About Fitlody

After a week's effort and fixing bugs with the tutor's help, we are able to deliver the final product for the exhibition.

The final product is a mat that contains pressure sensors, when users stand on the mat and start doing fitness exercise, the pressure sensor will start capturing pressure value, these data will be transferred to two components: one is python working with garageband (a music creation studio on Mac with a complete sound library that includes instruments, presets for guitar and voice, and an incredible selection of session drummers and percussionists), this will generate music based on input data because the rhythm and loudness of the music is based on pressure value which refers to user’s movement . The other is Unity, linking pressure value to dynamic patterns. We set up different pressure level to match different dynamic patterns, to showcase users’ exercise status. So, the working interactive code is from Arduino to Python and Arduino to Unity. Overall, when users step on the mat, the music and dynamic patterns will start working collaboratively to provide playful interactions for users.

During Exhibition

Reflection

After the final product was built, I think we have achieved most of the intended concept, mostly by translating the physical variable pressure into music, and users can instantly “hear” the efforts they have put on exercising. The interactions including music and dynamic patterns are fulfilled, and LED strip is included to enhance users’ perception. Though vibration is considered less obvious, so we didn’t include that feature in the final product. What we didn’t achieve, comparing to the ideal concept, is that the mat can only hold one person’s weight rather than multiple people, thus, lower the social interactions. Also, the overall look of the mat is still rough and not flexible enough to carry around, and aesthetic design still needs to be improved to provide a good-looking packaged product. One of the regrets is that we didn’t have time to purchase a larger pressure sensor, so the activated area on the mat is limited and thus, lower the sensitivity. If the time was allowed for shipping, we will overcome this.

Overall, I think our project succeed in bringing joyful experiences in fitness exercise by involving instant gratification and additional playful interactions and thus, promote people to keep fit through exercising. We involved a small scale of users to test our final product and they enjoyed playing with this device and had fun, mostly from the interactions with dynamic music which attract their attentions. Of course, there are still a lot of space for improvements for this product, our team will keep working on that in the future.

Get back on track

After last week's failed attempts, we have to go back to mechanical solutions, to try to use structural design to match the detect range of the FSR and the weight of people. And that’s how we deliver for the final product.

Physical form

The main component of this product is the mat with two pressure sensors. The mat is built up by a PVC board as a panel and 4* 600mm steel shelves support under the panel, we use glue to bond steel bars and the panel. Two pressure sensors are placed on the two-foot extensions (from Wii Balance Board), which are close to the PVC board. There are two protrusions on each foot extension that allows force from the panel to act directly on the pressure sensor. Note that each sensor’s pressure measuring range is from 20g to 6kg, and we use some mechanical design to overcome this, now the mat can hold an adult’s weight and the pressure sensor works within range.

Connect Arduino to Unity

Arduino is used to read analog from pressure sensor and set up into two levels for Unity to catch signals. Unity will keep monitoring serial’s signal and discarding data from the serial driver's receive buffer to lower communication’s delay. The signal will be used to control patterns’ play and stop.

Connect Arduino with LED strips

The pressure sensor is also used to control LED strips, each time when user step on the pressure sensor, the LED will change its light randomly.

Prototype test

Build update

This week, we purchased a Wii balance board on the Facebook marketspace, since we couldn't get a larger FSR sensor delivered on time under the current situation. The Wii Balance Board is shaped like a household body scale, with a plain white top and light gray bottom. It runs on four AA batteries as a power source, which can power the board for about 60 hours. The board uses Bluetooth technology and contains four pressure sensors that are used to measure the user's center of balance—the location of the intersection between an imaginary line drawn vertically through the center of pressure and the surface of the Balance Board—and weight.

When we purchased the board, we focused on reading its data and transfer to python, we tried the following attempts:

Wiiscale

Wiiscale is a Mac software that can connect with Wii board through Bluetooth. We successfully read the data from the Bluetooth port and display it on the screen. But to read the data from the port relies on several libraries on C++ which we are not familiar with, we are not able to take those beautiful data from the WBB and transfer them to python. Therefore this approach meets a dead end.

