Our project aims to ease the pain of being a frustrated pedestrian. The game allows one to pleasantly and actively pass the time remaining until the alternation of the traffic signal and in addition to connect and interact with others.
Special thanks to the miLAB’s faculty: Dr. Oren Zuckerman, Dr. Guy Hoffman and Mrs. Noa Morag for endless hours of guidance :)
Not a second to lose, not a moment to rest. Our best video and graphic editing skills were required to create an animated storyboard that needs to show our idea and demonstrate the interaction. This is what we came up with:
Very low-tech, but kind of cute.
After showing it in class and to our friends we listed a few problems:
The green light timer is not very clear as a green light timer (the changing numbers in the middle of the Simon)
The interaction between the two sides is confusing- they were supposed to play against each other when the first player hits a pattern, adds one and then the other player needs to recreate the pattern and add one step and so on
It seems a bit romantic
The different sounds are annoying and they should be more of the same "theme"
The round setting of the game seems suitable for one player only
No reference to the green aspect and electricity gaining
Moreover, we had to check if playing Simon as a group is fun.
Hello world. We're the Tydda team and our HCI project for this year is Red Light Simon. First things first- Tydda? Tamar, Yael, Doron, Dudi and Alex. Yael Laventar and Dudi Malik are 3rd year Computer Science students, Alexandra Man and Tamar Garfunkel are 3rd year interactive communication students and Doron Barsky is a 3rd year psychology student. We operate in the miLab (media innovation lab ) our last academic year at the IDC (Interdisciplinary Center) in Herzliyya. We all wait in traffic light, just like you.
The
average urban citizen or commuter is bound to spend approximately 3000 hours of
his life waiting to cross a signalized crosswalk. With this time, the same
individual could have driven 600 times from Manhattan to the White House,
watched the Lord of the Rings Trilogy 333 times, and taken 3000 yoga classes.
Instead, while you yet again impatiently wait for that little green light, you’ll
attempt to distract yourself from the anxiety and irritation you are experiencing, by
checking another email or tweet. With your eyes fixated on that flickering mobile screen, you will most likely miss out on that striking someone
smiling at you from across the street, and will maybe even take your chances by
sprinting across a red light and compromising everyone's' safety.
Our
project, “Red Light Simon”, aims to ease the pain of being a frustrated pedestrian. Red Light Simon is a life-sized adaptation of Simon (the popular 80s game),
implemented into the urban landscape. The game allows one to pleasantly and
actively pass the time remaining until the alternation of the traffic signal
and in addition to connect and interact with others. Moreover, we aspire to
convert the squandered time spent waiting into efficient environmental
contribution, by utilizing the energy created by Simon players for the
production of electricity, which will be used to power adjacent traffic lights.
The
Simon interface, mainly consisting of four differently colored pedals upon a piezoelectric surface, will be
placed on opposing pavements of a cross-way. When the light turns red, the user arriving at the game will
be presented with a pattern which he must recreate, while having the option to
do so alone or with the help of others near him. On the opposite side of the
road, pedestrians waiting will be presented with the same patterns. The side
completing the most patterns will be declared as the winners. The game will be
synchronized with the timed programs of the traffic lights, while displaying
the time left until the signal alteration and the electricity gained in the game.
In order to get focused on our idea, Guy asked us to prepare a short document that states the need, idea, metaphor and user scenario
It's just a sketch now, probably will be quite different after we dive in :)
Need: Lower anxiousness by knowing how much time remains until the traffic light turns green while having fun.
Idea: interactive Simon game that is projected on the "waiting" area next to the crosswalk, generating electricity via a piezoelectric surface that is placed underneath the "waiting" area to power the traffic light.
Metaphor: urban outdoors Simon, solo or with an opponent.
Scenario: Andy is on his way to meet Erin, it's their first date. He's only a few blocks away, getting a bit anxious he might be late or maybe it won't go well. Andy gets to a traffic light that just turned red. A counter appears next to the road and a Simon "console" appears next to Andy. A flow of 4 lights and sounds is played. Andy notices that a two young girls on the other side of the street are pressing something with their feet. He tries to replicate the flow and each "button" reacts with light and sound. "Great!" appears next to the "console" and the girls give him a thumb up. Another flow appears, the girls and Andy are ready and play it. The shortest minute he had in the passing week comes to an end, the counter reaches 5, Andy's score (15) appears next to the girls' (27), the light turns green. He passes the girls, smiles and feels uplifted- ready for a great first date.
Our beginning consisted mostly of changing our minds regarding the project we are going to work on. A few ideas were advertisement boards that interact with pedestrians, live street jam with jammers from around the world, real-life running game around the city, bus station mirrors that detect your mood and inspires you on your way, urban pattern collecting game, city route lighted and colored by street lights and traffic light games.
When we met with the miLab mentors we presented them with Urban Runner that was supposed to be our answer to common laziness and the will to be fit. The feedback was somewhat good, somewhat mellow. We decided to drop it after we couldn't find the core interaction. No time to lose- we started to work on the idea of traffic light games for pedestrians that wait for the green light.
As our project is intended to be of an HCI (human-computer interaction) nature, we wanted to avoid using screens and keyboards, we wanted to find something that will change the way people experience the city and the other pedestrians. This year's concept is urban data. Simon will be urban as it is all about pedestrians and their time at the red light while the data part will consist of the traffic light changing timings.
After a quick chat with someone from the Tel Aviv municipality we found out that the city has 420 intersections with up to 12 (!) different programs for each traffic light per day. For the every day pedestrian that means dozens of uncertainty periods each day. Some intersections are programmed differently in rush hour while others require the pedestrian to push a button for the green light.
Now back to HCI and back to that annoying red light. We tried to think of games that will make the time we spend waiting for the green light pleasant. Nothing like YouTube for inspiration- one project we bumped into was this pong game in Germany:
Seems pretty cool to play against someone at the other side of the crosswalk, another pedestrian that is waiting for the green light.
We wanted to avoid using screens or keyboards and mainly we wanted the option for more than one player to play on each side. While projections and the Kinect technolgy are super cool, we found that it is better for a multi-player game to be physical and seperate on each side. Another cool project is these piano stairs in Stockholm, Sweden:
Stepping on physical objects that interact with the stepper seems quite successful as well :) After coming up with a few ideas we decided to start defining a physical enlarged Simon game. Stay tuned!
5 confused but ambitious students from 3 different schools and 1 project to consume every awake minute we have. Let's do a short intro of ourselves- we decided to call our team tydda. Why tydda? well... Tamar Garfunkel, 25 year old interactive communication student from Givatayim. Believes in the powerful impact of music-therapy. Plays the piano and a dozen other musical instruments. Yael Leventer, 26 year old computer science student from Tel Aviv. Driven to change the way people experience the urban life. Has a gorgerous Scottish Fold cat by the name of Hershy. Doron Barsky, 27 year young psychology student from Tel Aviv. Fascinated by interpersonal spontaneous relationships. Enthusiast yogi and an amateur cook (organic only!). Dudi Malik, 25 year old computer science student from Givat Shmuel. Will code for world peace. Likes to hike and is the proud owner of Shmulik the Golden Retriver. Alex Man, 22 years old interactive communication student from Tel Aviv. Eager to explore NUI and TUI systems and their users. Vegan muffin pro-baker and mom to two fuzzy cats (Lima and Jezza).
So, we're team tydda and our HCI project for this year is Red Light Simon. This is our BA's last year and we chose the HCI miLab to be our final and concluding project. We aim to make a difference in the way people experience the city, hopefully towards a more positive and social moment. We believe our combined disciplines and areas of interest will help us to better understand current dilemmas and perhaps find a solutions that will make a change. This year's other HCI miLab members are:
Pillar Polls- the team wants to take the the city gathers on issues, and share it with the public in an accessible way. Similarly, they we want to gather the public's opinion on these issues as data in and of itself, and bring it to the city officials in an organized fashion. PillarPolls is a system that will take municipal issues and display them to residents in a location that is relevant to the issue. This will cause discourse, raising awareness of municipal issueshttp://pillarpolls.blogspot.co.il/ StreetBeat- an urban artistic display that enables users to connect to the musical "personality" of an area in the city. StreetBeat senses which music is played within Musical Points of Interest and plays what's trending and popular http://streetbeat2.blogspot.co.il/ Recycle Ball- Turning the current irritating recycle action into a competitive game that gives the user a fun experience that will motivate him to recycle more and will attract new people who don’t recycle to start doing so http://recycleball.wordpress.com/ SoundScape- tagging and mapping urban sounds
