Final project title and description

Bellydancer as drum machine

Idea for a final TUI project (which could also involve working on part of it for the upcoming musical instrument assignment) for a "bellydancer as drum machine".

I'm a bellydance student and lover of middle eastern music, and one thing that is always emphasized is how certain body parts/movements are connected to certain sounds in this dance form. Instead of only reacting to the music, what if the dancer herself could *generate* the percussion sounds with these movements via wearable accelerometers, FSRs, etc?

Green Thumb Project

I have a garden in my patio that is coming in nicely. I share this because for many years I have been a failed gardener. So what's changed? Well when I wake up each morning, staring me in the face, through the window, is my garden.

It appears proximity is a strong determinant for success (at least for me). Of course, not everyone is in a situation to have a patio garden attached to their bedroom.

Design a TUI that communicates the condition of a plant that is out of eyesight. I imagine something like a virtual flower, lit up with LEDs. The colors will change as the soil dries out -- perhaps we can even represent growth too.

I'm pretty open with other interpretations and would love to work with others on this.

Best, Pejman

TUI Snack (with a capital "S") Project

Niranjan and I were talking this morning about a possible project designed to alleviate some of the problems around "Snack" for the iSchool.

The Problem: For those that don't know, the iSchool masters students have until this year had a what should have been a fund raiser selling snacks in the student lounge. The snacks were priced very reasonably, but the whole program was based on the honor system. There are several theories why, but the bottom line is that the snack program lost lots of money.

The Challenge:

- keep the honor system - there is no place to lock the snacks and we don't have enough money to buy or time to stock a vending machine

- a video camera would be unpopular

Some Ideas:

- Create an ambient device which indicates the level of snack contributions in some non-intrusive but emotional way.

- Engender some social pressure to keep people honest

Any ideas? Is anyone interested?

-Jessica jvoytek@ischool.berkeley.edu

Originally in the Tshirt Vital Signs project for the midterm.

At the moment, just looking for any group to join, as I have not really come up with other ideas yet.

-Kurt (ksookwongse@berkeley.edu)

I would love to work on a rock climbing assistance kind of a project. That is an activity I do a lot, and I think a major problem that people face is the path they need to follow while bouldering or when to quit, when to rest. If we could use sensors to check on muscle tension, perspiration, heart beat, acceleration and give feedback to rock climbers on how slow/fast they need to go, and what steps they need to take next, that will be a great assistance.

An alternate idea was to make it a game where you compete with a virtual character while you climb to make the flow and experience even more engaging than what it is.

I would just love to work in this domain!

-Anuj (anuj@eecs.berkeley.edu)