Wii Fit Balance Board (WBB) in python

https://github.com/pierriko/wiiboard

After that, we got some suggestions from the tutor, about a python solution on Github that seems quite matches our needs. We installed the components in the Python library but found we couldn't read data from Bluetooth port, we reviewed the Github document and found out the reason. Turns out

the open-source java and python library for interfacing with the Wii balance board have several requirements, for the bluetooth drivers, the library will not work under the windows winsock bluetooth stack. The library has been tested with WIDCOMM drivers under windows XP and Vista. It should be able to work on linux and 32-bit mac machines. Our current machines are 64-bit mac and windows 10 machines. So this approach failed again.

Alternative approach

Next week we will go back to mechanical solutions, to try to use structual design to match the detect range of the FSR and the weight of people.

Report back

In this week's studio, we talked about the following questions.

What is one good thing you can say about lockdown?

I think lockdown gave us a chance to get used to those tools that we barely used before. Few months ago I would never think about using Zoom and Miro to engage in this course and cooperate with my teammates, so it is good to have a new form of course delivery. Also, it pushes us to adapt to complex cases, find alternative approaches while encountering difficulties. Overall it is a memorable experience during this semester.

Based on feedback to date & what you have left to complete: What are your key priorities?

The key priority is to combine each teammate's components in the following weeks into a single installation, as we are working collaboratively as a team. Also, we are considering to add more features to existing prototypes, based on the useful feedback.

What concerns/questions do you have? (doesn't have to be directly project related)

At this moment, because the pressure sensor I have is RP-C18.3-ST Thin Film Pressure Sensor. It is a 0.4mm thin flexible sensor with low response time (<10ms) that can be contained in various physical things. The only concern is that the pressure measuring range is from 20g to 6kg. So that the pressure sensor can not hold the weight of an adult. We need to figure out some alternative approaches in the final design, either using other ways to detect pressure value or use some structural designs to place the sensor properly so that it won't hold the entire weight of an adult.

Workshop

About the pressure sensor's concern, we got some useful advice from our tutor. One is using bathroom scale to track weight and send the data back to computer, we got some tutorials online for consideration. But lack of coding examples to get started. The other is to get a second-hand Wii Balance Board, transfer the data via Bluetooth, the scale really only captures your weight and sends it up to InitialState for tracking and feedback. This sounds more easy for us so we are looking to purchase one.

Also, we brought the materials we purchased from bunnings to uni and start constructing a panel that can allow people to stand on, the supportive structure is still needed to be considered, and the proper way to combine the Wii board. That's our next week's focus point.

Prototype critique reflections

This week is the prototype showcase and we uploaded our video demonstration and documents to Miro board. I received useful feedback which provides a lot of reflections to the project.

Critique 1: "There is one point worth to be noted that enhanced acquisition of motor skills when rhythm or association is matched with the required movement patterns. Thus, I suggest that using different kinds of melody to motivate users in different stages of exercises. For example, soft melody for pre-event exercise and relaxation."

Reflection: This is in our design purpose and I am currently working on this with my teammate. At this stage, the pressure board is connected with the data processing component, and music is generated depends on the pressure value. The type of the music can be switched manually. We are thinking about whether to use sensors to detect different kinds of exercise and match music with them or allow users to set music type manually before the exercise. Further user research will be focused on this point.

Critique 2:"There are some elements to consider and enhance the engagement of interactions, the rhythm, styles, tempo, melody, the sound of instruments and the beat of music."

Reflection: Our team agree that the type of melody needs to be increased to fulfill the overall interactions. Right now at this stage, we have 4 types of music, additional interactions like vibation is in consider.

Critique 3:" instead of using hands to demonstrate music triggers, the movement of feet should bring more fun during exercise. If people can jump, walk, dance, move back and forward on the pleasure board, the whole process is more attractive. "

Reflection: pressure board is due to the limitation of current sensors, because the pressure sensor can only detect under 6kg weight. We are considering whether to purchase a model that can detect 100kg instead, but the delivery will be hard to estimated. In next week, we are going to prepare the materials to hold the weight of an adult first. Structural design is also required.

Critique 4: "A question about the LED lights: Is it just for indicating the intensity of the pressure or it also on the pace with the melody."

Reflection: at this stage, it is just for indicating the intensity of the pressure. But nice advice, we might find ways to pace it with the melody in the final delivery.

Project progress

This weekend, our team went to bunnings to buy some materials for the final product. At this stage, our team will work together and combine each component into one. We purchased a PVC board as a panel for our project and some 600mm shelf supports under the panel. Further constructions will be done in week 11.

Prototype construction & user research

This week, I spent most of the time on building prototype and connected my components with my teammate, because his part of data processing needs data input from pressure board.

