Documentation & Reflection

Can't wait to show our final product. All things went well in the exhibition. I’m super satisfied with the final product and cooperation in team work. Basically we fully realized the intended ideal product, and it satisfied others as well. Although the project was under the restrictions of epidemic, teamwork can also be carried out efficiently and orderly. Through this project and course DECO7385, I learned a lot about team work, my problem domain, project progressing, Arduino amd Uity 3D coding skills.

As for the team work, to guarantee the effectiveness, the first thing is to form a team with members good at all the skills that would be needed in the future work. It would also be easier when assigning the work load. After allocating the work in each step, it’s important to set a deadline within the team, or it might cause delay of progress,which happened in our earlier progress. Timely communication is also important, we have to make sure that every member is working on the right track, and provide support for each other.

As for our problem domain, i believe it’s very meaningful. It motivated me to keep going whenever i met trouble. We hope our game can help train visually impaired people’s hearing ability, i also found a meaningful insights in this game. I can replace the zombie’s attack sound with some important daily sound, like the car horn, and replace the interference sound in the game with some noise in daily environment. In this way, it can help them get more familiar with the real life.

To ensure the project progress smoothly, breaking down the project is a important step. At the earlier stage of this project, i had no idea what we should do specifically until we learned how to break down the project during the course. By breaking down the project in details of every aspect, we can clear know what should we do step by step.

The major work for me is to develop Arduino devices, Unity 3D coding and to connect them. I improved these skills a lot through this project. Especially the communication between Unity and Arduino, thanks to consultation with Ben, i learned a lot how to analyse problem and dig out where the problem is in the codes.

Thanks you all. Thank you Lorna, all our tutors, peers. I really appreciate all your work, teaching, supporting and inspiring, i really learned a lot from all of you.

It comes to the final stage of the project that every team member has to stay together and combines all the work. We spent 3 days together for building physical installations and evaluating.

All the devices in our peoject would occupy a big space, and also there are many devices (3 IR receivers, Radar ranging, voice recognition...) Therefore we decided to remove some devices from bread board and extend them with longer wire. We first labled the wires with post-it note to prevent confusion. And then used electic iron connect the series circuits. We sticked LED and IR receiver on a printed zombie.

To make sure all the devices can work together perfectly, we made evaluations ourselves. For examplem, we tested the interval of zombie's attack sound, we tried arrangements of the IR reveivers with different distance and angle, we tried the safe zone for the Radar ranging. Finally, we came to the fianl arrangemnt.

To add responsive sound effects and music managment system to the project, first i have to learn how control music playing in Unity. I followed a tutoril about how to control music with buttons in Unity, since i felt it shares the same working principle with my project. As long as i know how it works, i can replace these buttons with the signals in my project.

After the successful attempts to control music, it became easy for me to use the signal from Arduino control music.

Then i decided to play the sound "bang" whenever the player shoot at the target, which sounds like you are shooting actually.

In the game, there should be sounds of zombie's attack played from time to time. To let this happen, i though i can let this sound play in loop with certain delay time. For example, i can play the zombie's attack every 5 seconds automatically.

In the intended game, the user have to listen where the sound come from and shoot towards that direction. To judge whether the player make a correct action and give them audio feedback, I choose to combine Arduino with Unity 3D. In this way, i thinkg the Unity could know which IR receiver received the siganl and then give corresponding feedback. For example, when zombie's attacking sound effect comes from left, a zombie's getting hurt sound effect can be plyaed if the player shoots towards right, but a human's getting hurt sound effect can be played if player shoots at other directions. Now, the first task for me is to figure out how to let Unity 3D read siganls from Arduino.

At first, i watched some Youtube videos introducing how to connect Arduino by Unity with some plugins, like the Ardity and Uduino. However, they all failed to work. At last, i learned that they just can be combined directly without any plungins.

Following this tutoril, i can roate a cube in Unity by swinging a knob(B10k) in Arduino.

In the Arduino, i just need to print the signal needed. In the Unity, i have to use IO.Ports system first，and then state the same serial port as Arduino.Check this serial port is open, and finally read that signal in the right form. Basically, these are the steps to connect Unity and Arduino. Then i moved to my project. I let the three IR receivers print 1,2 and 3 when they receive the signal. In the Unity, i tried to print the signal to see whether the connection is successful.

Actually, i tried hundreds of time before i made it. The problem is about the way to read serial, and the type of serial. We have to change the form of these according to project we work on. For example, i should use"Readline" to read the serial in the Youtube tutorial i followed at first, but use "ReadByte" in my project.Thanks to Ben, i finally figured out the errors in my codes.

Before i set up all the devices, i made a evaluation to see how would the intended experience go like. In our initial concept, there would be 4 receivers with audio players in the front, back, left and right, and the user would paly the game in the middle of these devices. I had a concern at that time that can the user identify the directions when playing this game? Because turning back can result in losing directions for people cannot see. Therefore i conducted this evaluation, i let 3 roommates get blindfolded and simulate the game experience. As expected, they lost directions after turnnig back and shooting the back receivers. Because it would foce them move their footsteps,and cannot find the original position. However, shooting at the other three directions would never let them move footsteps and get lost, because they don't need to move their feet to da that. There finally i remove the auido and receiver at the back.

The whole project is divided to each team member, the intended interaction plan would be complete when everyone's work connected together. At that time, the whole project will be like a hering and shooting zombies game. There wil be a background story telling the user that he will play a blind hero with super hearing ability to fight against zombies for protecting their family in the plot mode. The main interaction is to shoot at the direction where the sound of zombies' attack come from. In addition, there will differenet game mode as well. For example the hard mode has interference from other sound, like the rain and wind. The frequency of zombie's attack will be increased, as well as the interval will be shorten as the the difficulty of the game increased. Besides, the user can start/end the game and select game mode by a voice recognition system.

After the successful experimets with the infrared remote, i decided to make the remote controllor into a gun, which can enable the users just pull the trigger to transmit the signal. Meanwhile, considering the controller is a gun, i even made up a story for this game that the zombies strikes, destoried the electric power and forced people into a building. People cannot see where the zombies come in at night, our blind hero stands out at this time as he can hear the zombies' movement and know where they are with his super hearing ability. And then shoot against zombies attack. To make our hero a weapon, i disassembled a Arduino remote controllor and a remote car controllor, transplanted the chip in the fomer to the latter.

The circuit for each button on the Arduino remote control has 2 electrodes, the connecting with the 2 electrodes means this button pressed. Therefore i connected them with wire jumpers and attached them with the gun trigger, which means pulling the trigger equals connecting the electrodes.

Last journal i mentioned a new plan about Joystick for our project. The users can use the joystick to response to the sound from different directions in the headphone. If i choose to develope this idea, i would make the joystick in a gun and fix it on the table, then use unity 3D to run the game,which is only about the audio. The headphone would tell the story about the game and simulate the sound of enemy attack from different directions. The users can just sit on chair and swing the gun to response to the attack. This concept could solve several problem we would meet in our previous plans, for example the safety issue and connecting issues. I even have come out the story for this method. “When zombies strike, people have to defend their homes. But the electricity was destroyed and people couldn't see the zombies at night. At this time, our blind hero stood up. Our hero has super hearing and can hear the location of the zombies, so he uses a gun to shoot against the zombies.”

I have done the Arduino stuffs, and clear about the functions about.I believe it can support out concept as well.In addition to controlling the four directions of up, down, left, and right, there is also a button in the middle which can be used to control the start/end of the game.

In my last journal, i proposed a IR solution to our project concept that the users can use a remote controller to interact with the receivers in four directions. I Just used one receiver to figure out its functions last time. But there would be four receivers in our project, so many unknown could exist. For example, will the receivers interfere with each other and how, could one remote controller control four receivers and so on. So i got another IR receiver from my teammate and explored my concerns.

Receive 1 (R1) comes with LED 1 (L1), Receive 2 (R2) comes with LED 2 (L2). I put a notebook between the two receivers to block the signals. I found that the receiver would only catch the default signal value only if the remote controller aims at it directly. It would produce different values if there are angles between the remote and the receiver, which means the range that can receive the signal accurately is very small. The other biggest trouble i met was that L2 would light up randomly when only the L1 were supposed to be on. I fixed my codes thousands time and tried various methods to block the signal to prevent mutual interference, but the whole system messed up all the time. At last i realised that the IRremote library i donwnloaded might not support multiple receivers work together, and finally i found the supportable library.

