Overview
Honor's project spanning two semesters.Team: Aleksandra Skibicki, Jenny Thai
The use of online social networks - such as Facebook and Twitter - connect us with "everyone" yet at the same time leads to a loss of intimate connections between close friendships and other relationships. While the nature of these networks facilitate surface level communication, K.I.T enables deeper communication through better expressing emotions. Emotion is important for everyday social interaction and brings value and life to communication. The users' emotions are shared on a visual online network that is private and represents emotional histories over time.
Our aim is to reconnect close relationships and provide better emotional health, support, and awareness.
Process
This project started off with research, brainstorming, ideation phases and discussion. We looked into the areas of data visualization, tangible objects, and emotions as separate topics to explore. We ended up combining these into what is now the Keep In Touch project. The first phase of the project was mainly research into precedents, examples, people and emotions. There was a brainstorm that was conducted and also a survey that explored peoples emotions, communication methods/desires, and some critique on our project. This assisted us with a better focus on what was important, valuable and what to proceed with. We did physical prototyping, research on Arduino, sensors and physical models.Result
We ended up with a working prototype that connected between Arduino and Flash. Our project was one of six that were chosen to represent SFU at the Made in Brunel Exhibition in London, UK. This is a exhibition of Brunel University along with 4 other invited international universities:* Tsinghua University, China
* The Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India
* The Rhode Island School of Design, USA
* Simon Fraser University, School of Interactive Arts + Technology, Canada