At this prototype stage, I used a stack of paper to simulate the pressure board. There is a palm area guideline on the paper. The pressure sensor is hidden in the second layer to assure sensitivity and to lower the influence while users are putting their hands on the board. The sensor is also linked to the computer by cable to transfer pressure data.

Other than reading pressure data from computer, I decided to provide signals to let users know how much pressure they put on the board, so I add a LED light that can change the brightness depending on the pressure applied on the force sensitive resistor.

At this stage, the collected pressure data can be shown in three ways: one is direct values through serial monitor, second is through pressure waveform on the serial plotter, third is through LED’s brightness. Additional interactions will be added for the next step.

Next step

• Connect with teammates’ components to deliver a single prototype
• Look for additional data resources as input
• Replace the existing FSR by a larger sensor

Report back

In this week's studio, we reported back some issues and main concern we encountered. For me, it was about the delay of transferring the data to the computer and the generating process which might increase the delay and lower the user experience of the whole device. We still need to accomplish the prototype first and test whether that delay is acceptable. At this stage, I am still using cable as a connection between the Arduino and the computer.

Individual progress

Focus

My personal focus in this project is about data collection. Our original design is to use a pressure sensor to capture pressure value and translate it into music & rhythms.

First attempt

I followed a tutorial online to make a pressure sensor, the materials are:

• 1x Arduino Uno
• 1x breadboard
• 1x LCD (16x2)
• 1x potentiometer (little blue twisty knob)
• 1x 10K ohm resistor
• 1x small square of capacitive foam (from IC packaging)
• 19x jumper wires (or regular wires)
• 1x power supply/USB cable
• 1x computer with Arduino IDE

It can test the pressure through pressing, squeezing, tapping, or otherwise touch the foam square, and marvel as the LCD tells you how hard (on a scale of 0-10) you are pressing.

Later, I found the connection was not stable enough for testing, so I tried another solution.

Second attempt

Later I found the Force Sensitive Resistor in my Arduino box, and it can measure physical pressure, weight and squeeze more accurately than the previous one.

I think the pressure sensor can be hidden in a board to allow users to do push up exercise, the board will be enough for the weight of an adult's hand and the pressure data can be used in generating music.

What is your concept / individual focus / individual responsibility for the project?

Under the team domain, my personal focus is collecting data through multiple sensors, the data has multiple forms, depending on the sensor I use including pressure sensor, gravity sensor, gyroscope sensor or even heart rate detector. These data will transfer to my teammate Tianyi, and he will be responsible for using these data to generate music, so each one will work on his/her personal focus and we combine our work together to deliver the final product.

What is the ideal finished product? (not what you think you can implement, achieve, but what you would like to be if you had all the resources/skills you need?)

The ideal finished product would have the following features:

• Music style changes as the user becoming tired/exhausted.
• Playing different instruments(Fitness) will get different tones as output.
• Music and images will make boring exercise more interesting.
• The user could listen to the music they made instantly.

Studio & Workshop

This week's studio and workshop are focusing on reporting back the progress of the project.

• What tech are you using?

Arduino + mobile phone + Unity, using sensors on mobile phones can be more accurate than Arduino's

• What do you need help with (Tech + Concept)?

Not much right now, because I'm still getting familiar with Arduino sensors and working on prototype constructions and I just got the Auxiliary Kit. As for the data transfer, I'm curious about either using a cable to connect with a laptop and transfer data or use wireless techs like Bluetooth to transfer data.

• Have you made any progress on the physical build?

Not yet, because I spent the most time working on DECO7380 last week.

In the workshop session, I got a recommendation from our tutor about using the Bluetooth module to wirelessly transfer data. Our team will consider whether to purchase one as a solution to the data transfer.

Team progress

This week, our team spent some time on Miro and map out our project related theme, domain, user group(s), and so on. As our team has decided to work together for the same user group under the same domain, we only focused on mapping out the parts that applied to the whole team.

We might conduct some investigations to establish user requirements in the following weeks and test our prototype.

Tuesday session

Report back

This week, we reported our progress to the teaching team and saw what other teams were doing at that moment. I saw some team were already working on the prototype which encouraged us to move forward. Also, I would like to get some suggestions or feedback from the teaching team after the stand-up session rather than just talk.

Methods for discovery

This session is quite interesting to me. First, we used Miro as a collaborative tool to explore specific content, this worked well with so many people being involved. And I think our team should also use this tool to discover our domain. Second, we reviewed some traditional research methods like observation in a new way, which we might not do in-person / co-located user research for discovery or evaluation. The alternative way is using online tools like we can do interviews through Zoom, Skype, etc, and the course activity was doing observation through a YouTube video. These changes of methods were trying to give us alternative approaches considering the current isolated situation and allowed us to conduct a study in a different way. Also, we are informed about giving people information about our study when we are doing online requests, this helps them to be familiar with our study and reduce concerns about privacy or any other safety issues. Overall, I think this section is quite inspiring for our project's research.

Breaking down the project

In this section, we were taught to map out our project by using the Miro board through 3 steps. These effects will help us to dive into our project and find new inspirations. Our group hasn't used this method to break down our project. But we will do this lately.

Thursday workshop

This section was about a general tutorial of Arduino Kit, which I have already done in last semester's DECO7230. Now I'll wait for the Auxiliary Kit for some components we might use in our project, during this time, I'll keep practicing Arduino through online tutorials.

Next step

In the previous stage of literature review, I focused on fitness motivation and found a useful evaluation method called Sport Motivation Scale (SMS) (Pelletier et al., 1995). The reason I did this background research is to find an approach to know more about our target audience through previous studies. The next stage is to use this method, adapt it to our project and to discover what could be the best motivations for our target audience to engage in our product. I will use this scale to evaluate participants’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivations in user testing sessions, analyze the result and define key factors to do exercise. This could help our team to design specific features that would attract our users and adherence behaviors.

As for the product’s delivery, I’m in charge of the data input section. The previous data input form is through a pressure sensor. After the pitch and consultation, we got some new inspirations about using mobile phone’s sensors like gravity sensor and gyroscope sensor, combined with fitness equipment to capture data. Another potential resource is heart rate. So, I will discover whether these can be achieved in our project construction process.

Contact & tutorial

In this week's contact and tutorial sessions, we had a deep discussion with our teaching team. Basically, we reported back our working progress and ask some questions about the whole project and proposal, and got useful feedback and clarification which help us to divide our individual work and to decide team cooperate mode.

About Zoom

After a week's experience with using Zoom, I'm totally getting used to this online tool, without any network issues, the communication with other team members and teaching team is clear and fluent. I'm just a little worried about, when it comes to practical tutorials like Arduino, how it will deliver the content, we will see in the next week.

Team progress

This week, our team had two meetings to discuss our proposal progress and individual work. As for the proposal's team section, we divided our work like this:

• The Team Domain (Concept/Context/Problem Space) (Shane & Tianyi)
• Response to Feedback (Dennis)
• Related Work (All 3 of us focus on 3 aspects: exercise promotion, music's connection with exercise, music's effect on human emotions)
• Audience & Intended Experience （Shane）
• Relevance to Theme (Tianyi)

As for individual sections, I will focus on using multiple sensors to capture pressure data as input, Tianyi will work on translating pressure data into music rhythm, Shane will take care of sounds & light interactions as output. In the proposal, each of us will discover our direction under the team domain.

Individual work

This week, I reviewed the feedback from last week's presentation and got some new inspirations below:

• Some classmates mentioned that our design could work for both ways, as in the music adjusting to your actions or, you have to exercise according to how the music and lights change. This was discussed previously in our group meeting, at that time, we have not decided to use which mode or involve them together, now the feedback shows some of our audience like to have both. We will do more user research and user test lately to investigate users’ preference.
• Customizable. A further extension of previous point, a lot of classmates commented that it would be better to let users decide the interactions in multiple ways, like exercise modes, music types, volume control etc. Our team discussed this and agreed that provide options for users could make our device more playful and adaptive to different user groups. Our next step will research on users’ preferences, we will set up some questions to find out what options are suitable for them while they are interacting with our installation.
• Health status. Fitness and exercise are connected with human’s healthcare. Some feedbacks are about heart rate detection to provide health status while they are doing exercise and prevent from exhausting. Heartbeat could also be a data input that connect with physical interactions like light and vibration. Our team agrees that these feedbacks are inspiring and for practical concern, we could involve fitness band to capture heart rate data. Also, these feedbacks helped us to reflect on our domain and provide us a potential direction to discover in our individual research.
• Motivation. Link back to our original design purpose, one is to motivate people to do more exercise through playful interactions. Our tutor challenged us about how to use our approach to help motivate people who either have no knowledge of how to exercise or have no motivation to exercise. After group discussion, we thought about two options to answer this question, one is to provide a tutorial at the beginning to let users who have no knowledge of how to exercise to be familiar with our device. The other is to introduce goals, achievement, challenges among friends to motivate users to make some changes. Our team will do further research on this area in the following sections.
• Music type, some colleagues mentioned about what music people want to listen to while working out and if any particular type of music fits better for specific types of exercise. This requires us to do more literature review to see how music affects people’s emotion, music type could also connect to exercise mode, for example, use pop music when users have the intensive exercise and pure music when users just finish their training and relax.
• Promotion, some colleagues suggest that the promotion of exercise can be improved, for example, if everyone is working out correctly, a melody is maintained. If one person is falling behind – music starts to play out of time (causing frustration and motivation to keep up to pace). Fitness promotion is our next step of discovering our domain, one of our members is currently working on this aspect.
• Music haters, some mentioned that what if there are people who do not like to listen to music or if it is using speakers to play music, it could be annoying in public places. Well, our design could not cover every people and satisfy them, so, when we design this, we have a specific user group and use case, to limit it in household fitness. However, we can still involve some adjustments like using wireless headphones to replace speakers, so they won't bother other people.
• Multiple users & interactions. One of our classmates suggested that it could be interesting to think about how multiple people could interact with the concept using different equipment and how that would change the music. Our team agreed that this will make our installation more playful and involve more users to interact with our product. Having different exercise equipment is one of our considerations. We can try to deploy the same algorithm and data detection across multiple fitness equipment.

Making and using an Arduino pressure sensor

As pressure sensor is a vital component in our design, I've searched for some tutorials about how to use this sensor.

This week is the first week that we move to the online course, though we met some software/network issues, the overall experience is pleasant and communication is clear regardless of physical distance. We are getting used to this new form of course delivery.

Group pitch

We had a group meeting at the beginning of this week, prepared for the presentation on Wednesday, we divided our tasks and each one was responsible for several sections. Below is my individual work:

Sketch

Within the field of product design, the ability to represent our ideas by using effective visual methods such as sketching opens doors for better communication between designers and the audience. We find that using sketching is an efficient way to explain our concepts and designs.

I drew the full view and front view of our installation with explanations and physical components introductions. Although these are just rough sketches, they can help the audience to have a basic impression of what our design looks like. In the next stage, we will listen to feedback from our tutors and also from other groups to iterate these designs.

Persona

In our presentation, we also decided to use a persona combine with a storyboard to show an actual use scene in daily life, just to demonstrate our design is practical. By thinking about the needs of a fictional persona, we may be better able to infer what a real person might need. It can also help us to share a specific, consistent understanding of various user groups.

In this persona, I introduced a user called Michael, a father with a child, due to COVID-19, he has to stay at home and want to have some fun. Most importantly, he wants to keep fit, and all gyms are closed during this period. In previous experience, he always feels boring while doing exercise, and lack of motivation to keep fit. This time, he would like to try some fitness equipment which is interesting and help him to stay healthy while working remotely at home. Also, he would prefer to play with his child, considering this would be a great chance to spend with his family.

Critiques on other groups

I learned a lot through listening to other groups' pitches, some ideas are inspiring and gave me a lot of reflections.

EMS - Housework Thread

The design purpose is quite interesting and trying to solve an actual problem in our daily life. Turning housework into a game could be a great motivation and promotion for people. Just wonder if the ball is a little bit annoying for those who don’t want to be bothered while they are cooking, for example.

Zoomista

A clear introduction of design inspirations and purposes, and using colours to express emotions is reasonable . However, when it comes to the design, playing music in a public space may have several issues: will it annoy other people, will it affect the actual interaction if it is in a crowded and noisy place?

Ninja Run Game

Really interested in how it will help young children learn programming. The mechanism is clear and logical through project demo. But it seems too simple for 9 year old children, could lower the age while you are considering target audience.

Zookeeper

Hope it can adapt to more complex questions rather than simple A or B questions. Other than that, it is meaningful in raising people’s awareness of environmental protection.

Reflection of pitch feedback

We received a lot of feedback from our presentation, these comments could help us to improve our design, but first, we need to look into these comments.

