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The Friendship Game

Chunhan Chen, Olivia Kung, Tianyi Xie

Test your friendship with your closest friend or the stranger closest to you by selecting shapes that represent how you feel about a given emotion.

http://tianyix.hosting.nyu.edu/blog/ipc/the-friendship-game-a-simple-two-players-interaction/

Description

We wanted to explore the complicated nature of friendship in a game-like way. Abstract shapes and vague questions represent the disconnect that two people may have while thinking about the same question. The friendship tests gamifies the difficulty that it can be to achieve common ground and eventually friendship between two people who have alternate perspectives.

This project requires two players, that may be strangers or the closest of friends, to put their new or old found friendship to the ultimate test. The players will be provided with five identical shape halves. Then they will be given a series of questions related to their feelings on select emotions. All it takes are three correct matches for the players to be rewarded in friendship and candy.

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing, Introduction to Physical Computing

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Breathenage

Wenjing Liu

A set of meditating tool that resonates with user's breath, help them breathe more consciously and calm them down

https://jingdezign.wordpress.com/2018/12/05/research-on-breathing-for-project3-breathing-cave/

Description

Breathing is an action that is vital to our lives yet often ignored by us. We get so used to it that we forget we are actually controlling it constantly, nevertheless to remember how important it is. Breathing is our life instinct. It is one of the signs that we are still present at this world. The way we breathe will also affect our internal state.

But today people, especially those in the cities, are live in such a hectic lifestyle that many of us are experiencing more and more anxiety, stress and even insomnia. We are so busy in interacting with different external things that we forget to interact with ourselves.

Hence I set out to design Breathenate to help people interact with themselves through breathing — to slow down, to be more self-aware, to focus on the present and let the tension flows. Functional wise, it is a set of tool that mirrors user’s breath pattern and guides them breathe deeper and slower. Eventually, it might help users (including me!) build up a good breathing habit.

The piece consists of 2 parts:
– A soft waistband that can detect user’s breath pattern using stretch sensor and will instruct them how to breathe through vibration motors
– A balloon that will inflate and deflate in responding to user’s breathing pattern

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing

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wings(wearable)

Fenfen CHEN

Use the power of your muscle to control your own wings

https://wp.nyu.edu/fenfenrita/category/pcomp/

Description

Imagine you have a pair of wings，you can control it with the power of your muscle.
When tense muscle , the wings will flap and different feather layers will move up and down.
When muscle release，the wings will stop gradually.
It is wearable finally…

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing

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Escape the Cave

Topher Blair

A creature has been caught in a cave, and if you help him get out he'll give you a code to discover treasure!

https://www.topherblair.com/physcomp-blog-1/

Description

You find a poor creature trapped on a video screen. It has fallen down a cave and got stuck. To free it, you need to squeeze its feet in the correct order, at which point it jumps out of the video screen and onto the wall behind it (with the help of a projector). On the wall behind it are written 10 digits. The creature hops on three of the digits, highlighting them. Those digits help you to unlock a box filled with treasure.

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing

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Maverick Flow

Qice Sun

A water flow is often thought-provoking and this time you will meet and interact with a maverick one.

physical-computing-final-maverick-flow

Description

Maverick Flow is an installation where users will interact, by means of eye or head movement, with a water flow that move abnormally due to the application of temporal aliasing. The users will kneel before the installation and the water flow will react to their eye movement. There will be 2 types of control built into the system. The 1st type of control will only change the frequency of the strobbing lights, but the user might be deceived and believe that he changed the way the water actually moves while they didn’t. For example, the water might stay in the air or levitate according to vertical eye movements. The 2nd type of control will genuinely change the way the water moves. They are welcomed to touch the water to witness the collision of what they see and what things really are. I don’t really want to be specific about what the piece is really about because I’ve heard some unique and yet great interpretations during user testings. For example, one of my classmates believes that nature is observing and interacting with us and she thought this what the piece is about. I really enjoy this kind of interpretation, so I want to be less explicit in the tile of description. But as an audience of my own work, I think it can serve as a comment on our excessive belief on things that we see, and the assumption of “Seeing is believing”. Although the topic is universal and even philosophical, it is becoming more relevant and popular nowadays as AI-powered video manipulation arouse public concerns. There might be a time when we can’t even trust what is happening right in front of our eyes.

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing

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Sound of Water

Xiaotong Ma

Sound instrument

http://xiaotong.hosting.nyu.edu/physical-computing/pc-week11-final-project-process/

Description

This project is basically a sound instrument which based on a very simple principle: air resonance. The sound changes according to the movement of the person. The sound is generated by solenoids, but people can affect the water in the container to reach as same height as where their hands are. and at the same time affects the pitch of the sound. So what I want to do is a more fun instrument, and it can also be understanded as a kind of interaction between human and natural sound.

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing

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Above the Cloud

Mingna Li, Yuanyuan Wang

A magical instance to connect with outer-space creature (alien).

https://

Description

This project is inspired by our interest in magic, and we want to create a scenario that human can communicate with the unknown. Through this installation, user can connect with creature-like objects through movement. In our human world, we talk in complex languages, but sometimes, unspoken language can pull our hearts even closer, such as a smile, a hug, or a moment together. This installation is intended to recreate that beautiful connection between creatures.

User wears a simple finger glove, which is an alien communication device. Then, user lies down on a cloud (a cushion that looks like cloud). There will be about 10 aliens above user mounted on a frame. When user points his/her finger to aliens, aliens will come down to user. When users points away, aliens slowly retract.

We will use IR sensor to detect whether the user is pointing at aliens. User is wearing IR emitter on the alien communication device, and aliens have IR receivers in them. Aliens are controlled by stepper motors. Pulley is attached to the stepper. When user and alien make connection, stepper releases wires and aliens move down. When the connection is lost, stepper reverses, and aliens will move back to their home.

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing, Introduction to Physical Computing

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Power Your Day With Sunlight

Emily Lin

"Power Your Day with Sunlight" is an educational tool that explains how solar panels work and how sunlight is converted into electricity.

https://emilylinprocess.blog/category/final-fall-2018/

Description

We all know what solar panels are but what do we know about how they work? The objectives for “Power Your Day with Sunlight” is to visualize the science of solar cells and better understand this modern technology. By providing the user with a hands on model people will be able to experiment with how solar cells correspond with the sun.

This project is composed of a physical interaction in which the change of the angle of the light, representing the sun and time of day, is reflective of the light generated inside the miniature solar house. Meanwhile, the screen below the house displays an interactive animation of a solar cell diagram that updates in real time based on the amount of light that the solar panels receive. Next to the screen are four buttons that will change to different web pages. The first button will display an intro page, the second one displays the solar cell schematic, the third will allow show the voltage generated by the light in the form of a moving bar graph, the fourth button displays information regarding battery storage.

On the right side, there is an LED powered button icon. When the light is shining on the solar panel, the battery icon will cyclically flash to show that it is storing the solar energy. When the light is turned off, which will automatically happen after the day has ended, the battery will discharge. At that time, the screen will show a page that discusses the current status and challenges with the development of cost-effective batteries.

This addresses the fact that large scale deployment of solar energy depends on effective methods to store the excess sunlight.

Ultimately, this project hopes to show that solar energy, despite its challenges, is sustainable and fascinating.
Process for this project can be seen here: https://emilylinprocess.blog/category/final-fall-2018/
Process videos can be seen here:

Solar Cell Diagram and Light

Switching Pages with Buttons

Drawing with Light

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing

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Reflected Landscapes

Dana Elkis, Matthew Ross

An interactive sound and light sculpture that is driven by the principles of echo, feedback and collision.

https://pinkeey9.wixsite.com/danaelkisblog/blog/pcompfinal-process-documentation

Description

Our inspiration and goal for this project is to create an effective metaphor and medium for the term echo as it relates to music. In music, echo can be defined as a “repetition or mimicking of a certain passage, usually with less force and volume than the original statement”(https://musicterms.artopium.com/e/Echo.htm) . Our goal is to give people who aren't necessarily musicians the ability to understand and engage with the principles of echo.

We have implemented this concept by building a 3 x 2ft box with a diffused window overlooking a large(700pixel) LED matrix, with 5-7 sliders that are positioned on the x and y axis of the box. As users move the sliders, they are able to “create echos” that begin spreading through the LED matrix and emit sound as they move and grow. If users move the sliders in such a way that the echos “collide” they will be absorbed into each others feedback loops, thus creating a new larger sound in the network, and introducing more complexity in the visual/audio feedback. Multiple people can be interacting with our project at once, and our goal is to create a novel experience as opposed to an instrument that one can “master”.

Echo is a powerful and compelling effect, one used universally in music and easily understood by a wide audience. As opposed to using echo as purely an effect we want to apply it as our driving artistic statement and in doing so give people the opportunity to easily participate in an engaging and playful musical experience. We are purposefully foregoing detailed instructions on how to use our creation, as our goal is to get people to explore all the possibilities within our system.

Classes

Intro to Fabrication, Intro to Fabrication, Introduction to Physical Computing