use the light sensor as a button. When the user stepped on the light sensor to block the light to touch the switch, but when connected, I found that the sensor is not sensitive to the light, and sometimes there will be wrong instructions.

Hall effect sensor

I found the hall effect sensor on the tip of the first two sensors. It works by changing the hall sensor's magnetic field with magnets, which convert magnetic or magnetically encoded information into electrical signals that can be processed electronically.

Install a magnet on the user's shoe, and the user can touch the switch when the magnet and the Hall effect sensor contacted.

Here is the sensor I researched

https://tkkrlab.nl/wiki/Arduino37sensors.

Next week

• Record the suggestions

This week I begin work on my individual prototype part.

Research

According to the feedback and group discussions which I got from the group, I got some initial inspiration. Our target user is a student, so I have to find sports that are suitable for students, such as skipping rope and running. So I did a survey of sports that students liked.

At first, I need to do more research on my concept, So I found a lot of literature on the Internet. This is the most useful literature I used.

https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/4696592.

Key related work

The main document I refer to is the 2019 ‘Academic Stress and Physical Activity in Adolescents’ which demonstrates that lack of exercise in adolescents will cause excessive stress. It is also recommended that school administrators and educators pay attention to the problem of the lack of exercise among teenagers. According to the research with the development of the times, the pressure on students was greater before. Because they need to learn more knowledge than before. Therefore, people realize that a reasonable allocation of leisure and sports time is crucial. Although students have time for physical education, most sports are boring for those who do not like sports, such as monotonous running. Humans can't relieve stress when they ding the work they reject, so my project is to make a fun sports fitness game for students, and then help them relieve their stress.

The article mentions that mental disorders occur more frequently in younger than older individuals. However, most decompression products are videos or a soothing object. These decompression products can not attract teenagers better. On the other hand, the article also mentioned that exercise is a more effective way to relieve stress. At the same time, most teenagers like to play games. So I combined sports with video games to attract young people.

Questionnaire

Because of the COVID-19, I conducted an online investigation. I am a student at the university. I can ask my classmate for the research. They can be investigated, I send them the link of Google Form, and here is the result I got.

The results show that most people like to run, dance, and play basketball. Running is the most popular one. So I think the sport of running should be added to this project. During the interview, some people mentioned that although running is the most effective way to exercise, however that is a boring exercise. People usually like to do this sport with music. This gave me some inspiration. I noticed that dancing is also one of the popular sports, and it is also accompanied by music. (Barbara Fredrickson) believes that using music to reduce stress is good for our physical and mental health. So I decided to combine these two sports methods to complete my project.

Next week

• Design preliminary prototype
• Make a survey for preliminary prototype

Reflaction & Feedback

• How to release pressure

The vast majority of comments made this suggestion, so we focused on this aspect. Indeed, in our design, hitting items were selected for pressure relief. Based on our initial research, this may be suitable for some people. But in the comments we received, we also found more suggestions, such as touching virtual animals or meditation, which are some more peaceful ways to relieve stress. We discussed the current design principles in detail, and according to the suggestions received, there are indeed some violent factors in our plan, which may not be healthy for our target group. After discussion, we hope to find a healthy way to relieve stress. In the comments, we found suggestions for exercise to relieve stress. We quickly adopted this suggestion. First of all, sports are more suitable for our current ideas. Then, in the initial survey literature, we also found effective evidence that exercise can relieve stress. Therefore, we decided to change the direction to exercise to release pressure. In the next plan, we will conduct more investigations in terms of exercise to relieve stress.

• Positive and negative pressure

This is a very worthwhile point of view. For different people, the stress in life may bring positive or negative effects, which may be related to everyone's feelings about stress. In our design, our target group is the pressure group. Such a statement may not be comprehensive. Our design should be based on user needs. Therefore, the concept should be aimed at people who are stressed and uncomfortable with current stress and need to relieve stress. As mentioned in the comments, stress has positive effects, but in our concept, we should focus more on the negative effects of stress and help those who are facing the negative effects of stress to relieve stress.

Team discussion

In Tuesday class, we report back on what everyone had done and any concerns. Everyone was answering the same question that they had done last week in the report.

After that, we have a team meeting, according to the feedback we have a new idea for our concept. We will remove the idea of the theme of environmental protection and create a new movement method for decompression. We think that this can highlight the idea of decompression rather than environmental protection. If there are too many themes, our work will feel messy.