• Some mentioned that our design could work both ways, as in the music adjusting to your actions and you have to exercise according to how the music and floor lights change. This was discussed previously in our group meeting, at that time, we have not decided to use which mode or involve them together, since our audience like to have both. We will do some user research and user test lately.
• Music type, some mentioned about what music people want to listen to while working out and if any particular type of music fits better for specific types of exercise. This requires us to do more literature review to see how music affects people.
• Promotion, some suggest that the promotion of exercise can be improved, for example, if everyone is working out correctly, a melody is maintained. If one person is falling behind – music starts to play out of time (causing frustration and motivation to keep up to pace). Fitness promotion is our next step of discovering our domain, one of our members is currently working on this aspect.
• Music haters, some mentioned that what if there are people who do not like to listen to music or if it is using speakers to play music, it could be annoying in public places. Well, our design could not cover every people and satisfy them, so, when we design this, we have a specific user group and use case, to limit it in household fitness. However, we can still involve some adjustments like using wireless headphones to replace speakers so they won't bother other people.

Next step

On Sunday, our group had another meeting to discuss how to divide our work for the project proposal, and how we might to discover our domain.

First, we agreed that we still want to work as a team to complete our original design, each one response for a part of this installation, so, we sent an email to the teaching team to ask for permission. And we have roughly defined our individual target, for example, Tianyi will discover the algorithm to translate pressure data to music, I will discover how to build a board that contains pressure sensors and collect pressure data, Shane will focus on using a projector to provide light and image feedback and interaction, just to make this device more playful.

For the proposal, we decided to review some literature for the following three aspects: Tianyi will search for electronic music generating related literature, I will focus on music's effect on human emotions, Shane will discover music's connection to exercise. We will do this to enhance our theoretical knowledge to justify our design in our domain.

Personal discovery

As I mentioned above, I will discover how to use Arduino and pressure sensors to capture pressure data for music generating. During this weekend, I have learned some tutorials as a kick-off.

UQ Innovation

This week, I've joined the UQ Innovation tutorial, the staff shows us how to use the machines in UQ makerspace, including woodcutter, laser cutter, etc. Though I've been to UQ makerspace in last semester, I didn't get a chance to use these machines. This tutorial just offered an opportunity to get started. During this tutorial, we also learned some safety protection while using this lab, and some software before we start to print by using laser cutters like Adobe Illustrator and AutoCAD. Now I know that, if I want to finish this project well, there are still lots of things to learn about, especially those areas I am not familiar with.

Team X

This week, I have met with my group members. We have a discussion and agree to follow Tianyi's previous idea and develop it, add more functions and interactions to make it more playful. The rough idea was to add more types of reactions except for music, like light, vibrate, etc. Also, more exercise equipment combined with multiple sensors can be included in this design, to increase the form of interactions.

World Cafe

Round 1

In the first round, we focus on several questions:

What could this project be?

What problem is it solving?

What space is it exploring?

Draw from theme inspirations

Think “Blue Sky”

These questions help us to understand the domains and what others are trying to solve.

For example, at this table, we defined the ideas into everyday sustainability. We could combine functions and technologies, refresh everyday items into sustainability promotion. The existing ideas are trying to solve several issues including climate change, waste management, food waste and so on. Those ideas are exploring agriculture, marine biology, pollution and so on.

Round 2

In the second round, we focus on the following issues:

Who are we designing for?

Where could the project be applied?

Which situation(s)?

What experience are we designing?

Think about the theme

Why should we do it?

What values are we designing for?

These questions help us to understand the design purposes and design attempts.

Round 3

The last round we were targeting on the following issues:

How could the concept be realized?

What approach(es) could we take?

These questions discuss potential solutions, we add some new inspirations to the existing ideas or even came up with completely new ideas, which provides more angles to the domain.

Works to be done

During this weekend, our group will shot a video to describe our idea and prepare for next week's presentation. Again, this idea is still in generating process, we are happy to gather any feedback from the teaching team and others.

Pitch feedbacks & reflections

During Wednesday's pitch, I received many useful feedbacks which will help me to generate some improvements. I picked up some comments and linked below:

I summarized these comments into several points:

• Privacy issue: I got some concerns about ethical issues that Naomi might record people's private talking. In the original idea, the device will only record sounds when people turn on the knob. Maybe the setting needs to be changed, like avoid recording human voice in software development.
• Have common features with existing products: some comments mentioned about the connection with Google Glass. I admit that this idea is based on the Mixed Reality platform, so the interactions might be similar to existing products in the market.
• Lack of physical interactions: I got some advice that it would be better for these sounds to be stored in a physical thing. I think that makes sense for this course's ambition, the original idea is relying on digital technologies and lack of physical constructions. And there is a comment about why using VR, music is about to hear and by hand. I admit that novel interactions need to be brought into my idea. In the following weeks, I will work on it.