Now, this method has been verified to be feasible that i can interact with four receivers in different locations by one remote control at one system. I pressed button towards R1,L1 was on, and L2 was on when i pressed button towards R2 like the images below.

When i was struggling with the problem, i came out another Plan B as an alternative solution to our concept. I could make a joystick in a shape of gun and fix it on the table, so it can only shake in four directions on the spot. Players can pull the trigger in the direction they heard the enemy attach in the headset. I am going to try joystick before we get the tools we need. Besides, we are going to buy Electric iron，long wire jumpers, hot melt adhesive and speakers.

One of my work is to research for the related work. All the work below was completed during our project proposal, but i haven't described in my journal.They include literature reviews about similar exploration, guidelines for design and some theoretical support, as well as some published games for the blind.

1.Literature Review

Lahav, H. Gedalevitz, S.Battersby, D. Brown, L. Evett and Patrick MerrittComputing and Technology Team: Virtual environment navigation with look-around mode to explore new real spaces by people who are blind. Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK.Pages 1072-1084 | Received 17 Aug 2016, Accepted 20 Jan 2017, Published online: 10 Feb 2017

The original intention of searching this article is because after our presentation pitch, in feedback some people mentioned a game for the blind people that uses sound and haptic feedback hints to explore the unknown space, such like exploring the maze.I also believed that this mode will bring a interesting game experience, suitable for the theme of our hearing ability-centric theme as well. However, i found that this concept has already been explored. In the article, in a virtual cane system simulating a room similar to the reality, the authors presented a new look-around method which enables the user to explore the unknown by the auditory information without moving in addition to the traditional walk-around way in which the user has to explore while walking. Besides, the authors selected the Nintendo Wii device as the visual and movement orientation controlller due to its widespread, easy and novel manipulation. In the experiment, the participants explored the unknown space and the obstacles information in it by these two methods. By comparing the accuracy and efficiency of the drawing mental maps, the authors verified the effectiveness of the look-around method.

Although the new direction of our project theme we wanted to work on has already been done by others, we also learned a lot from others work. First, the effectiveness and the ability to exercise spatial skill of this look-around method has been verified, which means we could apply this pattern in our design to help users perceive the gamified scene. Second, the Nintendo Wii controller can be a option or we can use the settings of his button to determine what necessary functions are available in our own controller. Third, we planned to add a voice prompt system to describe the virtual environment to our users, which has been introduced in this article as well. The authors provided their participants with obstacle information by different kinds of the auditory and haptic effects. Last, it presented us a method of verifying the validity of the design through comparing the mental map and map model, which could be taken to test the connection in the design of our auditory system and game scene.

Kristjánsson Á1, Moldoveanu A2, Jóhannesson ÓI1, Balan O2, Spagnol S3, Valgeirsdóttir VV1, Unnthorsson R3. Restor Neurol Neurosci: Designing sensory-substitution devices: Principles, pitfalls and potential. 2016 Sep 21;34(5):769-87.

In our future design, there is a great possibility to use voice and haptic system as input and output. Due to the loss of visual sensory, it is an inevitable challenge to convey information to them completely and accurately. Since when conveying information, different personal understanding, unclear expression and sensory caused by redundant information etc. are all the potential risks for unexpected results. Therefore, we have to follow certain rules when designing sensory substitution for the blind. In this article, the authors highlight some main points in the sensory substitution devices

1. Only convey critical information.
2. Focus on task.
3. Need research in basic psychophysical representation.
4. Must not interfere other perceptual function.
5. Feedback modality can be various.
6. Need consider the spatiotemporal continuity for different senses.

Although the sensory substitution system is slightly different from our design concept, because this system is designed to pass the information of the real environment to the blind people in the way of auditory and haptic, and our game environment will be a virtual scene. The design guidelines proposed by the author are also of great reference significance to us, because their common ground is to accurately convey information to users in the same sensory function.

On this basis, we have to mention the Voice-User Interface(VUI), a voice platform that makes human interact with computer. Nielsen also mentioned that the VUI is very suitable for the cases that the users can’t see because of the disabilities or other issues[1]. It also has been widely used in products, such as the Microsoft Windows, Car Navigation, Android and OS etc. There are some practical tips should be informed for our design as well:

1. Simple and conversational communication.
2. Confirm of the finished task.
3. A personality of the VUI.

Dunai, Larisa ; Lengua, Ismael ; Peris-Fajarnés, Guillermo ; Brusola, Fernando: Virtual Sound Localization by Blind People, Archives of Acoustics, 2015, Vol.40(4), pp.561-567

In addition to designing a game with a new experience for the blind, the original intention of our project is more important to help them train their hearing ability. The hearing ability is such important that it enables them perceive the environment, predict the danger and localizing, etc.The level of this sensory function largely determines the quality of their lives. Therefore, we wish our game could contribute to improve this ability.However, at that stage, we have not yet sought theoretical support for our will. For instance, can hearing ability be improved through training? Will our game settings have a positive effect on this? Fortunately, all our concerns have been confirmed in this article. At first, they demonstrated the blind people have a better performance on localizing sound than sighted people. In addition, through the experiment, the authors concluded that the blind can interpret the sound in the real environment more effectively after practice with the headphone. Sound sources in real life are often confusing because they are mixed with noise and the sound is mobile. However, after training in an ideal environment with earphones, the blind people's recognition of the sound source in the interference environment has also improved. In short, all kinds of theoretical support and experimental verification ensure the theoretical support and significant meaning of our project.

2.Published Games

At present, there are not many games specially developed for the blind, the American Foundation for the Blind website(https://www.afb.org/node/16207/games-and-activities) listed some typical games, which mainly consists of two types: the haptic physical game, and the auditory electronic games. For the former, most of them are card and chess board games, players mainly distinguish game objects through different touch senses. For the latter, the game mode is mainly to let users make direction and simple decision-making promptly changes through voice or vibration information. A more complicated video street fighter game (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX0oPwQPo9A) provides the player a training mode to remember the attack sounds of different characters, in this way the player can imagine what his opponent is doing. It inspires us a lot that we can apply a similar training model to help the player get familiar with the different sound effects as well. In addition, a game with a storyline published by Tencent(https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1003921/new-tencent-games-highlight-challenges-of-visual-impairment) provide us reference to set up game flow and voice cues.

I mentioned the potential safety issue before that waving a weapon by the people cannot see could hurt others or themselves, as well as the big movements could let them fall down. I came out another possible interactive way that the users can hold a gun and just pull the trigger towards the direction where the enemy attack sound come out. In this way, the users could avoid large movements. To achieve this, i thought of the infrared remote control. In this way, i could just put 4 receiver in the four directions and then control them by the remote. To verify my idea, i tried to use Arduino to practice it.

I pressed the up button on the remote and then the light on.

I pressed the down button on the remote and then the light off.

It seems it's a feasible way to realise our functions. But there's still a concen that will the four receiver in the four directions mess up when i just use one remote to control all of them? Although i learned that i can abstract the value of each button and then control different receivers with different buttons. I will collect the other three receivers from my teammate and verify this later.

This week in the studio, we learned more about the report proposal by the desconstrctions, and also the methods for user discovery.

Observation & Methods

Team Miro Board

Before this session, one of my biggest conern is the accessible to my target users. It's not so easy to get in touch personally with blind groups, not to mention the current virus ourbreak. However, i was clear how to carry on this part after the class and the conversation with Lorna. Firstly, we can look for the support groups and community organisations online, like i can contact them on the facebook. And then, when it comes to the user testing session, i could use proxy users if i have tried my best to find my target users and failed. The proxy users can be our peers who get blindfloded. I think the next step is to do some research about the precautions talking to the blind people and then find related groups online. Luckily, there are some in the Facebook.

This journal should have been completed by the 5th week, but i had too much work to do in that week, like the thesis proposal and team proposal for this course, then i deciedd to fetch up during the mid-term break.

In week 5, the main work done was about the team proposal. We firstly disussed the requirements and allocated the tasks for each member. And then mainly discussed our pitch feedback for refinement and inspiration.

There are some quite appealing suggestion, however we had to consider the technology restriction. The concept of our existing functions was already very complicated, which has made us face great challenges to realize. After discussing the relevance and feasibility of the suggestion, we selected some areas that requires more attention:

Safety Issues: There are some potential danger, as the player may hurt others or themselves when waving the game prop. In the case of invisibility, the players may fall as well.

