Documentation & Reflection

Can’t believe it’s only 3 days left…oh no…

I felt there still are so many things that need to do, but so little time is left. Now, if I could have a magic wand, I want to make the time go slower so that I could have more time to finish up my work. Thought of just giving up came to my mind many times, but I kept telling myself I need to finish what I was started.

This week I have done building the water part for the terrarium. To have water evenly distribute across the terrarium, I used a straw, water-divider, and airline tubes. At first, the water didn’t come out the way as I expected; the water didn’t flow through from the straw at all. I realized I made the hole by using solder iron, which created an uneven surface around the holes. I had to shake the straw with a little force the water out. So I used the knife to cut out soldered holes, in the end, to make it worked.

I was remaking my terrarium because I didn’t satisfy with what I had the last prototype. There is no aesthetic at all, and it was too bland to look at. I am sure no one will want to buy it if it is a product. Hahahah…because I won’t. What I had done was changing the plant inside. I took out the mint plants I had and removed some of the soils and cleaned the glass. Now it looks more like a terrarium. I am happy with the look right now. (BEFORE and NOW photo below)

I had done with the relay to control the smoke when time is up. But I had a little trouble getting the smoke to enter the terrarium after I moved it next to the terrarium. It takes time for the nichrome wire to get hot, so the smoke won’t be seen right away after it turned on. After trying a few different ways of connecting the smoke to the terrarium, I didn’t use the airline tube I bought. The hole was too small, and it created a lot of hindrances for the air to carry. In the end, I used paper tubes from tissue roll since the hole was big enough.

Reflection (continues from the last post)

In my past projects, I have been practical at choosing what would be more manageable and doable within the given time we had. Even though in the end, the project is accomplished, I didn’t feel any achievement rather a sense of regret. Having that in mind, it was why this time I am so insisted on stepping out of my comfort zone. To make something that was seen as impossible and challenge. I think I got what I was intended to try, but I felt that I failed to accomplish because of many reasons. First, it was hard to get the measurement and link to the terrarium. Second, lacking user testing and feedback. Third, making too much work for myself to do. More than one person had told me that my prototype should be done in a group, and it was too complicated to be done by one person. If you asked me what I would do differently if I could go back to week 4, I would still do smoke, but I don’t think I would make the terrarium or water again.

As for now, I should just focus on what I can do and make the best out of it. Regretting will not help at the moment, but the lesson is learned. Next time I would think more thoroughly with my concept and problem space.

Next and last things need to be done

• Annotation portfolio
• Filming and editing video
• Combining relay code to the main file
• Identifying success criteria for demonstrating my prototype

Trying/possible will do if I have time

• A measurement to control when to give water or smoke

First, I apologize for not posting last week's journal. I got carry away with the final paper in the advanced qualitative inquiry class. It was a pain when I was working on that paper. I am glad I turned it in today. I draw down some notes for the last week's journal, but I didn't get time to post it since I wanted to add images I took during my work process. Instead of posting the journal of the sake of posting, I would rather spend a bit more time to write down what I had done.

Recap of Week11 and week 12

I added the fan to the smoke machine with the paddle sticks I got since I am going to move the smoke machine next to the terrarium. It was a joy process when I was building it. I think I know why because I was able to control the outcome and the process. It was a straight forward decision making I could quickly evaluate any error that might occur. Compared to writing the code, it was much more unpredictable sometimes; it was harder to find the issue and error or the solution to the problems. Yet, the feeling of achievement was unmeasurable when a code is debugged it. This is frustrating and worried me, especially when not much time is remaining for this class. But it is a bit hard to value two of them on the same scale.

I easily measure and cut the length and height I needed to stabilize the fan between the nichrome wire and the battery. I first glued the paddle sticks on the two sides of the fan; then I realized it was not as steady as I thought it would be. So, I added two small paddle sticks between the woods and the fan.

I also searched how to make the water container that would give the water when the servo trigger to open the cup. It was just testing to prove my concept since pipette was all sold out in the Officeworks when I went. I was being told that it was sold out not only in the store but in all other stores and warehouses. Uhmmm…I am wondering why? Did the hospital use this? Anyway, with the call I had with my dad; we came up with the idea of using drip-feeding, by controlling the amount of the air to enter the container to let the water flow through the tube and add water.

The testing was not ideal because I didn't consider the size, shape, and volume of the container. The error was it didn't have a space to stabilize the servo, and a right position let the servo to control the cap to open. Searching on what I had at home, I found a Mentos I had with a cap that was linked to the body. To make it work, I would need to build two extensions; one from the cap and one vertically connected to the previous extension. Below is the image to explain the concept.

I shared my concern during the studio. Lorna shared and found a good example that I would use when I showed what I tried to build. I read it thoroughly after our section. I realized that I didn't have enough water tubes, and the one I got was for the smoke machine. So, I went out to get more airline tube near the pet shop in my house. I also got screwdrivers for the 2-channel relay. I was using my eyebrow plucker XD.

My servo was working fine on Thursday when I was testing, but the next day the servo was not functioning correctly. The servo moved left, and right without I pressed the button, it should be the other way around. Sigh…why it broke? That was the question that came to my mind, and the story didn't end after I bought a new one from Jaycar. The new one I got was a faulty servo, and I had to go back the next day to exchange it. Thankful, up to now, it works perfectly and I hope it wouldn't have any more problems. I guess this might happen to the end of the semester when we overworked with the prototype. I understand how frugal it would be, but this is the last thing that I wanted to face before the exhibition.

So far, I had managed to link the water function, rest, and the countdown timer, and they were all link together in one file. I need to give a big thanks to Liony and Paula to assist me when I ran to a problem in my coding. Both of them spent time and patients helping me solve the issue I had.

Reflection week13

Reflecting on doing this project, I have a mixed feeling of whether the decision I made was factual. Did I consider the outcome is doable or not? Will it be easier if I made something that was simpler? Did I thoroughly consider the problem space to demonstrate the intended interactions and the user experience of the concept as a whole? Preferably only to create the smoke-based interaction yet lacking the reason of why the user would need this product. As I kept thinking, The Terrarium is a way of teaching children to have awareness about sustainability and environmental protection. How much would this product help children increase their understanding and knowledge? What would they get out of using it? To be honest, I don't have all the answers at this point. I am kind of giving up thinking about what to do with this project. I don't know how much I can do within the last week of class and our exhibition is at the corner. At this moment, piles of work in my hand and others as well, but I will try my best to do what I can and the best I can.

p.s. I will continue with the reflection in my next post.

Friday workshop

Elevator pitch

This Friday contact we got a question we need to have a concept name and 1 minute elevator pitch selling the concept (not a prototype). Here is what I had (not precisely what I said because I didn't remember the exact words, and I refined a bit).

Concept name: Little Garden Terrarium

A small indoor garden to help children be aware of sustainability and environment protection with the digital sensor monitoring in the Smart home is going to be a future living style. Energy consumption and water usage are the key factors that control the little garden terrarium. That means when energy and water usage reduced; children would give water to the terrarium; otherwise, a smoke would automatically enter the terrarium. This concept is teaching children to have responsibility for their behavior, and every action has a consequence. This little garden terrarium represents the earth, and the future children are going to live.

The feedback I got from Clay was that I need to think in a perspective of who is going to buy the product. Even though my target user is children, parents are the one who has the money, so I would need a pitch that is when talking to the parents and speaking to the children. I also got a chance to hear other classmates' pitch, and I can learn from them. I felt one of the advantages of taking online classes was that I was able to focus and listen more about what others did. If it was in a classroom sometimes, I would easily get distracted by background noise or talking while someone was sharing during the lecture.

I had a discussion with Alison about my concern about the remaining tasks I need to accomplish for the exhibition. There are three things,

1. Countdown to trigger the smoke when the water was not added before time is up.
2. Build a water system that can add the water when the button is pressed
3. Build a system that can automatically trigger the smoke when the data meets

With all these, my biggest worry and concern would be technology stuff, which is coding. I am not comfortable and easily overwhelmed when I don't have much experience. I had learned some before but did get successful in what I wanted to achieve. Learning new skills was the intention of this course besides the one that we are comfortable at. I like to learn new things. I wanted to build my coding skill was what I wrote in our week 1 journal. I still want to learn it: I am afraid I couldn't make it work and fail with the expectation of what I intended to achieve. I guess I would need to start taking actions and facing the fear I have with coding. However, Alison reminded me that since we don't have enough time left, I should prioritize an essential function in my project: the water and smoke, and the data could come later.