Individual part

Next week

Determine the preliminary prototype

❖ Make a survey of preferred exercise method

❖ Evaluate the survey

❖ Design preliminary prototype

One team member of our group dropped this course due to the online teaching, so with the help of the teacher, three members of our group and two members of another group formed as a new team. fortunate, both of our topics are "body as controller".

Meeting 1

Through the first meeting, we learned about the research theme of their group. Their team is based on environmental protection games, through the body control to eliminate harmful waste, and finally get a certain educational significance. Our team uses physical control sensors to strike objects in the virtual vent space.

Through the feedback of the speech, we summarized the advantages and disadvantages of the two groups:

-Our team：

Advantages ：Specific sensors and background research are available to provide adequate information on solutions to relieve stress.

Disadvantages ：Because of the use of destroying virtual items to release pressure, this method of decompression is questioned whether it is "too extreme." Some people asked that if users use this method to relieve stress for a long time, maybe they will be violent.

• Their team：

Advantages：With a good background (environmental protection), environmental protection is a popular topic in nowadays life. We can extend the application of this theme to have good educational significance.

Disadvantages ：There are no specific plans, such as what sensors will be used to make the game.

###Conclusion

By analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of the two projects, we have generated a new idea:

We decided to use the background of protecting the environment, which can make our works more meaningful. On the other hand, we will continue to make use of body control sensors to hit trash that destroys the natural environment. (Eg: In an ocean scene, there is some marine debris floating in the water. The user can use the glove in his hand to trigger the sensor to eliminate the garbage in the ocean. This is just a preliminary idea) Such a combination makes up for, in addition to the shortcomings of the two groups, the goals and themes are also more abundant.

Three other students and I were assigned to the "body as a controller group, and we determined several project directions through preliminary discussion and understanding in class.

Breanstroming：

• for children with autism/ADHD - use the body instead of the brush (most children with autism are reluctant to express and prefer other ways of expression, writing, and painting can help them express)

For example: using your left hand to indicate a pen wipe your right hand to indicate a pen...

• for those with claustrophobia (fear of the dark..)The plush toy can sense the child's temperature and control the brightness of the light
• Decompression game: for the over-stressed using sound to create text, the text will show the specific text through speech recognition, with the text hit the monster. Wave at the monster start way, take some deep breaths (vibration) detection, with the relaxing music "classical music or the slower pace of the tune, you can relax, reduce stress" and picture or scene "humans and animals triggered when the body secretes a let a person feel comfortable" oxytocin, could help reduce stress and pain relief. Watching funny short films about animals can have a similar effect."
• using face recognition technology, the user's face reconstruction is projected onto the screen and then the user can decorate it with virtual decorations provided and then print
• the game to help the fitness within the limited area to touch the area users need to use physical contact to achieve the goal

Team Project

Then we decided on a topic through discussion. We decided to play an interactive game and control the game through body control.

[Stress - Free Zone]

• Decompression gloves - for high-pressure people

The goal: to release stress because of environmental constraints

(Destroy objects by virtual impact -> simulates destroying/destroying objects in real life)

• How to control

1. "Boxing" gloves judge the strength of the user's swing by the strength of the vibration and start the game with voice control
2. add a voice recognition feature to determine stress by the way the user yells and vents
3. Add a leg-sensing feature (walking forward or in other directions in a virtual scene)

Background:

our domain is to relieve stress

Nowadays there are many people must face a lot of pressure every day which were from their work and life.

They usually don’t know how to vent or pour out.

As time went by, these people will produce depression and other psychological diseases.

According to our survey, most of the stress in life comes from work, so our target users will be office workers and students.

Secondly, our design is more game-oriented, so game lovers also will be our target users.

Our design was inspired by a poster. which is the machine prints words on the screen by recognizing speech. Then attack the targets with these words. Another inspiration was “Vent space, just like this picture, in this area user can let off steam by punching objects. the users will enjoy broken objects in this room

Sentimental plants

Background:

Nowadays there are many people must face a lot of pressure every day which were from their work and schoolwork. They usually don t know how to pour out. As time went by, these people will produce depression and other psychological diseases. The Sentimental plants designed by me can help these people relieve stress and maintain physical and mental health.

Brainstorming:

At first, I want to make it a toy or a picture I think it can be a toy that people can hug the toy, but this kind of stuff only suitable for most of the female. And the interaction of pictures is not enough. I have to find something that can make people relieve the pressure and suitable for most people instead of discrete populations.

According to the research, I found that the plants will make a human feel better.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/urban-mindfulness/200903/plants-make-youfeel-

Secondly, I begin to think about how to help people relieve the pressure.