Headphone: Actually, i thought about using the headphone to simulate the sounds from different directions. However, at that time i was not sure can me make sound from different directions in the headphone, and how can i connect the headphone with Arduino. It seems easier to connect Arduino with four independent speakers. But we'd like to figure out is the headphone a better choice.

Haptic Feedback: It's definitely a great choice，as various interactions would make the game more intereesting. But the additional feedback must be reasonable, as it's meaningless if just add a vibration when there's already sound feedback.

For the individual focus, i was mainly responsible for the related work searching, Arduino programing and building, as well as the physical construction.

I come out using another Arduino kits to realise our functions.

When i was trying to figure out the safety issues,the first thought was to make the weapon with a soft material, then somehow i remembered the live shootout game. The player can send a signal by pulling the gun trigger, and the body armor can receive the signal. If i make our weapon a signal transmitter just like the remote controllor, and then it can not only realise our functions but also figure out the potential danger when waving the weapon with srenuous movement. In this case, i can just put 4 Infrared reveiver in the four directions and then a remote can interact with them. What's more, i learned that the differenet buttons on the remote can also be detected. So it can implement multiple functions at the same time, for example start/pause the game, make different reactions.

Fire safety using audiometrics

Cannot touch and use the real concrte tools via phone, since there could be a gap when it comes to reality from the virtual environment. It could be more interesting if it combines with the VR or AR, which can reconstrct the realy world.

Housework

Should avoid the potential dangers. Competion can be a motivation for housework. Projector seems can be placed by VR for more interesting contents.

Emotional birds

I was thinking people's emotion at one time can be complex, for example i can be angry, regretful and overwhelmed at one time. So a mixed input and output can be considered.

Zoomista

People could have different feeling at one color, and it could annoy people when making sound in the public.

Brotherhood

A sudden sound in the public could annoy the others, and the aggressive words might offend people.

Garfunkel

The interaction seems single and simple. And it would be annoying when everything can make a sound.

Twisted

A penalty can be added when the users have a wrong try. And how about use different auditory for feedback.

Lome

Are the 9 years old chiled the best target users? Should research about educational background to find out what kind of contens suit for which group best. Also it could be more resaonable if there is a feedback for the wrong try.

Idea selection

After we formed the team, the first step was to determine the basic final direction would carry on. First, each of us shared our personal pitch and then looked through other peers' ideas in this domain. For each idea, we talked about three aspects: the relavance to our domain; the feasibility to realise; is it interesting or meaningful. Some ideas seem have been achieved by existing technology,some are irrelevant to this domain. During the discusssion, we misunderstanded this domain at first, but after talking to Lorna, we clearly knew what"Ability-centric interactions" stands for. We're supposed to create some specifc and exclusive ability related things for its specifc target, for example, we can think about what ability or demand the deaf people need.That's just similar to the idea in my pitch. At last we agreed to carry on my swordman hearing game.

Team meeting

We had the first meeting on the Zoom. I led this meeting as the creator for the original idea. Based on what we got now, i listed three main questions for idea extension:

1. What other forms can it be?
2. What interactions can be added?
3. What technology can we use for each functions?

Through these question,we then came out lots of great ideas:

1. Infrared beam to detect the movement;
2. Photorersistance to detect the movement;
3. Add plot to this game;
4. Use the disturbing sound to increase game difficult level, like the wind and rain. We can even simulate the rain and wind by water spraying and fan.

Below is the note of team meeting.

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

Sassy tech

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

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

Musical metric

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

Ability-centric

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

Pitch Reflection

This week,i was excited to hear my peers' pitch. It's always great to see what others' thinking. Thanks a lot to Lorna and all the teaching crew for giving us remote students the chance to participate in all the activities via Zoom and Slack.Thre are really some interesting ideas apeal to me.

The Musician theme is quite interesting. I love music, especially when i am im room alone, takaing a shower, doing homeword, i'd like to play some music. And i also thought about visulising the audio myself during my DECCO 7230 course. At that time i planned to design a visulised a music band by VR. The player can direct the music band as a cunductor.In a word, music visulisation is a appealing theme deserve to be developed.