I wanted to move the smoke from the top to the side of the terrarium. To do that, I would need to have an object to transfer the smoke to the terrarium Allison and Wally helped me and suggested using a plastic tube or bottle. When I shared my worry and concern about how to read and to analyze the data from PHP to Arduino, Wally provides some suggestions and a library link using Python with Arduino for me to look at. This was kind of help that this class was intended to have if we were not sheltering in place. Learning and helping others from what we knew was one of the keys.

With the smoke, Alison and Clay suggested using a spray bottle and pipette, but Clay said that using the pipette is much more easier, and I won't end up giving too much water to my terrarium at the end of the exhibition.

A friend of mine came. I was able to tag along with them to get an airline tube. The store also sells plants. It was a beautiful store, and I also got some plants and sea shells for my terrarium. I felt the current terrarium was lacking the aesthetics I hope adding these new plants would make my terrarium look nicer.

Next

• Adding a fan to the smoke machine
• moving the smoke machine next to the terrarium instead of hanging from the top.
• Adding a countdown timer, button to add the water, and a reset function to the timer when the water is added
• Lastly, using two-channel rely on triggering the smoke machine when the countdown timer reached zero.

With the limited time I have right now, I felt these functions are the priority to my project at this moment.

This week I wanted to try writing down journals whenever I did some work so that I won’t end up writing a lot at the end of the week. It would be nice to quickly draw down some notes on what I did when it still vivid in my mind. Well, I did that, but I didn’t get time to post it because I was busy preparing for my thesis seminar. But I will try it again next week let’s see how it goes.

Since semester leading to the end, lots of work are going to be due soon, and time management is crucial. I want to manage my time well so that I won’t end up compromising the work quality and the expectation that I had set for myself.

My thesis seminar was better than I expected. Yes, I don’t give myself much credit when it comes to public speaking. I will feel tense even with just a thought about speaking in front of people, but now it’s better than before. I won’t say I don’t like public speaking, but it’s not easy to master. There is only one way to get better as people say it all the time “practice makes it better.”

Monday

I got replied from Ben, and he gave me two links to try out if I haven’t fixed the port issue of not showing in Arduino IDE. I tried to watch the video first; initially, I felt it was like the videos I had found before. I didn’t have much hope of thinking it would be different than what I had tried before. The reason was that it’s all the same steps I had done. Allowing myself and thinking it might be different. I followed the steps as described in the video of installation and typing command in the Terminal. Haha…it was the same and I got an error “nvram: Error setting variable - 'boot-args': (iokit/common) general error” after enter this (sudo nvram boot-args="kext-dev-mode=1"). Reading through comments, some people had the same issue, but one guy shared that if you are using 1.5 version, then the command would be different, which can be found in the readme portion of the GitHub page (sudo kextload /Library/Extensions/usbserial.kext). I gave it a try; however, I still got errors; it said that is no such file or dictionary. Anyways I went to Arduino IDE to give a try, surprisingly the port showed up. If you ask me why that is, I have no answer for you, but it works!! Sometimes we just need to take a break from it and tried it again even though we have done a million times before. But I must say this GitHub link was different than what I had seemed before. Maybe this one is a more updated version.

This image can't really do justice since it didn't capture the TX blinking lights. But it's working!!!

For people who might have the same issue working with Mac when the port is not showing on their Arduino Nano, you can try this link and follow read the information below in GitHub https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxc1zRtZqIs

Soon I testing the example in a blink and a tutorial online to check my Arduino Nano if it is fully functioning or not. This is the link I tried for my Ultrasonic Sensor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVxbNhKWFrg

My joy didn’t last long, a few hours later. I want to play again with my Arduino Nano since I finally make it works after so MANY hours spent. But the port decided to disappear again. It’s very frustrating!!!! Very!! Seriously! I asked Ben for help during our studio time on Tuesday. I haven’t got time to test it out yet since I was busy with my thesis seminar. I got carry away with the fact that it didn't work again, so I forgot to take a photo to show.

Reflection

I got a chance to talk to Lorna about my individual work I knew it was lacking, and something was missing in my prototype. I don’t really know what to add. I felt it was a lot of works to work along (I am sure for others too and it’s 4 units course), and a slightly thought came to mind of thinking; if our group work together to create on the prototype, then it would be much easier. The reason we didn’t choose that it was because I didn’t have good experience in the team and sometimes people were hard to get in touch and were always late for meetings. Two of the team members have to wait for at least 30mins before people show up. It was just not right, and other things too. So yeah. I am just afraid my work did match up with my expectation or how I imaged the final prototype would be like. Working toward my visual would be ideal, but the process sometimes is hard to predict. When your expectation didn’t match the result, sometimes it’s disappointing tho.

Going back to the topic, the feedback I got from Lorna was that I need to think in a bigger picture. That means I would think about how to do energy consumption and water usage can link back to the terrarium. Now I had is only segregated by either doing good or bad habits, then the water is being added. If not, then there won’t be any water, and the smoke will enter the terrarium. As for now, the action toward watering and smoking was done manually, which was not ideal when it didn’t have tangible or embedded and embodied computing. I realized that I am missing the digital aspect of my current prototype. It was left it all behind when I am so into building the smoke machine. I was really into it, and I do enjoy building it. It’s a new accomplishment for me that I made something from scratch by starting disassembling parts, reusing the parts, and transform it into a new. So, Lorna suggested I could find some data online and used the statistic to determine the sample rate to control the water or smoke. It is my next step that I would need to do, but at the same time, I would need to figure out how to give comments in Arduino to control the water and smoke.

Reflection

This week I have submitted my prototype document and video for a demonstration. I felt it was pretty good but I think I missed to mention or explain about the research I have found in the video. For the document, I felt there were some lacking in explaining the success criteria and project objective. I wished I would have more thought about it.

Team appraisal

During our studio time, our team spent time working together went through all the teams we were assigned and finished the appraisals together. At first, we started to watch the same video on our own and then have a discussion afterword. But one person forgot to mute the mic and it was really hard for me to watch the video while having an overlapping voice in the background. I ended up didn’t watch the video until that person is finished since then I would remind everyone doesn’t forget to mute. Whenever who is finished they would either gave a reaction on the zoom to let others know they are done, but we all end up just use the mic instead. In the first video, we did with sharing what we felt, and one person will take notes during the discussion. However, we felt it took more time than we wanted. Later, we adjusted to take a note on our own then have a discussion. I realized that it would be more productive and nicer to collaborate our notes in one place; therefore, I suggested to post our comments on the google doc. First, it would be nice to see what others had written. Second, we would possibly forget what we said later when we want to go back to summarize our comments. Lastly, it would be good to have a walkthrough later after each video.

So, our team structure was watching video one by one from left to right and right to left depends on which side the team was on. We would go through the video and share what we thought and understand or don’t understand. It was nice to work together when everyone is willing to put effort and having the same goal and aim to finish a task together on that day. We end up working very well and we took a turn to post on the feedback. I was surprised and this was the first time I could remember since our group was formed that we ‘really’ are working together as a team. Most of the time, there were either people are missing or only willing to do the work that was assigned, and the rest of the people we need to put it together or finished up the remaining. I guess everyone has a different understanding and perception of teamwork. I have learned and still learning after done so many teams work. I felt that we just need to adjust ourselves when we worked with different kinds of people. It was not easy but I am sure we would definitely learn some things from others; for example, how to manage and handle the situation when the same situation occurred next time.

For the feedback, I think our group still missing one more feedback from a team. I am not sure if they forgot about it or what. I had read the feedback I received but I felt I want to take a bit more time to respond. I will respond to the feedbacks in my next post.

Individual & more reflection

I spent some time trying to figure out why the port is not showing on the Arduino Nano I bought. Actually, I had spent all my time on Saturday night trying to figure out and even past midnight. I had tried and search all the method online and looking through all the different forums people have talked about. For example, I was trying to install a CH340G drive or FTDI driver because it’s a third-party product. The chips is not compatible with the mac. I also emailed the core-electronic, where I bought it from, and provided me the link which was the same I found online. I also asked them what happened if the product is faulty. They said they would either pay for the price or send the part. I also consulted Ben for help over Slack, and I am waiting for a response. I hope I can solve this problem soon.

