MASK_04 – Duet

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Fourth of MASK collection – Duet

Story

It’s a remedy mask for two people who hesitate to talk to each other. Separated from outside world with the mask, users sit with legs crossed, face to face, and communicate with each other through smiles. It’s for the eager of communicating without seeing each other’s face yet still feeling the intimacy. In the virtual world, users are surrounded by huge monsters, who will help the remediation process.

Features

  • Two-people, foldable accordion origami mask
  • Portable intimate space
  • Self-made surface mounted circuit board as Muscle Sensor * 2
    • One for each users
    • For detecting the muscle on face. In this scenario, will be used to detect Zygomaticus major muscle, which is associated with smiling

 

Content Test

 

Fabrication Process

Small scale paper testing (Thank Origami master Uttam for the help!) 

Then use mylar sheet for the final material. Got an angel helper Gladys!

Test putting it on two people! Need to add paper in the bottom part to increase the distance between two users, allowing the space for sitting with legs crossed face to face comfortably

MASK_03 – Puppet

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Third of MASK collection – Puppet

Story

It’s a puppet mask that speaks for you when you are not in the mood of socializing but still wanting to be nice. It also helps you to escape the real world, and provides temporary healthy self-pity for you to enjoy

Features

  • Nonverbal communication
  • Tunnel between real & virtual world
    • Deal with social behaviors for you
    • Take you exploring the 100% reality-unrelated world
      • Four Corners
        1. self pity zone
        2. so many escapees zone
        3. white noise zone
        4. connect to other masks

Content Test

onPuppet

Fabrication Process

Use upholstery foam as paper. Trace the pattern on the foam and cut it.

Glue them with hot glue! Perfect match with foam. Thanks for the tips from awesome Jingwen!

So many hot glue sticks to make a head.

Body without hands and legs yet.

Waiting for elastic band to assemble all together! (Look like a creepy baby)

 

MASK_02 – Hive

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Second of MASK collection – Hive

 

Story

It’s a community nest that connect people to overcome the distance. During the day, you walk and work as a worker bee. During the night, you come back to the nest and share what you got

 

Features

  • It’s a honeycomb mask
  • Two modes (switchable)
    1. Resting Mode: User is virtually situated in one cell of the honeycomb
      • See and communicate with other people, just like a video conference
      • w/ Queen & Baby larvae
    2. Working Mode: User is virtually in the air, outside the honeycomb
      • Not like in Resting Mode, the camera screen will follow the head, so the user can see and walk
      • w/ Worker

To do:

  1. Activities & interactions
    • Resting Mode – Since it’s about living as a community, what will a community usually do?
      • Vote
      • Self supply
      • Recycle
    • Working Mode – Like honeybee, workers go out to collect pollen etc
      • Activities of worker bee
        • gather pollen into the pollen baskets on their back legs
        • create wax for comb
        • feed larvae
        • guard
      • Having a swarm of worker bees with you
        • assist you
        • protect you
        • accompany you
  2. When other people connect to the Hive, the certain cell of the mask will light up, otherwise in “breathing” mode

 

Content Test

 <– Worker Bee

 

Fabrication

leftover from laser cut

version 1

version 2 – mask

so many combs and mask of Frank! (Thank you Vicci!)

 

Experiment_05

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This week I did several small tests. Mainly tech stuff. And I found out that it’s really not easy to come out a good scenario.

Wireless Wooo_v2

Realized only laptop needed to link to itpsandbox to be server, and all the phones can connect to nyu wifi and access laptop server by going to laptop’s IP address. The whole world can access my laptop if they know my IP address! So crazy!! Mind blown!!!

Virtual Arm

  • Try to figure out how to get 360 rotation from accelerometer, and magnetometer of bluetooth TI Sensor Tag.
  • So far get pitch and roll from accelerometer, and yaw from magnetometer, but works kind of weird when using all of three at the same time. Works fine if just use pitch and yaw.
  • Bluetooth data transfer is not as free as serial communication. Might have to swtich to XBee/radio?  :/

W/ projector!

  • I bought a Slimport MicroUSB to HDMI adapter cable and tested it with projectors. It didn’t work with Samsung Pico project (HDMI to VGA to VGA 15pin), which is very small. But it worked with the medium size ones (HDMI to HDMI)! 

Control Room 2.0

Following the new strategy, get one done in detailed and change based on feedback, and experiment others freely, I chose Control Room as my target mask, since it already had physical form.