1. There can be a camera to scan the user s face, the facial expressions scanned by the camera can detect basic mood changes (such as the degree of mouth rising).
2. When the user touches Sentimental plants, static electricity is generated. At the same time, the instrument on Sentimental plants can also detect the user's heartbeat and breathing frequency, so that the user's mood can be further detected.

1. Speech recognition sensitive words. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3514871/ The users can pour out to the Sentimental plants, the plant is not human, so the user needs t worry about their secret was out, can according to the words to give the good suggestions or cheat with users. What will the user feel better?
2. When not in use, Sentimental plants are constantly changing in four seasons. However, through the above tests, Sentimental plants can accurately detect the needs of users. Thereby slowly changing the colors and seasons of the plants. Research shows that color changes mood: https://www.verywellmind.com/color-psychology-2795824

Target users:

 Autistic patient

 Lovelorn people

 Solitary man

Scenario:

When the user faces P, the camera scans the user's face. When the user touches it, it will relieve the stress by detecting that some relaxing music is played first, and it will also change the colors of the season and plants. The user can choose whether to chat with it and during the chat process, the user will be advised and relieved the pressure to achieve the effect of reducing stress.

UQ Innovate induction

This week I attended the UQ Innovate induction, which was very useful in our assessment. In addition to this, I completed all the required online tutorials prior to the session.

At first, we learned how to cut the plastic sheet, by combining machines and programming we can create any shape we want to cut. Different machines correspond to different materials, so we need to use the machines properly.

I had the challenge of ethics, security, and privacy which is highly relevant for any technology (and most aspects in life, really). Then we learned how to use a machine to cut and polish wood, these operations look easy but dangerous to operate, so we need to be familiar with the use of these machines and the safety rules.

World Cafe

We had a world café session this week before we form into a team. We discuss different topics with different people in the class. In this conference, I explored different themes, in which we used the idea of posters and divided them into 19 categories, each with a new theme. They face different users, interaction methods, and domains. however, each student only can join in 6 discussion groups. Time was limited, so I chose the groups I was most interested in. It's fun to share everyone's ideas, we can get new works from others' ideas.

Body as controller

This theme is the one I'm most interested in. We went through all the posters and tried to get some inspiration. In this theme, the human body is used as a controller to interact with the machine through movement or sound. The target audience is sports and game lovers. We tried to combine some of the ideas on the poster and generate new ideas. First, we thought that in addition to humans interacting with machines, pets could also interact with machines.

Ability-centric Interaction

Creative Learning

I had Soldering 101 Induction this week.

This is my first time soldering. I didn't learn how to connect the circuits in-depth, so there were some problems at the beginning of the connection, although it was a simple circuit connection problem, however, I didn't know how to connect them to the breadboard, so I spent a lot of time in the beginning. Through the tutor's explanation and help, I successfully lit the led lamp.

The next step is the soldering process, I also get some trouble on this. Due to the limited length of each fitting cable, I had to arrange all the parts in a proper position. The switch needs to be on the back of the board to fit in the box. The distance between the parts makes soldering easier.

After soldering, I found that the LED didn't turn on even if I switch it on. Finally, with the tutor's help, I found the problem. I made the LED in the wrong direction.

Post

Smart Fridge

My ideas come from my own experience, I usually put the food in the fridge and forget to eat them, and miss the best time to eat it. I think that if the fridge can remind people the out of date of the food, that will be very helpful and convenient for people. The smart fridge will help people to take care of people’s food.

In my concept, the smart fridge should have 3 main functions.Weight, light and screen

Weight

this is the main function of the smart fridge, which can calculate the weight of food and calories. This can be very helpful for people who are keeping fit.

Light

There will be a light to mention people if the food will out of date.

Screen

A screen on the fridge can tell people how to use the food in the refrigerator to make dishes.

• Example: User just buy a fresh tomato from the supermarket, he can select the "tomato" on the screen and put it in the fridge, the smart fridge will calculate the data of the tomato, type the shelf life of the tomato. The light will change the light color, it is used to remind the user to eat this food before missing the best time to eat. There also will be some recommendations on the screen about how to make dishes by using this tomato.

My name is Vicky, and I am in my third year of studying a Bachelor of Information Technology. My major is User Experience Design.

I like this major because it is interesting. Students in this major have different projects. And I usually can get a good idea from the group working.

My expectation for this course is I can improve my ability of thinking and use devices effectively to create a physical project. that also will be a challenge for me in this course. My coding is not good enough, according to this course I hope I can improve my coding skills.