I felt that I wasted my time on last Saturday night instead of spending time on the document or video. I learned that next time I would need to prioritize the task first rather than wasting time on the thing that is not urgent. I think I was stubborn and wanted to find the solution.

Another issue I had was that my Arduino IDE kept crashing after I opened it for a few minutes. I don’t know why and I am still trying to find out. It seems like the issue on the new version 1.8.12 I had updated might not be compatible with iOS Catalina.

Reflection on Miro

While writing the report, I figured it was good to edit ‘the thing’ on Miro after I had refined my concept over time. I thought it would also help me to organize a bit when I wrote my report. I first placed the smoke machine and terrarium under one thing, but then I realized it was two things because they are different sizes and materials used. This is helpful to understand and learn how to build the project from scratch and all the process it's important to record and refine until the final product is done.

Making the terrarium

When I was putting together my terrarium, it was harder than I thought it was. Placing rocks and adding the soils were not easy as I wanted to have the stones to show rather than all covered with soils. The appearance won’t be pleasant to look at, and it lost the soul of people perceive about terrarium rather than soil in the glass bottle. I had two attempts before I succeed in making.

Report back

Recap

Theme: digital sensation and creative learning

Goal: Aiming to teach elementary children about environmental protection and sustainability in their everyday life at home. Creating a gardening terrarium to teach children about doing good things so it would give water to the gardening; otherwise, it would produce smoke and kill the plants.

What have you achieved in the last week towards your prototype goals?

I got the rocks I need from the park and I started to build my Terrarium. Growing my mini mints from cutting but before that, I would need to soak them into the water. Then plant them later when the roots grow.

In the technical part, I am still working on my smoking. I managed to light up one wire that could make the smoke; however, it was too hot and lit up the cotton or it was too long and the voltage is not strong enough. I am not sure if I didn’t have glycerol on the cotton. I also was trying to get the temperature sensor working and show the information on the LCD screen.

The interview with the elementary student and our team gathered 20 questions. We hope we could get at least three user interviews by Friday.

What are the last-minute tasks you need to complete before prototype submission next Monday?

I had most of the material for building the terrarium but I haven’t put them together and hoping to have the smoke effect working.

What are your concerns/needs in regard to getting those done?

What my concert would be hoping to get all the parts working and putting together, making the video, and writing the report. I think it seems like I am concerned about everything.

Prototype building process

Temperature sensor

On Thursday I finally got the LCD screen working YAYAY!! Hooray!! :)

To me, this is an improvement and good progress. Even though I didn’t write the code myself, reading the code, it’s a challenge for me. I used Arduino before, but when I don’t know how to fix it or modify it for my needs, I tend to get back down. The feeling of anxiety starts growing on me when I don’t get anything, especially when the deadline is close by. At that point, I didn’t have an intention to learn or tried to understand it step by step. Still, I would still try to make it work for the sake of turning in the project.

This time, I want to enjoy it while I am doing it. I still feel anxious when I don’t know how to make it work. But I kept telling myself to stay calm and kept looking for a solution. At first, I had no clue why it’s not working. I kept going back to the board overview since everyone on the Youtube tutorial had slightly different modules. Most people connected the LCD on the breadboard, but my breadboard was too small, so it won’t work. Testing back and forth, Ben told me I could place it right on the top, and it would be easier and fewer wires. It still didn’t work. I tried to connect the wires to the LCD directly, yet it still has no sign at all. I thought I could test the LCD to make sure it was not broken. From there, I know the LCD is working, and I should set the LiquidCrystal lcd to (8, 9, 4, 5, 6, 7), and I also tried turning the potentiometer in the top left to adjust the contrast of the LCD. Then I realized what Ben told me about setting the LiquidCrystal lcd code to (8, 9, 4, 5, 6, 7). I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that my code was wrong when Ben told me what I would need to change and check. I guess after working on it for too long my mind was not functioning.

I was initially wanted to use this in my prototype but I will put a hold on it for now after I refining my concept a bit.

Smoke effect

I finally finished making the smoke machine. It took me a Long time of trying to figure out what was between the voltage, current, and resistance and testing out 5 different wires from soldering the wire to each edge and testing, connecting, and reconnecting to the battery. It’s a lot of work, but I am enjoying it. However, I felt I didn't have enough time because my parts didn’t arrive until 30th of April. I am worried that I would have less time to work on it. Anyways, I finally got it to work this week. I am so happy.

In this Friday tutorial, I shared what I had with tutors, and Clay suggested a better way of building my smoke from a YouTube link. I gave it a try since I ran out of ideas and still didn’t find a way to have cotton surrounded by the nichrome wire. Clay told me that I would need to cut the nichrome wire shorter to make it work. I was a little bit skeptical about it because I was afraid if I messed it up, I won’t have the material to make it again. Most important was that I was afraid I won’t make it on time for the deadline for the video. If not give it a try, then I wouldn’t even know if it would work or not. It ended up helping me a lot, and I spent all my time in the tutorial session building the smoke machine.

Thinking back from disassembling a hairdryer and testing all the nichrome wires’ resistance using multimeters. I went through a lot of trial and error but at the same time, I am glad that I had learned some new skills. This is my first time disassembling electronic stuff by myself and I succeeded in doing what I was intended to do. This is fun and cool.

Reference:

Temperature sensor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBIXxS4xTao&t=23s

smoke effect

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-4Umnbnn5A

Studio report back:

Theme: Digital sensation and creative learning. Aiming to teach elementary children about environmental protection and sustainability. I want to use the smoke effect to show the output.

What is the one BIG question you have about the Prototype deliverable?

I don’t have any at this moment.

What is your one key aim for your prototype (or part of the prototype)? This is the main thing that you want to have worked or completed or figured out for your prototype.

Making the smoke effect is the main thing that I want to have it working.

What concerns or needs do you have for getting it done?

The main concern I have is that I need to figure out the right amount of the length of the nichrome wire so that the internal resistance of the battery will allow the current to flow and the voltage of the battery will not be pulled down. Or the temperature of the wire rise, causing the resistance to increase, lowering the current even more.

Question for Workshop:

How could the class help you?

I got my parts yesterday (Thursday). I am going to start working on it today. So, I am good for now.

What are your main concerns about the prototype?

My main concern is figuring out the length of the wire so that the battery would allow the current to flow and the battery won’t be drawn out too fast.

What is working? What is not working?

At this moment I don’t have any but I will ask when I ran into a problem.

Individual Work

This week, my ordered parts came on Thursday except for one more sensor. I started working on it on Friday night. I started with nichrome wire and I found out that the wire I got was too thick (0.8mm). It means that the voltage I got 12v was not powerful enough to get the current flow since the ohm was not high enough it only for 2.63 ohms (resistance) in the length of 100cm. This means that the battery will run out before the wire gets hot. This was the exact worry I had before I received the wire. I had thought about the issue after I placed the order. I had zero understanding of electrical engineering. I don’t even know how to fix this problem. I only know that I would need to buy another size of the wire. However, I don’t have time to place another order since it would take another week, which I don’t have. I asked my dad for help. He told me that I can try the wires on the hairdryer first. There are 4 different sizes of wires and I would need to measure their ohms first. At this point, I am aiming to find the resistance of 40 ohms by using a multimeter. That said, I need to know how to use and read a multimeter with my dad’s help in teaching and explaining what each item means.

First, I started with measuring each wire from the wire’s start and end with positive (Red- it’s measuring current, voltage, and resistance) and negative (Black- COM stands for common and it is always connected to Ground) probes. The thinnest wire has the 40.3 ohms and it’s exactly what I needed. It was good news and I am glad that I had a wire from the hairdryer to be the backup materials I could use. Before I connected the wire to the battery, I first needed to know what caused the hairdryer to break. In that way, I would know if the connect wire that was connected to the nichrome wire could be used or not. After the testing with the multimeter I found out that the small transistor that connected to all the wire broke, but it’s okay that won’t affect the use I need for the testing.

Second, I took a hook-up wire from the hairdryer and soldered it to start off the nichrome wire and connected it to one of the battery wires. Used the wire that was connected at the end of the nichrome wire to a rocker switch I bought. And connected other battery wire to the same side of the rock switch pins that wire was connected earlier, so the current would flow.