During this week's sessions, I listened to others' pitches and got some inspirations from their ideas.

Melo Catcher

I think this idea has common design purposes as mine, a device for music creators. The most thing it inspires me is that it brings physical, playful interaction during the music creation process by using controllers and handles, mine is lack of physical interactions. Controlling soundtracks in a virtual environment does not seem to meet the brief.

Also, this idea allows multiple people to join this music creation journey together in real life, which brings more fun to this device, while mine only allows users to work together online, which reduces social activities.

I learned a lot from this pitch and the next step is to come up with some new ideas about bringing playful and novel interactions to develop this idea.

Soldering

This soldering induction is a tutorial about basic soldering skills, we were introduced by a board as we have used in DECO7230's Arduino. And then use solder to build a simple connection board. Through this section, I have learned some soldering skills and hope it will help me in microelectronic area.

78-207

This section is about introducing some rules before using 78-207. I think this section is essential for using lab equipment for safety concerns. Now I know some general rules:

• Make the lab clean, not just your area.
• If you have any questions or doubts, make sure to ask tutors for guidance and support.
• Before cutting woods, use tools to keep them stable and prevent from slipping.
• If you have wire cross the path, use a cover.
• Some basic instructions for some special tools.

Naomi – Mixed Reality music creator

What is Naomi:

Sketch & Poster:

Inspiration:

• A video about a music creator called Ben Mirin who uses nature sounds as materials to make music. (https://www.bilibili.com/video/av52471757)
• A YouTube video about a Virtual Reality Music Production Software

Instructions:

Each Naomi device has a knob for users to record any sounds they make (it can be tap, click, talk etc. even noise can be recorded as a sound material) or captured in daily life (like birdcall, water flow, car’s engine, traffic light sound etc.), these sounds can be collected into online sound library. In virtual reality world, users can assemble different sound materials as soundtracks to create a rhythm or music. This creative process can also be done by multi-person collaboration for social purpose, each one can contribute their own soundtracks to a group of creators. In a short sentence, use Naomi to capture sounds in everyday life, and start creating your own rhythm in virtual reality world.

Target audience:

• Music creators and lovers
• People who like to record daily life experience
• Amateurs who do not have talents to create a complete song, they can contribute through their original sound materials and share the happiness in a music creation journey.

Key features:

• Easy to carry: Naomi is lightweight and just like a normal glass that everyone can carry it like any other daily devices.
• Capture sounds at any time: creative inspiration is short-lived, as those random sounds in our daily life. When you have inspiration, you don’t want to lose it. Through turning on the knob, Naomi can start recording your genius idea.
• Share happiness with other music creators: for those who like teamwork, Naomi could be a good connection with creators just like you, cooperate and make complete music could be a fulfilling experience.

About me

I am Peiquan Li and you can call be Dennis, a fourth-semester Chinese student in UQ. I am currently studying Master of Interaction Design and I was transferred from Software Engineering due to personal interest. As for computational skills, I have learned some Python, a little bit of Android development, Cloud technologies, etc. I'd like to spend more time on front-end development, UX design, and mobile development. I’m interested in music, movies, NBA, video games, digital products and so on. I am happy to meet new friends from different cultural backgrounds and cooperate with other members of a team.

About Physical Computing

I think this course is a combination of every DECO course, it follows a similar pattern to design & develop a project. After experiencing some DECO courses including 7350, 7450, 7110, I think I will fit in with this course.

As a self-evaluation of personal skills, I can handle some coding and design works. Microelectronics will be a disadvantage for me, though, in the previous semester, I have learned DECO7230 Digital Prototyping, which helped me to get in touch with Arduino and some microcontrollers. I have tried these in my first prototype but they did not work well, so I gave up and use AR tech in my final prototype. That experience was a kind of failure to me, so I hope I could get more confidence during this semester, by learning these skills through some tutorials. Hand tools skills are unfamiliar for me, though I have paid a visit to Edge maker space, I have never learned how to use machines like 3D printers. Luckily, this course provides some tutorials for us to kick off.

After all, I hope I can enjoy this course with the whole teaching team and all classmates and get a happy ending for my master's journey.