Things planed to change:

  1. Daily use
    • How can it integrate into daily life? Use it in front of laptop, use it outside home?
      • –> Only one window is remote view, others all local view
      • –> Portable home: always connected with your home. So you can see/talk with family members all the time, and your pets too
      • –> Open field option of relaxing escape for daily use
    • Based on feedback from user testing, people want to see the real world more(= see more windows, e.g. be able to see their hands if they want)
      • –> More windows to see more clearly
  2. More comfortable (suggestion from teacher Despina)
    • Smell good –> To do
    • Easy to put on, pillow in the back? –> To do
    • Aim for wearing for longer time, since it represents Home
  3. Interactions
    • Self: Based on where your head turns toward to, the things in the house react to it
    • Others
      • Open the door –> explode the house

Duet

  • Senario
    • T_T so difficult
  • Tech
    • Quaternion & Euler
      • “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!  TvT” –> famous Fxck & Yeah moment
      • Spent almost three hours trying to rotate the body with quaternion, but only change rotation.y, trying to deal something looks like this , and then found out that Three.js has Euler FUNCTION that can just convert Quaternion to Euler for you. Just need the source quaternion and order of axes.
        • setFromQuaternion ( q, order )
          • q — Quaternion quaternion must be normalized
          • order — string Order of axes, defaults to ‘XYZ’
    • Head sync
    • Exchange views

As One

Idea Sketch

 

User Test_01 – NYC Computer Science, Opportunity Fair

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SO, first user test. O_O

I took the house mask and few Cardboards with me. Tons of high school kids. Fun. Exhausted. Learned a lot. And here’s the quick-&-dirty note:

  • Multiple users is definitely much more fun than just one
    • Fun to look at each other
  • People feel interesting and WOW when looked at there hands
  • Audience played with the house when there’s an user in it 
  • PORTABLE POWER SUPPLY NEEDED
    • Phone died so easily!!!
  • PHYSICAL <3<3<3
    • It’s special because it has a physical representative – House mask. People got it when realizing they are both physically and virtually in the house.
    • If choosing from Cardboard and house, people choose house
    • The acceptance to put their heads inside the mask is unexpected high

And also I found an important thing I have to always bear in mind. That is…

NOT BE JUST LIKE AN OCULUS RIFT!

–> Scenarios for daily use
–>Multi-user
–>Physical forms and input
–>Not all by yourself, but connect to other people through VR

WTF Moment_02

By jhclaura in Blog, Thesis - MASK 0 Comment

“I don’t buy your story.”

What?! What does it mean?

It seems my “design for overcoming things”, a.k.a Introversion inclination, is not strong (might because I didn’t research enough to back it up), and can’t cover/explain what I’ve done and going to do. I know it depends on what I my main desire is. But I kind of don’t know it clearly enough now…

SO. New strategy! For introvert is my original motivation, and then it gradually becomes the process of experiment, and suggest different ways to incorporate VR into daily life, with the physical medium: Mask, in two categories: functional & identity shift.

Midterm Presentation

By jhclaura in Blog, Thesis - MASK 0 Comment

Screen Shot 2015-03-10 at 9.36.49 PM( Click to see the slides for presentation<3 )

Feedback

Good to explore

  • Mask fools others, VR fools you –> reinforce each other
  • Single experience with multiple masks, all together VR (Group experience)
  • The physical input to change VR (e.g. open door of the house to change the digital content of it)
  • Use the mask to do normal things, live daily life
  • Dive in one then iterate more
  • Strong performance, theatrical element

 

Issues

  • They’re confused because they don’t really know what’s the media content they’re seeing.
  • Should show both outside and inside view at the same time
  • User scenario sketch is confusing
  • What to explore
    1. Is it an introvert experience? Feel to be an introvert?
    2. Does it connect you to other people?
    3. Does it invite others to interact?
  • The introversion can’t explain all of the project. It’s not just about you. It’s about others and so much more

 

Next steps

  • Prepare for USER TEST!
    • What to show? Short and quick?
      • 3/16, high school kids at Columbia University
      • ITP Quick DIrty Show
      • On the floor grab people when they go pass by the restroom
  • Dive in one first
    • Control Room
      • Physical input changes digital output
        • (Is it possible that digital input changes physical output?)
      • Better user scenario (more than kid building his/her own castle, ppl don’t buy it)
      • Be more able to walk smoothly ( Tested on 3/10 by myself)
      • The distance between user’s eyes and phone in real world, is different from the distance between user’s eyes and eyesight plane in the virtual world :
      • Couldn’t find out the usage to import other video feed yet
      • Daily life use possibilities
        • For now, the mask’s appearance is LOUD, and the content inside is also LOUD
  • Iterate more
    • People are interested in
      • Two people
      • Group (as a single AR effect though)
      • Nonverbal Mask
      • Projector Mask