I made a success by heating up the wire; however, it was not hot enough. It felt warm and I am afraid it was not going to be hot enough to make the smoke. This is another challenge I am facing right now. I am still trying to use different voltages or testing on different nichrome wires on the hairdryer. I hope I will get a good result I want soon.

YouTube - Need the video id from the URL - the bit after watch?v=

User Research

At Friday's workshop session, Eddie, Kasey, and I decided to conduct an initial inquiry next week. This could cover our user research area that would need for the team-based process and result. Eddie proposed that he could help to do the interview with primary students since he had too little sister. It helps us to solve the issue of finding primary students during this time when it was hard to get any access. We also thought about ethical issues when conducting an interview with minors but as I remember if the parents are okay with it. It would not be a problem, but we would confirm with the teaching team again.

In our discussion session, we briefly talked about some questionnaires together on what we want to cover in the interview. I personally think that this first interview would be simple to understand how much primary children know about global warming. With the document Kasey set up for gathering interview questions, we had 20 questions. Jay also volunteered that he could also interview his little sister as well. It was good we could get as many as interviewees as possible with the help of our teammates. It was good that we had so many questions, but I felt it was too much for children to handle. The questions were mainly focused on recycling which was more about the individual concept that the rest of my teammates were doing in their own project. I don’t know how much it would help the team concept at all, maybe we would need to have some more general questions and how much it would help me in my user research. I only contribute to five questions because as I said early, at this stage, I am only looking to find out how much primary students understand global warming. If they know or do any sustainable steps in their daily life.

These were the questions that I came up with. I know some of the words that might be hard for children to understand: environmental protection and sustainability. I will refine it more tomorrow.

Question for interview

1. Do you know what global warming is? And what does it mean to you?
2. What do you think you can do to help improve environmental protection?
3. In your daily life, what do you think you can help with sustainability?
4. Why should we conserve water and energy?
5. What are the effects of not saving water and energy in our environment? What will it do to the world we are living right now?

The next thing I need to do is find some more research about how to teach children about sustainability and environmental protection? Most importantly find out what are the other terms that I could use that make it easier for primary students to understand.

During the mid-break

Since my project is not just about Arduino modules, but it also related to art crafts or even home improvement stuff. I spent more time than I expected to find the parts to make sure that I didn't miss any components that I need for my project before I place the order. Finally, I got all the stuff figured out and ordered during the mid-break. I thought I would use parts from the hairdryer I disassembled to build the smoke effect, but it turned out that I would still need a multimeter to test the voltage, current, and resistance. Therefore, I can only work on it when all my parts arrived. At the main time, I am still refining the design of the final product. In my earlier ideas, which I wrote in my previous blog, I would want to either build a house or a room; however, after I talked to Allison about my individual concept and input data that I want to collect. Allison suggested an idea of making a terrarium, the representation of the earth, and the ecosystem as a whole. It was a great idea!! I thought about the ecosystem concept before, but I didn't know how to present it in the design.

Individual Concept

The team concept aims to teach children about global warming and environmental protection. My concept is letting children know that they can be a part of the movement in their daily base by simply turn off the light when they don't use it and be conscious when using water. My individual focus I want to be narrow it down to children's behavior in the household. My plan is to create a smoke-based interaction depends on the data inputs: not turned off the lights and cautious on water usage(this is what I had for now) would trigger the smoke. Moreover, I would like to create an ecosystem that has the soil and the plant like a terrarium. It has a soil moisture sensor to detect the health of the soil, and temperature sensor to measure the temperature degree. The smoke would create when the user forgot to turn off the lights or be cautious using water. How the terrarium works, the lights create the heat, and when the heat rises, it triggered the smoke. The terrarium acts as earth, and smoke would be the effect of bad habits that causes the earth to suffer. I want to show that every action has consequences, and we couldn't undo what we had done. Of course, when a good habit was built, it will give the terrarium waters, plant more seeds, and add more warms.

My ideal finished product

My ideal finished product would be a beautiful terrarium that has plants, grass, and flowers. I want to build a terrarium that has its own ecosystem with all the sensors and detection would work. It's a small version of the earth. All the wires will be hidden in the wooden house, which is built from paddle sticks. However, I haven't built any of the parts, yet this design might change later based on any circumstances that might occur during the prototyping process.

What am I going to do?

In the next few days, I will work on research to find how to teach children about sustainability, primarily focus on the household. It would be helpful if I can find some information about teaching children about sustainability with things that could easily find in the household since I can't have an in-person interview or user testing. To bring the idea across, it would be hard for children to learn without having any probs. As for me, the best and simplest ideas would be teaching them how to do recycling, and any objects at home can be a prob to teach children if it is recyclable or not.

For the next steps, I want to create an interview and survey questions even though I don't have anyone to do the interview yet, but I hope I could find some from my friends' circle. Since working with children was not an easy task, and parents usually are more conscious. I felt it was the hardest task in this project. However, it would be nice to have some understanding of how children are cautious about sustainability at this generation.

In this week's class, we had an exercise to practice how to conduct an observation using different methods or sources while we were staying at home. During the exercise, I didn't know that we were told to do an observation on the train. However, at first, I just wrote down whatever that came to my mind; I picked a random observation to observe people walking by the house. Then later, I realized I did it wrong, and which it didn't make sense to me cause during this time, there were fewer people on the street. I missed out on the keyword to do an observation on the "train" after I read other students' work. I quickly changed mine.

I later read some of the other classmates' observation results. Everyone had come up with somewhat different contents, insights, methods of approaching the observation; it was good to read and to learn from them. After reading/picking methods from a google docs Lorna shared with us, I picked two methods to use in my individual project. Those are using the phone as their probe to record video/take pictures to record time and the date and their daily habits; Online/phone interview to ask them some questions before and after they participate with the exercises/tasks using the probes. These are what I can think of right now, and it's not fixed methods and might be changed later. At this stage, it's still vague to me of how I am going to contact user testing. I will also ask my team members or other classmates to see how they are planning to do.

After writing the proposal, my biggest concern was how am I going to find target users since ours are elementary students. I have no access to this user group. Can we use adult instead? But the experience, reaction, excitement, understanding, and knowledge are all different. The experiment and testing would not be as accurate if it were testing it from the actual elementary students.

Breaking down a project

The second in-class exercise we did on Tuesday was trying to breakdown the whole project into small sections. It was beneficial before we could clearly see what we need to do from step by step. It not only provides an overview (location, people, and time) of the project but also let us give more thoughts in each section and how we would want to plan for the future works. On the other hand, our team is still working as two instead of four members. We only have two people working on this mapping, which others were still not active and absent most of the time.

The second map, I haven't completed since it hasn't fully figured it out all the modules or components that I would need for my prototype. The function section I felt I need to think through more about it before the answer to the questions. This is something that I want to do during the break.

Work is done for this week

The key achievement this week was that we turned in our team and individual proposal report. We also shared in the class on what we had done since last week, and what we were planning to do during the break. For the workshop section, I attended the first part of the section and went back to organize our team report.

This week I didn't do more new research, but I did a bit finding on YouTube to see more methods of how others did on making smoke. I also looked at the website to find out what parts/sensors I would need in my project. I also ordered wooden craft sticks that I planned to use to build the house or room.

In our team-based report, I am getting tired of waiting and keeping reminding people of the work that they were assigned to do. The whole experience was bad and unpleasant. It becomes annoying that people are absent from the team. I was a force to do last-minute work, which I don't like. Moreover, I was not satisfied with our team report because our members did not care to look over it to make the paper more consistent. I don't know maybe I am glad that we would do individual work project rather than a team project because I can't imagine how that would be like. It's hard to put more team effort when some of them don't even bother to ride on the same bus.

What's next/During the break

• Some rough of sketching of the house/room that I am going to build
• Need to figure out what sensors I would need? If I would need to buy more parts-battery, wires, and motors.
• I already borrow some tools from my friends, and I would need to find out what other tools I might use.
• Refresh my memories on Arduino
• Have some fun, relax, and read some books

Our second week of the online class, I start getting to use to the routine of having some extra time to get prepared before the class start. On Tuesday class, each of us went over to share what we had done since the last class.

