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Happy Spotify Mirror

Yan Zhao

Happy Spotify Mirror is a smart mirror that can be triggered by smile to play spotify music and light up. The idea of this project is to break the traditional way of how to play online music and explore a different way of interaction between people and computer.

http://yanzpro.com/happyspotify

Description

Happy Spotify Mirror is an experiment of exploring new interaction methods between people and computer.It will be displayed as a one-way through mirror with a monitor hidden at the back. At the first glance, it looks the same as a normal mirror. The special about it is it is an interactive mirror with music, graphic effect and lighting. It can play spotify music but is differ from the traditional way of playing online music; instead of screen interface, spotify app, or physical button, there is only a mirror for interaction. The only way to trigger it is to stand inside of specific distance and then smile to the mirror and hold the smile for seconds, then the music will be triggered, at the same time on the mirror will appear interesting graphics synching with the music. Lighting effect synching with the music will also happen around the mirror. If you want to change the music, go back to straight face and then smile again, you will change it to play another music. . If you keep the same smile after the music is triggered, you will see different colorful graphic effects. If you have different levels of smile, different music played by different instruments will be triggered. For example, if you are little happy, it is piano, if you are happier, it is ukulele. If you are very happy, it will be violin. Also when you change the distance from the mirror, you will change the volume of the music. For example, if you move towards the mirror, the volume will be louder, vice versa. In conclusion, the Happy Spotify Mirror is experimenting on making the interaction between people and computer much more interesting, natural and minimizing the perceptible invasiveness of computer.

Classes

Introduction to Computational Media, Introduction to Physical Computing

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Poetic Journey

Nai-Chen Yang, Yan Zhao

An interactive installation using Tang Dynasty poetry to bring viewers traveling through the spiritual life of Ancient China.

http://www.ync616.com/2015/12/06/physical-computing-final-project/

Description

The Tang Dynasty is recognized as the Golden Age of Chinese poetry. Wen Ting-Yun’s poem “Setting Out Early from Mount Ding” exemplifies the Tang tradition in its 3rd and 4th sentences, only constiting of six nouns: 雞聲(rooster-crowing),茅店(thatched inn),月(moon), 人跡(track), 板橋(plank bridge), and 霜(frost). Even through these few words, Wen Ting-Yun vividly evokes a traveler’s mood via excellent inverted sentences and elegant parallel construction.

Our physical computing project is an installation showing the beauty of this Tang poem in an interactive way. It includes a screen, a scrolling mechanism (made by an RFID reader) and six stamps (made by RFID tags) with words. If the viewer stamps the words in order on the paper from the scrolling mechanism, they can rebuild the spot of the poem on the screen and witness the spiritual life of the Tang Dynasty. In the end, the viewer can keep the poem they recreate and take it away as a souvenir.

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing