7 Donkeys and 1 Unicorn
Honestly this title is misleading, it should really read 8 donkeys but adding unicorn leads you to think I may have hit the jackpot in ideas. So what follows are 8 very mediocre-wanna-be-unicorns ideas but we all have to start somewhere right?
1 | The most beautiful Nonverbal Donkey to ever live.
I have always been fascinated with the way people think, do, communicate. However, I recently became obsessed how to we communicate nonverbally. It has been found that 80% of what we communicate is through nonverbal cues; so how we use our body, the tone in our voices, how we touch someone, how far away we are when communicating, the environments around us. All of these visual cues help us communicate. And just by being humans, socially we are always in tune in figuring out what people mean by all these different factors in the communication which can create some of the best experiences in our life and some of the worst. We can’t not communicate. And we can’t not try to decipher it - it is in our biology. I am interested in how our emotions project onto others. In the form of an installation, I want to evoke a question that not asks you to decipher but to ask yourself how you communicate and is it efficient. So in terms of no creative constraint, I want to create an installation that prompts a user to say a phrase that can evoke different connotations to different people something like “I love you.” Through facial recognition that deciphers 20 different facial features to emotions, the mirror will come back and ask a question based on the facial emotion made during the interaction. Note: this mirror would be blacked out so the user could not see ones face.
2 | The long distance relationship donkey living in a technology world.
To continue on the same topic of nonverbal communication, I present an idea of connecting people through the nonverbal experience through haptic interfaces. Originally I sought this idea to help connect families (for whatever reason) that have been separated possibly by economic, political, etc issues. Although there are other wearables that are out on the market that have a similar why, I think the design and execution of these products could be better. Most are mechanic, just these technological objects that feel cold. My take on the issue is that there is sense of emotion that is not being fulfilled by either that parent, child, or spouse not being present. So why not put the emotion back into these wearables and create a wearable product that creates that warm fuzzy you get when you are hugged, kissed, squeezed by that special person. However, I want to focus on parent/child interaction. What are the psychological impacts to an individual who is separated from their parent/child and how can those impacts be solved by a wearable?
3 | The inspiring donkey in a STEAM world.
Not only am I interesting in how humans communicate, I am interested in how they tick. Ever since I could remember, I have always wanted to help people. Obviously then, it was more on the terms of what a 5 year old could do but I had no idea it could possibly be through design and technology. I would say I had the girl version of legos… more organic shapes and of course an array of pink and purple pieces, of course. In all, I loved building and designing. Even though I knew there was opportunity in fields where I could design and build products, I just didn't really realize the actual expanse of it. So I have this deep passion to express to girls that going into the technology world has so much to offer than being good at math or loving robots but can be connected to fields of design whether it be interior, fashion, fabrication, textural. And now, there are infinite resources that can get girls there. So I propose a public installation that could possibly teach girls about these opportunities on a surface level but they leave with questions of wanting to know more which I think can be very impactful. Just having that little spark to understand why can go a long way. So through this installation, I would want to tell the story of a young girl engineer (possibly based on someone or totally fictional) that brings together her passions in both design and technology through interactive activities to tell her story.
4 | The Love Donkey in a mechanic world.
An installation on speed dating to evoke thought on the question: Is our conscious ideal interrupting our actions and spontaneity be in control of our relationships in life? This could take the form of filling out criteria for your ‘soulmate’ on a screen. When the user is prompted to submit the form for the perfect partner it will pop up with an error message leaving them with a message that confronts the problem with the conscious ideal because possibly our actions define who we are, not our words or in this case our criteria.
5 |
Create an interactive book that teaches girls the power of computing in the realms of design and fashion and other topics steer away from tradition forms of the industry. This proposal is to prompt and inspire and ideally ignite a spark in young girls that deter from a future in computing due to the daunting ‘requirements’ that have historically been grouped in the industry. By creating a story that also prompts users to be interactive in activities gives this playful and fun learning aspect to a rather important question for girls futures. Combined with design aesthetic and technology to create just one solution to the problem of why girls steer away from computing.
6 |
Similar to the idea above, but in the form of creating a kit geared towards the girl perspective. I work for the National Center for Women in Information Technologies and a big problem I see is that we are using generous amounts of allocated money from sponsors to make ‘print’ resources. One it is a waste of money and a huge on environmental impact. Imagine if we could create an interactive experience for all these resources. It could be an experience that could really help spark an interest in young girls lives over the current retable material.
7 |
Same topic as the two ideas above, I propose a tangible game that also teaches young girls about the power of computing and design as well as giving a background to the women who created the path for others. This game would include user research to determine what the best way to create for the demographic in order to educate while having fun.
8 |
In high school, I worked with a group of students who had cognitive disabilities so would like to explore the benefits of color theory and art therapy in products that could ultimately help stabilize emotions in a chaotic atmospheres.