Our group, Zookeeper, talked to Lorna in the second section of the class. We shared that we were still struggling to find a solution to the feedback we got about our inputs in the project. Lorna gave a good suggestion that I like is that since global warming is a huge problem across many areas/parts of our life. We can narrow it down to one specific subject that we want to focus one. Since our group chooses “option-2” to move forward our project, each of us could focus on a different area in the theme we got. Within the scope of the subject, we could develop what we want the children to experience and learned with the outcome we have thought of. Later, we can compare our result to see what work best. In the end, Lorna also suggested that we look at the elementary curriculums in Australia because the school has included teaching children about global warming in the class. We could see how they did it.

Individual

It really helps me to switch my mindset and to move away from keeping thinking about the input instead narrow it down to what specific area of global warming that we would want to focus on with the output we want. However, another problem that I am facing right now was that I don’t know how to link my idea, making smoke, back to the theme. I was thinking of a direct association with the smoke that causes air pollution and wastes from the factories or transportation(bus, cars, trucks...etc.). After the class, I went to do research and find out that there couple more causes than the ones I thought about; surprisingly, the household is one of them. The heat and lights at homes and indoor air pollution caused about 3.8 million premature death in the developing world. I know heats and lights are related to climate change, but it didn’t occur to me that it would affect air pollution. It makes much more sense to me now that the heat changes the temperature of the air that creates a chemical reaction between the primary air pollutions and oxygen.

Air Pollution isn’t always visible, and sometime we might not even notice what we had done daily affect the cause of air pollution. In here, I think I got some more clear focus of what I want to do with my idea of the input to create smoke. As for now, I might go with lights at home since most of the kids might not have the habit of turning off the light when it’s not needed.

Here are some of the notes I make while I was reading on the information I found. I wanted to make a mind mapping that could help me to visualize and form the ideas better in the later stage. Since everything is interconnected, it would be good to learn and understand the relationship. This practice would help me in my future work as well to organize information and find some insight if it needed for a depth study.

The next thing that I am going to do is do some more research that teaches children about the importance of turning off light in the household. Or if there is any similar teaching that had been thought by the school’s curriculum. It will help me to form my story and link back to the theme and the brief of everyday things.

Here are the links that I looked at:

Air pollution explained

What causes air pollution?

For air pollution, trash is a burning problem – climate central

School had paused for a week due to the COVIN-19. I didn't know the pandemic would become so extreme to the point that we had to shelter in place. I have been quite emotional about what everything had happened, especially for the change to this course. I was totally looking forward to the exhibition at this end of this semester because I had heard lots of good things from the people who had taken the class. Also, I had seen the exhibition last year; it was so fun and amazing in the works they had done. I was so keen to make something cool and memorable to show in the exhibition. To have a formal exhibition outside of the campus was definitely an unforgettable experience. But I am sure this online class is going to be a unique and historical experience for everyone. Anyhow, I will put into the same effort that I committed for this class and make the best out of it.

This week's online class on Zoom was new, and it was interesting and fun that seeing everyone visually for a short time (before it crashed). We still manage to efficiently run the class, watch the presentation, critique others' work, and communicate. Thank you for the technology so that we could still run our classes due to the restriction we had. Overall, I think it was pretty good except on Tuesday the Zoom crushed in the second half of the class, but we still got the work done that is all matters.

Looking at other teams' presentations, I felt most of the concept was pretty well developed and fit into the requirement of their domain and the requirement from the brief to have open-ended and playful in everyday life. However, few were still need to develop it more within their domain and to move away from basic interaction.

Our team

We were happy that we finally got it done. The result was not as good as what I was expected because it missed out on an essential point that we forgot to include in our presentation. We forgot to mention in the skits or in the slide that the global color would change in the cumulative process approach rather than just based on the individual input. Therefore, from the feedback we got, people were missed understanding a little bit about our concept. It got pointed out in most of the critiques, which I was appreciated because I didn't realize until I see the critique. We totally forgot about adding it because it was our initial ideas when we conducted in our meeting.

Based on all the critique we had, here are some of the things that our team needs to look at: no binary option for asking the users about global warming, need to have a specific target user, a specific location for our activity. We are going to refine it more in our next meeting.

We had a quick chat after the presentation with some of my team members; one was not available due to some personal work. We all look at the critiques we got and pointed out some critical issues in our concept that we would need to address. Later we chatted with tutors and asked questions about how we could use different ways to ask the question without binary options? What specific target users could we possibly be the focus? Where should we have the activity? Is the interaction sufficient? I know it may sound like we didn't think through in our design process; however, we were at a point none of us could have any new ideas. We all that everyone was responsible for global warming since we all lived on the planet. It was too broad, and we need a concise user group. We glad that we talked with the tutors, and they provided some very useful information on how we can approach our project.

Using smoke, smell, water, and maybe use sound was still something that we would want to include in our project. Conversely, we would still need to do more research about it.

Individual process

I did some research for inspiration for our project. I want to see if I can find people who had done similar projects or installation, but instead, I found some images or illustrations. It was close to what we would want for our installation to be. It was fun when I was doing the research, and later I also made some sketches. Besides sketching and finding inspiration, I was also helping to put all the presentations together.

What's next?

Our team had a Zoom meeting on Friday and Sunday to talk first filled up some information with the member that was missing from the meeting after the presentation. We all go over again to address how we are going to have different ways of input. We were also looking at the team proposal paper together and discussing in each section to understand what we need to write and what information we would need to gather. At the end of the meeting on Friday, each of us needed to have 2 ideas about different ways of input and read two academic peer-reviewed papers before we had another meeting on Sunday.

On Sunday(today), we had a meeting at 3:30 pm, and we shared what we had found and the summary of the academic papers we read. We go over the paper again and start signing the job by section. Hopefully, we would have done a day before the due day and not last minutes again.

Here are the notes I took and some were from the academic paper:

What am I exploring?

I was not sure what individual work I would want to do earlier today because I felt smell, smoke/fog, and water were all so cool to make. I couldn't decide which one I want, as I am doing more research on how to make smoke and watching many videos on YouTube. I think I am keen to make smoke for my individual prototype. I figured that I could make fogs instead of smoke because they have a similar look of the effect. I know one is from water other is from fire. Maybe I could use fog to substitute from the smoke. I will ask the tutor again when we have our Zoom section on Tuesday. I hope I could do it; then I can start ordering supplies online so I can start working on it. Since I have never done it before, I want to have enough time to play around. While I was watching YouTube, I am so looking forward to building it.

Here are some of the links I found:

Mini Smoke Machine for Cosplay - YouTube

DIY Super Powerful Fog Machine under 10$ - YouTube

After we form the group, we met 2 times in the week. Since one person was missing due to not feeling well, we finally got everyone together in the second meeting on Sunday. It was better to meet in person to share thoughts and brainstorm about what we want to do with the theme.

We start…

In the first meeting, after the group formed, we tried to look at a broader range of possibilities. We started thinking about some possible domain, target audience, technology, emotional, and solution. Instead of being restricted from some of the ideas from the reference posters, we wanted to lay out all possible ideas that we could have in each category. In this exercise, it definitely made our brain moving; however, later, I found out we didn't improve any ideas further after. There were silences, and we didn't know what to work on more. Maybe we need to narrow it down more, for example, pick one domain, one or two emotions, and one target users to build up more from it. It might be a good way instead of feeding ourselves with too much information, yet lost the focus.

What's after...

We decided to go home to do more research and work more based on the information from the infinity diagram we had. Before the next meeting, each of us would need to have one complete idea when we meet on Sunday at school.

What had I found/researched?

I was interested in the target user who is vision-impaired because I was interested in after the world café section. The first tables I attend called ability-centric interaction, we were trying to design a product for version-impaired people. It was hard for me at that time because I never know and understood how vision-impaired person feels and needs. What can they do or what they cannot do? I felt it was contradicting from what we thought all this time that we need to know the target user first before we design any stuff. We are not them, and we can't assume a problem for them when it isn't a problem for them at all. Maybe it is what world café is all about, and we will have out of sky thinking instead of being realistic, then narrow it down and refine later. So the rules don't apply in here yet. Hummm…I am wondering, isn't it kind of wasting time?

What I thought I know, but I don't know?

After I did some researches about the vision-impaired individual, I learned something new, and it changed my perspectives of how I have known about them. I have always thought that they are more vulnerable and fragile because they don't have a vision. Looking from their shoes, I will be so loose and weak if I can't see it. I wouldn't know how to function and manage myself; that is how I see them. There is a saying that if God closes a door to you, they will open another one for you.

In the research, I found out that they are just like us, except they cannot see. Of course, their hearing would be much sensitive than us, and this is all we thought so. However, they do not have a superpower or heightened senses. It was just because blinded people relied more on hearing than slighted people more to make sense of the world while slighted people are busy looking at information. Moreover, we often thought when we closed our eyes could get an idea and feel how vision-impaired people's world. This is wrong and far from the reality since there are different types of vision-impaired. Some slight loss individuals can see large objects, yet the vision is out of focus, while some of the others can see colors or a different source of lights, and many more. Lastly, people we were born blind were not able to tell if they see all black or not.

This study made me realized and flashed back to one problem I had in one of my ideas I came up with for my poster design. It was about helping blind people to learn colors. I stopped going forward because I didn't know how to deal with the problem space if someone has never seen color before. How would they know what colors to mix with? How did they know if the mixed colors are the ones they like? At that time, I didn't do or thought of researching how vision-impaired people. I forgot about it while I was desperate to need to have an idea for my poster design. My mind probably was occupied. This new finding helped me to understand more about different users and some problem space that I could consider in my future design process and problem space if design anything for blind people as a target user. There are still more than what I had explored and wrote with the researches I found.

Here are the links if anyone is interested in reading.

Challenges blind people face when living life

5 facts about blindness and the blind

Things Not to Say to a Blind Person

Other research I did was about sensations…

I felt I only had a fundamental idea and understanding of sensations in general. Since we are doing the topic of digital sensation and creative learning. I thought it would be helpful to understand more about senses. There was one academic research and an article I found that was very interesting. Since the sensation is also related to the mind and body, which are touch, vision, taste, hearing, and smell, therefore, senses are fundamental psychology perception. On that said, we also have sensory systems that provide information about balance, pain, body movements, and temperature. Moreover, the website talked about how we consciously and unconsciously perceived and react to the information outside of awareness. It was interesting to read and to learn new things at the same time. Sometimes what we thought we know was just based on our own assumption, perception, and limited information of a subject. It is why research, study, and user testing are so important; conversely, we often short in some areas during our processing in ideation.

Here are the links of the sources: Sensation and Perception | Introduction to Psychology

A literature paper I read is about tangibility. It was also another good read. I took some notes while I was reading. Link of the paper: Tangibility: highlighting physicality in interactive installations.

What did we do?

On Sunday, we were leaning toward one of my peer's idea of using creative learning as a focus on global warming with senses, meaning effects from the input of the object we create. It was still a rough idea. During our meeting, we asked ourselves some questions to help us hit the target we need to include from the brief.

• Why using global warming?
• Why is it vital to our planet?
• Why it related to digital sensation?
• How can we make it more related to the digital sensation?
• What kind of effect would it have (smoke, water, smell…etc.)?

Below is the work we did on that day and some works I had done before the meeting.

We had a world café session this week before we form into a team. It was always exciting to have a discussion among different people in the class. I assumed most of us already know what world café is about; therefore, I will not explain it. During this session, I got to explore different themes where we use the posters' ideas and developed different contexts, users, scope, …etc. We had a total of 19 different themes, but I only got a chance to go 6 of them.

Ability-centric interaction

In this session, we started with identifying the theme and trying to understand what it is before we divided into two areas of what the ideas were and weren't. We went through all the posters and trying to get some ideas from it. It seems like most of them was focused on the vision-impaired or low vision people as a target audience(if I remembered it right). We tried to see if we can combine some of the ideas from the poster to generate new ideas out of it.

We came up with two ideas that they were somewhat similar in assisting vision-impaired people. The first one was having a bodysuit that could help the vision-impaired people to sense objects before they run it into it. The second one was having any surface covered with actuators; for example, it can be a table surface or a floor. It will help to carry an object to the user before they can reach it from far away. Time went out before we could elaborate and explore the ideas further. I felt it was quick before I could share more ideas on what we had. I noticed that when the table was silent and waiting for people who didn't speak to share. I would felt I need to say something to clear this silence; however, I ended up share something that I was not well-thought-out. People didn't understand what I was trying to say, so next time I should hold back and speak when my ideas were more plotted.

Guided Movement (Host)

I was a host in the third round of this section. Previous groups had broken down in section and given possible locations and some scenarios. For example, based on one of the posters (squat exercise, if I say the name right), they had an idea of having an exercise(game) in the public where people can interact and doing yoga together. Other ideas were navigation shoes and mechanical dogs, where people use the shoes as a GPS to guild them to the places they wanted to go. I elaborated a bit and trying to remove away from shoes and cellphones. I thought of a scene from a movie I saw that there was some sensor on the phone where they don't need to take the phone out. The road would appear direction to guild the user to the place they wanted to go. All the stores on the street will have a digital sign that appears in different colors to indicate a separate category of the stores. A light will blink to notify the user of the store that they are looking for. There were other good ideas our group has come up with, such as the shoe will guild the user to find healthy food after they finished working out in the gym. It saves trouble for the user to think and find healthy food to eat. The second one was instead of having a mechanical dog, the user could have a real pet(dog or cat) to do interactive exercise together in the pet park or at home. It helps both of them to do yoga and get healthy together. There are some more ideas that we also talked about, but I couldn't remember what it was.

Later in the second section, I explained what we had, and we narrow it down with what are the target users and giving more purpose to it. For example, a traveler(single or with a group) wants to have a consistent workout routine when they were traveling to a different country or area. However, later, I thought about if the user is living in a nice hotel, they usually have their gym for the customer to use. Nevertheless, it is just one side of the perspectives we look at in the limited time we had.

Technology with negative reinforcement

This theme was trying to get people to break up the bad habit by applying negative reinforcement. In the beginning, I didn't follow what other group member was talking about. The room was loud, and I couldn't hear what they were saying even though I was trying, but it was hard since they didn't speak up. I feel a bit left out, so I started to talk to a classmate who seated in front of me. We came up with our ideas by having an example right in front of us that people don't clean up after they finished eating. We have created ideas of how to punish people by having a bad dream after they go to bed, and all the trashes were chasing them. Or the smell will follow them if they don't clean up. We both had these crazy ideas. It was fun, but we don't know if it is possible to make it.

Altered Landscape

When I saw down the table, it was hard to understand what the previous group did. We didn't get clear information on what new ideas they had generated besides the ideas from the posters. We felt lost. I tried to bring some more ideas or asking what other ideas previous groups had. I was either being kind of rejected and pointed to the ideas, which was the same as the poster. It would be nice if people would want to twist and move away from existing ideas. Maybe everyone was tired after three rounds of discussions, and it was close to lunchtime. However, I was surprised that they used the post as an idea instead of just a reference. Even though it has lots of writings on the table, but it doesn't see going anywhere. People seem to stuck on sharing the picture and projected to the building, which was an original idea from one of the posters. Another one was people got minimized into a big world. In this around, I found it very hard to work with because it was behind, and we were supposed to think about the theme and be more specific rather than for self-amusement. A lacking purpose in why should we do it? What values are this design for? At that time, my mind couldn't think of any new ideas alone.

Digital sensation made physical

It was an interesting topic because senses are hard to cooperate with physical if we don't count touch, vision, and sound. Therefore, it is difficult to think and apply any technology into physical. At the table, we were discussing how to use technology to include smell and taste. We spent much time in this area and how to keep the smell lost longer. We didn't spend time thinking about what approaches we could take to make it physical. It was an interesting topic, which its also hard because I felt it was more internal feelings, not just what we know from the surface level. I will talk about it more in a different post.

Music Thing

It was the most enjoyable table I had on that day. People at the table were enthusiastic about creating fun music, and the ideas flow one after the other. It was a pleasant experience to be at the table with people who all enjoy and welling to participate. This time I learned to hold back and listen more before I speak. Based on the previously built concept, we created a sci-fi music player blocks with the string that has a base where each block has its tune. When the block stocks up, it produces high pitch and vice versa. If building the blocks in the x-axis, it creates long or short tones. We also thought about how to control the volume and make it more sci-fi. In the end, we came up with the concept of having the block building, representing skyscrapers, and the string is the base of the planet. When the music played, there would be laser striking the building as the alien invaded earth. The block would shoot up to the sky, and color would be painted behind its path to make a piece of art.