I aslo like the Guide Shoews, because it sounds could really solve the daily problem for the blind people. We are all considered the blind people. This is a more practical tool to make their life convinient, and mine is game, focusing more on entertainment. However, when it comes to this shoes, all the notifications, like changing directions and telling obstacles are in the form of vibration, which could probably cause misunderstanding. And what if there were a indicator telling them all the stuffs around them, not just the obstacles.

There are many other interesting ideas, and i changed my initial view in the process of listing to others' pitches. Every time when i started to generate new designning ideas, like this time, i always thought about these ideas can sovle some practial problems. However, i suddenly realised that this thinking pattern limited my imagination. Just because of this kind of "finding out problem and solving it" mode, i cannot create some crazy ideas, but that just what this course expect us to generate. Crazy idea always sounds unrealistic or even stupid to me, but i realise i was wrong beacuse it's always the crazy idea can make innovations and changes.

Hello everybody,this is shawn. I'm very glad to share my concept to you. What i wish to create is a body sensing game, which is especially designed for the blind people. The initial intention was from a youtuber, Bertolt Meyer, who's born without an arm, but made himself a mechanical synthetic arm to satisfy all his needs, including his love of music. I was touched and inspired by him and wanted to design something for the disabled to make their life more convinient or bring them more happinese.And then i thought of a Marvele series : the daredevil and a movie"Zatoichi". The two main character are all blind, but they can see the world more clearly by their hightened sense of hearing. And then, back to the reality, i realized that the blind people can't feel the world as the superheroes. And their hearing level, one of the most important sense,directly affects their standard of living. Hence, here comes my design concept. I wish to create an interactive game , which is not only interesting but also can help train the listening ability. This is a somatic game that the player plays a blindfold swords man to defend against attack from different directions by soud. To be prepared , the player has to put on headset, hold a sword, which contains a sensor to capture movement and get blindfolded. When ready, the headset will randomly play the sound of enemy attacks from four directions, the front, back, left and right. Then the player needs to make different moves to attack or defense against enemy. For example, if the sound comes from the front, the player has to swing the sword forwards. And different guesture will handle attacks from different directions accordingly. In addition, there will be 3 modes: normal, hard and infinite to enhance playability and challenge. In different mode, speed and frequency of enemy's attack will change. So, basically, that's all my concept. Hope you like it ,Thanks for listening and please don't hesitate to critique.

Inspiration

Inspired and touched by Bertolt Meyer, who's born without an arm and armed with a mechanical synthetic one. I wnat to create something for the disabled people to make their life convinient or bring them happinese.Since they may enjoy less because of their physical conditions or the shortage of special designed products.I'm not sure whether my language or thoughts being rude, but i have no intention of offending.

Another inspiration is the trailer of a Marvel TV series i just saw, DareDevil.

The protagonist became blind because of an accident, but at the same time he gained heightened senses, which makes him can "see" the world even more clearly by echo.Even without vision, he can sense the world in a higer level by hearing.Back to normal life,auditory is one of the most important sense for the bline people. With more sensitive hearing ability, they can feel and react to the life more easier.At this point,i easily think of a popular game i played.

How to play: The plyer blindfoled, and try to hit another player by hearing their movements. It sounds easy, but when you cannot see anything, you start to realise that how dark and how difficult to sense the others. From this, we could know how important for the blind people to have a sensitive arditory.

My Design

I want to create a game for the blind people, which could also help them train their hearing. Of course, it can be played by other players.

The overall concept is to let the players make differnet reacts to sound from different directions. I call the game "Zatoichi"(It comes from the Japanese moovie:The blind swordsman:Zatoichi).The swordsman is superb，so as his hearing. And the player in the game will hold a sword to react to attacks from different directions.

Be prepared: Put on headset; Hold the sword(sensor in it); Get blindfolded

When the game begin, the headset will randomly play the sound of enemy attacks from the front, back, left and right. The player has to make different moves to handle attacks. For example, when the attack sound comes from the front, player has to swing sword forward. So as the attacks from other directions, but the gesture will be different accordingly.

I wish this game would bring fun to all the players. For the blind, they can train their hearing sense as well.

