Author: pinkkk

pinkkk-facereadings

"expression alone is sufficient to create marked changes in the autonomic nervous system. "

I'm most intrigued by this idea that a simple movement of our facial muscle actually influence our biological state. Yet overdoing an expression can leave trauma. The fact that if you smile too much, you get a disorder named smile mask disorder if the reason behind your smiles was unnatural, i.e. smiling because your boss told you too. I'm very interested in exploring creating motivations for people to have certain facial expression that leave them with change of their mental state.
From the talk by Joy Buolamwini,

The theme of what you do not see can matter more than what you do see is echoed throughout this talk. This is something I definitely did not recognize and was made aware of, and I am very glad that now I know this issue.

pinkkk-mobiletelematic

Summary: A digital pet co-parenting app

https://glitch.com/~doggo-simulator


This project is ... 

This app targets couples who are thinking of getting a dog, and I was inspired by my own concerns over couples adopting / purchasing dogs in the midst of covid loneliness. I am afraid that a lot of pets will be abandoned once the virus is no longer present, and people's lives will be back to normal. A lot of people have no real idea of the work behind taking care of a dog, so I wanted to have this experience simulation that let a couple recognize if they are both ready for the responsibility.
My Reflection on this Project

I had a lot of fun making this project, and creating the assets for the interface, also the exposure to backend server and database was much appreciated. I always wanted to explore backend but procrastinated to do so until this project asked me to! Overall I'm pretty happy with how it turned out given the time constraint of the project.

My project touches on mainly touches on the following theme: Asynchronous vs. synchronous: Do the two people collaborate simultaneously, or at different times? By design, it is most likely that people will be collaborating asynchronously in this app, remembering about their digital pet at different times throughout the day. The record keeping feature highlights how many times did they each individually contribute to the well-being of the digital pet.

Selected Assets 

 

 

 

pinkkk-SoliSandbox

The Windshield Wiper

For full documentation of my struggles, please see this:

https://medium.com/@xinrant/soli-project-a230e872fddf

In this project I want to create a humorous simulation of driving without a destination while keep on getting random nasty objects thrown on your windshield, which users can respond by the hand swipe gesture to activate the windshield wipers. 

It's meant to be fun and entertaining that users can engage in to release some stress from being inside ~the whole time~.

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Image for postJust driving

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I learned a lot in this project, mainly how I struggle forever to implement the most simple things. My lack of control over the medium  shook me.

Project on Glitch

 

 

 

 

pinkkk-soli-checkin

This is aimed to simulate the illusion of driving and having random stuff that comes in the way, and users can activate the windshield wiper by the hand swiping gesture.

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Currently I'm battling with the swiping effect. Also, this whole thing is just super ugly. I'm planning to add a lot more looping details to the background.

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This is what I'm going for, aesthetically speaking.

 

 

 

pinkkk-soli-sketches

The first two ideas are entirely visual and responds to the hand swiping motion.

 

 

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For this one, I think there are lots of opportunities for details to animate the tilt of boat, ripples in the water, rising sun, etc.

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I wanted to have random nasty things thrown on the car window, and users can activate the car wiper by hand swiping motion.

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This concept incorporates presence, swipe, and time. Users start with an egg that will eventually hatch with ones presence, which will also impact the background color to become warmer (the eggs need to be kept warm for them to hatch). Once the egg hatches, the user can interact with little ducklings with hand swiping gestures to play. The duckling needs a certain amount of love and care to mature. Lastly, when the duck grows up, it will lay eggs and users can choose to restart the game by clicking on an egg. Or, users can remain in this stage and interact with grown duck.

 

 

 

 

pinkkk-CriticalInterface

 (To) interface is a verb (I interface, you interface ...). The interface occurs, is action.

-Be gentle with your keyboard, after 70 years typewriting your fingers will appreciate it. 

-Change the keyboard settings to one that doesn't match the images printed on your keys. Once you get used to it, change again. 

-Do not click today.
 I find this to be most interesting because it fundamentally challenges my understanding of an interface. I have always thought of "interface" as something on FIGMA that the design team passes on to the front-end team to implement. It's something that's for sure comes to life from static pixels to interactive components of a live app, but I've never thought of the word as a verb. The level of familiarity that I have with having interfaces in every moment, every angle of my life, has made me forget that the word "interface" is not just a noun before "interface designer", it's what I interact with and what I need as I am typing down this particular letter. These are all interfaces, but I've forgot about their existence because of how they are well integrated in me.

 

pinkkk-lookingoutwards03

This project called Programmable Droplets for Interaction is created by the MIT media lab's Tangible Media group.

LINK

It uses the technique called “electrowetting on dielectric” (EWOD) to create controllable droplets that can be translating, morphing, merging, and splitting multiple droplets simultaneously.



The concept is to utilize something so ordinary in our daily lives to function as information display, and one of the possible way to integrate it in our daily life is demonstrated by the GIF below. The droplet can be used to create "handwritten", thus becoming an extension of us to simulate human actions without us being physically there, yet delivering a similar level of authenticity and love we wish to convey.



It intrigues me because of the simplicity and beauty of the droplets, as well as the poetic concept. The level of control we can control and simulate an organic and delicate substance in our lives fascinates me.

 

 

pinkkk-clock

From the very beginning, I wanted to do something related to typography since I am a graphic/communications design major. My previous attempt involved me actually coding up complex typographic shapes, which actually not surprisingly, given my current computational skillset, I ended up with truly ugly looking type.

With Golan’s guidance, I scratched my previous exploration and started fresh. This time I learned that even simplicity is extremely hard to control well.

My final approach uses 10 letters from A to I to denote the numbers {0,1, …, 9}. One challenge Golan suggested was to limit my choice of graphic shapes that I can use to build the letters to make it interesting.

A to I + Z

@12:34

Aside from my interest in typography, I also really wanted to take this project to practice my basic drawing and animations skills. How can I construct 9 letter with only 3 rectangles?

By limiting my graphic shapes, the opportunity for smooth interpolation between the letters arose. Even though it took my forever to get to here, and I am still not satisfied with the occasional glitches, but overall, I learned a ton of basic skills through this project.

@07:45

There is definitely a lot lacking that I can keep working on and improve on, and I hope someday that I can actually design and implement my own generative / computational typography.

@06:50

___________________________________________

After receiving feedback, I realized that my animation is not as good as it should be, and the letters will form ACAB at 13:12 in the afternoon. So I expanded my alphabet to A to L, and now the hour can be represented by a single letter. I also added the seconds digits so it’s less boring to look at. Unfortunately, I do not have time to improve my animation before the final deadline, therefore I took out the animations.

CODE