Enhanced Mundane Spaces

We started thinking about what we can do to make mundane space more fun. One idea we got was people have to dance in the elevator to get to the floor they want to go. We also had a few other ideas, but I couldn't remember the detail now. At the time, it was hard to come up with anything at the point of time. When I am thinking back now, it's funny that when we don't spend time thinking about mundane stuff. We could have millions of examples, but when we do spend time reviewing what's dull in our life. We couldn't think of any. Are we automatically eliminated what we thought is boring? And padding ourselves on the back by saying that life it all good.

What I got out from it...

It is my third experience of joining the activity. I found myself enjoyed more in this time around than past world cafés activity. I don't know if it is because I have more experience of how this activity works. Or I am keener to train my mind to think out of the box; I am not sure, but this is one of my goals in this class as I get so tired of trapping and stuck with my limited ideas. This activity helps me to learn from others and loosen up my mind without restriction. Yet, I still have a lot to learn. In some of the sections, I wish we could have more time because sometime I would need a bit of time to think before I shared my idea. But with the pressure of afraid others think that I didn't contribute. On the other hand, I would try to avoid to say ideas that were not fully established in my mind and caused people wouldn't understand what I was trying to say.

It was good to have an open-end topic to start a conversation, and having some supplementary references to get a head start on building new ideas was helpful. Nevertheless, it was hard to draw a line between either giving too much or too little information that might restrict our imagination. In some tables, that might be the case where people were confused or not sure what the task was. There were no new ideas produced, and people were relying on the references too much that cause them couldn't think of anything beyond what they have seemed.

I felt each turn around had a different experience, and it all depends on the people in that table. If people are more willing to participate and have some flight sky of ideas, it lights up the table, and the rest would follow. If people were less active, then it would be hard to carry on the conversation. But thinking from a different perspective, maybe the people who were less active because they were struggling to share with anything on the spot while others had more to say. Everyone has different ways of thought process, and it would be hard to tell by looking at the surface level.

Presentation

This week we immersed our time into the presentation for our initial concept ideas before we form into a group. It was great to see how everyone’s ideas were different yet somewhat similar themes; for example, having theming around smart products, music, colors, and mental health. It was great to see how people interpreted it differently. There were some interesting ones; for example, using pressure to create color, dance with light- using shadows, and musician- using a string. I would love to see these concepts developed into projects.

However, I was a bit disappointed because I was excited and looking forward to seeing blue-sky thinking. Maybe it just me that have higher expectation. It seems most of the ideas were restricted with limited imagination because some of the design it’s already in the market. It may be because people wanted to be practical to design something that was possible to make in the end. I am not saying they are wrong or the design is bad. Please don’t get me wrong. I am sure each design has its purpose, meaning, and time that they had invested. It’s all valuable. I understand it was hard to come up with something that is out of the box; I was on the same boat. It was painful, not able to have an “interesting” and “fun” ideas. I being there. But I am also agreed that if we keep pushing ourselves and research for more possibilities, we will get there at some point, which I am still working on it.

Reflection

Reflecting on my own presentation, I didn’t do a good job, and it still has room for improvement. Speaking in the on the stage was not my thing; it depends if I am nervous or not. Sometimes I can pull it off even though I am nervous, but this time I let my nervous taking over the control. The more I wanted to do good on presenting my idea, the more nervous I got. But I want to get better at it next time.

Though, I learned some tips through this experience was that don’t wait for too long to present. The more I waited and held back, the more nervous I get. Secondly, don’t look at what I wrote on the poster since this is my idea. I know what it was and how it works. Finally, I just need to have more confidence and faith in myself. In this way, I would be able to explain more clearly to bring my idea across the table.

I felt my concept was cool of using the human water figure as the character in the game, and the droplets are presenting the sweat loss of the player. However, I should have explained it well of what my concept was. Is it a game? Or is it a product that reminds people to drink water? Since some of the feedback I got was confused about my ideas. Let me explain; it was a concept of fitness game that encourages the user to do more exercise and, at the same time, tracking their daily water intake. It is a way of reminding and encouraging people to drink more water.

Additionally, I should also back up with more research about why water is good for our bodies. For example, boost your metabolism, help the kidneys to function, lose weight, …etc. One thing I forgot to mention during my presentation, it was that the user would stand on a pad with two buttons in the front. The user will use their feet to interact during the game(inspired by the Dance Dance Revolution game).

My concept still has room for further refining and tweaking. For example, can this be taken away from using the screen, and cooperating more interaction with multiple users? Even though it doesn’t have a restriction that we need to have multiple users or not. Nevertheless, it would be nice to expand into more possibilities for the physical interaction project since the more people play, the more fun it will get.

Feedback

Overall the feedback I got was better than I thought. More than half of the people understood my concept. They thought it was a nice way of presenting our body water loss and encouraging people to drink more water. Some of them didn’t get my ideas and was confusing about what is the purpose of it. Is it a game or a product. Moreover, a few others gave suggestions on how to make it more playful. Lastly, few said that if it was already out in the market. It was not they make the water shape form from scratch for the commercial only, which I thought it was clever (If you are interested, please check out this link of how they make it - G Active - The Making of Active Water). These were all important feedback I got, and it helped me to know what area I would need to do better next time, thank you!

I think giving paper critique was a great way to stay focus during the presentation rather than spacing out.

Theming

I attended two sections of theming after the presentation. Based on all the ideas, we were trying to find a common theme or creating a theme from more than one idea, which was hard. It is easier to name a theme based on a single idea. But to find a relationship between two or more ideas was a challenge for me. In this stage, I want to push myself to think further rather than just merely naming base on what the ideas were. It was not easy. I found myself staring at the posters searching for clues and meaning behind the ideas. I only contributed a few ideas. It was a good brain exercise to train my brain to think differently. At the same time, learning from others and see what ideas they had.

On Monday I attended the soldering section, it was fun to build an LED light with circular by myself even though it still needs some more work to get it function. I wish I had more time to work on the soldering. I learned that the welding object has to be the same temperature as the soldering iron so that the solder would stick to that object. Otherwise, the solder will only stay on the soldering iron. I didn’t know in the beginning; therefore, I had a big chunk of the solder that connected to all the pins. It kills the switch since all pins were connected; the circuit is going in a loop.

I want to finish it when I can and glue the pieces together.

In the beginning, I had a hard time coming up with an interesting, novel, and fun idea. I saw the MIT work, the inForm, which many of us have seen it before. It is a legend that inspires a lot of people, including me. At that time, I wanted to replace the tactile to something that does not have a dimension or a brick, where people can manipulate an object on their hand. With that in mind, I thought of searching for cool materials for the replacement of the tactile. I saw this YouTube video, “7 Strangest & Coolest Materials Which Actually Exist.” In the video, I got inspired by two materials which are Ultra Hydrophobic Material and Hydrogel. These two materials we have seen in our daily life, with water-resistant material; such as rain jackets, shoes, backpacks, and hydrogel in the plants.

“Water” came to my mind. I want to used water as a daily object. First, I thought if I can manipulate water like how we see on the space that the water is floating (okay! I don’t think it can achieve in the earth right now). However, my thought was using water to make a button. But I don’t think it’s possible and I don’t know how it would work. After talking to tutors with my idea of water balls, they encourage me to think further and explore on what water ball can do. It can add textures, weight, and smell (maybe).

In my first three ideas, I want to use a water ball to design something fun since hydrogel can absorb water. I want to create a game for kids. Each water ball has its own colors, but when two of them collide, the water released and it a new set of color is made. The new set of color will transfer to the LED screen, which has color pallets. Children can use the color they mixed to create art.

I was inspired by a YouTube clip; I saw called New Interactive RGB LED modules and Interactive Water and LED Installation. Children can use any soft surface props like brush and sponge or water gun and spread bottles to draw on the LED canvas. The LED canvas senses the interaction with the amount of water that applied to the canvas. A tutor reminded me that what my design is different from the typical canvas and why they have to drop the water balls to mix the colors. Humm….it does make sense, and I couldn’t think about any better explanation of why this is better than the normal one, except it includes the technology and looks cool.

The second and third ideas were somewhat similar to a little tweaking and a different user. I changed to blind people. I ideas was teaching blinded people about how to mix color. But when I shared my idea with my friend, she asked me that how would they know the color they made are the ones they like? It strikes me that for the people who are born with blindness, they have never seen colors before. How would they know colors? Even if I had added textures, weight, smell, and food(representation with the shape and reminder of natural food colors), they wouldn’t have any clues.

Later, I went on YouTube to search with any keyword that came to my mind besides the keywords, such as, physical computing, interaction design, and tangible computer. I wanted to push myself to think outside of the box this time. It’s easier said than done. I felt that from previous courses, I tend to get stuck, and I went into a dark hole where I constantly thinking in a circle. When it happened, I felt that my mind got overwhelmed, and it comes to a deadlock. I want to try differently this time.

I started with the word “water” since this is the daily element that I would like to focus on. I went to explore all different types of designs that I could find. I felt that every design has its own story even though they might have got inspiration from another artist. But by adding personal thoughts, ideas, intentions, and messages, it gives a different life to the art. On that said, I saw this big side water bubble ring toss, which reminded this game I played before. Even though this finding didn’t help me to get a new idea, but it reminded me of not only focusing on hands.

Instead of hands, I can cooperate with both hands and legs at the same time. It reminds me of a commercial I saw years ago from the G Active sport’s drinks commercial. The human water shapes inspired me to use it as a character in a fitness running game. The human water form symbolized the human being since our body contains lots of water. It tied up the relationship between water and human. (If you are interested in how they make the human water form real, you can go to my poster blog page. It had a YouTube link of how they make it. It's really amazing!)

Moreover, in place of seeing the character on the screen, I want to bring the character to a life where we can see it in 3d water human shapes. It’s a cool visualization. After I shared my idea with a tutor, she helped me to think further about why the droplets are essential? How does it use in the design other than visually appealing? With the ideas the tutor shared, I thought of adding playfulness to the game by changing the visibility depends on how fast the character runs. We sweat when we do an exercise. The water intensity reflected in the sweat lost during the exercise to push the player to run more. If they run slow, then they are easy to lost control in the game. It is a fitness game with a combination of health to remind people to drink more water.

Image reference:

Hydrokinesis. (2020). [Image]. Retrieved from https://abilitiespowersgifts.blogspot.com/2014/07/hydrokinesis.html

In the beginning, I had a hard time coming up with an interesting, novel, and fun idea. I saw the MIT work, the inForm, which many of us have seen it before. It is a legend that inspires a lot of people, including me. At that time, I wanted to replace the tactile to something that does not have a dimension or a brick, where people can manipulate an object on their hand. With that in mind, I thought of searching for cool materials for the replacement of the tactile. I saw this YouTube video, “7 Strangest & Coolest Materials Which Actually Exist.” In the video, I got inspired by two materials which are Ultra Hydrophobic Material and Hydrogel. These two materials we have seen in our daily life, with water-resistant material; such as rain jackets, shoes, backpacks, and hydrogel in the plants.

“Water” came to my mind. I want to used water as a daily object. First, I thought if I can manipulate water like how we see on the space that the water is floating (okay! I don’t think it can achieve in the earth right now). However, my thought was using water to make a button(figure 1). But I don’t think it’s possible and I don’t know how it would work. After talking to tutors with my idea of water balls, they encourage me to think further and explore on what water ball can do. It can add textures, weight, and smell (maybe).

In my first three ideas, I want to use a water ball to design something fun since hydrogel can absorb water. I want to create a game for kids. Each water ball has its own colors, but when two of them collide, the water released and it a new set of color is made. The new set of color will transfer to the LED screen, which has color pallets. Children can use the color they mixed to create art.

I was inspired by a YouTube clip; I saw called New Interactive RGB LED modules and Interactive Water and LED Installation. Children can use any soft surface props like brush and sponge or water gun and spread bottles to draw on the LED canvas. The LED canvas senses the interaction with the amount of water that applied to the canvas. A tutor reminded me that what my design is different from the typical canvas and why they have to drop the water balls to mix the colors. Humm….it does make sense, and I couldn’t think about any better explanation of why this is better than the normal one, except it includes the technology and looks cool.

The second and third ideas were somewhat similar to a little tweaking and a different user. I changed to blind people. I ideas was teaching blinded people about how to mix color. But when I shared my idea with my friend, she asked me that how would they know the color they made are the ones they like? It strikes me that for the people who are born with blindness, they have never seen colors before. How would they know colors? Even if I had added textures, weight, smell, and food(representation with the shape and reminder of natural food colors), they wouldn’t have any clues.

Later, I went on YouTube to search with any keyword that came to my mind besides the keywords, such as, physical computing, interaction design, and tangible computer. I wanted to push myself to think outside of the box this time. It’s easier said than done. I felt that from previous courses, I tend to get stuck, and I went into a dark hole where I constantly thinking in a circle. When it happened, I felt that my mind got overwhelmed, and it comes to a deadlock. I want to try differently this time.

I started with the word “water” since this is the daily element that I would like to focus on. I went to explore all different types of designs that I could find. I felt that every design has its own story even though they might have got inspiration from another artist. But by adding personal thoughts, ideas, intentions, and messages, it gives a different life to the art. On that said, I saw this big side water bubble ring toss, which reminded this game I played before. Even though this finding didn’t help me to get a new idea, but it reminded me of not only focusing on hands.

Instead of hands, I can cooperate with both hands and legs at the same time. It reminds me of a commercial I saw years ago from the G Active sport’s drinks commercial. The human water shapes inspired me to use it as a character in a fitness running game. The human water form symbolized the human being since our body contains lots of water. It tied up the relationship between water and human. (If you are interested in how they make the human water form real, you can go to my poster blog page. It had a YouTube link of how they make it. It's really amazing!)

Moreover, instead of seeing the character on the screen, I want to bring the character to a life where we can see it in 3d water human shapes. It’s a cool visualization. After I shared my idea with a tutor, she helped me to think further about why the droplets are essential? How does it use in the design other than visually appealing? With the ideas the tutor shared, I thought of adding playfulness to the game by changing the visibility depends on how fast the character runs. We sweat when we do an exercise. The water intensity reflected in the sweat lost during the exercise to push the player to run more. If they run slow, then they are easy to lost control in the game. It is a fitness game with a combination of health to remind people to drink more water.

Image reference:

Hydrokinesis. (2020). [Image]. Retrieved from https://abilitiespowersgifts.blogspot.com/2014/07/hydrokinesis.html

Audience:

Adults or children of any age, anyone can play.

Inspiration

Do we know how much water we drink in a day? It is essential because, on average, the human adult body contains about 60% of water, and we need water in our daily life. With the theme of water, I came up with a fitness running game called Run for life 2.0. I got my inspiration from a G Active sport’s drink commercial and the Switch game called Ring fit Adventure.

Why the droplets it’s important in this concept?

The droplets are an abstract way of representing our body water losses in 3D water human shapes. In this game, it would be the sweat loss when we are doing an exercise.

How to play?

Before playing the game, the wearable on the wrist will help the player to detect if they are dehydrated or not. It will show you an average of water you needed in a day and how much more you need to intake.

When the user interacts with the game, the water machine at the top will simulate the user’s movement with water form. The water human shape is the user’s character in the game, instead of only seeing the character in a digital format on a flat-screen. I want to bring the character vividly to life. There is a pad that the user would stand on. It has two buttons to help the user to get through the game. The visibility of the character depends on how fast you run. For example, if you run slow, the character becomes burry; hence, fewer water droplets. It might cause the character to tumble through obstacles in the game and lost life. At the end of the game, it physically shows the amount of water you had lost and told you how much water you need to consume to gain the water back.

Reference:

Amount of water in the human body. Nestlé Waters. (2020). Retrieved 2 March 2020, from https://www.nestle-waters.com/learn-about-water/general-needs/how-much-water-is-in-the-human-body.

G Active. (2020). G Active- The Making of Active Water [Video]. Retrieved 2 March 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z7lAxEMF74G.

Water: How much should you drink every day?. Mayo Clinic. (2020). Retrieved 2 March 2020, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/water/art-20044256.

Inspiration materials:

G Active - Water Made Active

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCEdBfBolWk

G Active - The Making of Active Water

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7lAxEMF74

Ring Fit Adventure - Adventure Trailer – Nintendo Switch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD6Ua4NfPZ4