Due to the travel ban, i can't back to school untill week 3. To be honest, I have never been so eager to return to the classroom. Studying remotely and isolatly makes me feel restlessly that i'm afraid i would miss something due to not fully engaged. Luckily,two weeks are not that long.

What is conjured up when you hear “Physical Computing & Interaction Design”?

I think it could be a advanceed design project, a grand challenge to me as well. This course would foucus on "Physical" and "Computing", the former could invovle Arduino things, need more handwork, and must contain circuits. The latter must be aboout programming, which i fear most.I have participated too much in the activities without programming in my previous projects. Less practise results in my unfamiliar with programming. I wish i could be skilled with one programmming language. But what i feel most excited about is the physical part. Creating a physical and sophisticated product can bring me more sense of fullfillment.

What is physical computing?

In the first class, we viewed some examples of physical computing design. I think they all meet the requirementss. First, they all contain novel physical interactions, which are nothing normal. The interesting operations come from computing as well. And then, their positive intentions meant to sovle problems or enhance interest in our daily life. To sum up, we are supposed to create some novel physical interactions by computing and hardware to enhance human values in the everyday life.

Among the design shared by peers, i love this backpack robot most.This extra arms can help you complete task together in case you need a help. What's more, it can be controled remotely by your friend, friend can see what you are doing through a camera and operate the arm. It's not only sci-fic, but also practical.We always need a hand in the daily.For example when we replacing a bad lam. And the remote control function is pretty useful as well. It reminds me of the Arduino course last semester, it would be convinient if there were a friend help me figure out my problem remotely when i got stuck, instead of guiding me by audio,which caused many misunderstanding. I find myself prefer those cool design with practical meaning.

The other design inspires and touched me a lot is this positive "synth man". He's born without an arm, but this never beat him, instead he works even harder for the things useful and interest him. He's armed with an mechanical arm, which can be controlled by the signal pulse from his muscle. And he loves music,so then upgrade and plug his arm into a synth.The idea and design is pretty cool, his positive spirit is even more inspiring.But at the same time, i think of those disabled people, not every one is equiped with this advanced equipment as him. But they deserve to live a convinient life and pursue their hobbies as others. But the fact is that not everyone could afford such expensive products, and there are not as many as products designed for them.Since then, i generated a strong willing to design something for them this semster, I wish i could come out something would make their live convinient or entertainment device to bring them happiness.

7 HCI GRAND CHALLENGE

My grand challenge is Human-Tecnology sysmbiosis.From my perspective, there are two main concerns. The first is that the human should be the host totally. That means we should control the technology. Since the technology has been growing too smart that they can even thinking on their own way, they could do things without letting us know. This causes human be isolated out of the control loop.

And another thing is that to let the technology live with us together. They should meet the our needs in every possible way. As the technology updating and the society changing.People’s needs are constantly changing, and even tricky. That requires the technology find out and meet our needs in all the way. For example, the initial mobile phone can be only used for calling and messaging, but the smart phone now can do all the things we want.

Hi everyone, i am Shuang Wu,this is my second and last year of my Interaction Design period. I really enjoy every semester working with teaching staffs and my peers, which teaches and inspires me a lot. Through every courses and projects i went through, i find myself getting addicted to the process of findng problems and solving them. Every final products created step by step makes me fullfilled. At the same time, the improvement i made gradually motivates me to continue working hard.These are all very positive virtuous cycles. However, all these comes from the hardership. Interaction design was a total new major to me, i didn't have any skill related to it. There were too many times i wished i had mastered some skills. Plus my unskilled english.Every semester means a challenge to me as well. Fortunately，i made it, and with joy. Now, the most pround progress i made is my familiar with the whole design process. I even led several projects as a team leader. I found myself better at generating inspirations, problem soslving and user connecting paart.Part of the reason behind it is that i want to force myself to communicate with others to overcome my fear of making expression mistakes. However, that led the less participation in programming part. For the new semester, i wish i could do more technology work. By the way, the new physical operation in this course appeals to me. Just can't wait to begin.

(Sorry for the late submission of my Week 1 Journal. Because of the travel ban, i'm in Thailand now for 14 days isolation. Things didn't go well as expected, like lacking conversion plug and the broken routers in my room...Too many to complain! But i won't miss any assessment any more.)