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2012 Project Abstracts
Team Microsoft - KinectMation!Our team is designing a Kinect-based platform, allowing users to animate 3D avatars using full-body motion to create narrative stories. By channeling creativity towards narrative storytelling, kids can develop reasoning skills and become better communicators. Our product, KinectMation!, will scan real life objects into virtual space and allow users to animate 3D models of such objects through the Kinect. KinectMation! facilitates the story creation experience by providing plot structure, props, and effects while integrating an intuitive and fun user interface that can be easily navigated by novice Kinect users. Team Panasonic - CommuniTVOur project vision was to create a new television product for the year 2017 that will enhance social interactivity around the TV while helping people to choose what to watch. Our proposed solution is a smart phone app for the TV, which interfaces with on-screen TV software to do just that. Users of our product start by choosing their own avatar to represent themselves virtually, both on their television screen and amongst their network of buddies on the smart phone app. Once the app is opened up, a list of suggested TV shows and video contents recommended by their friends makes discovering new contents to watch quick and easy. Everyone is awarded avatar points by suggesting TV contents to watch to others through the app, and while the app is open, it can be used to dynamically ‘like’ watched video contents. When multiple people are co-present in front of the same TV, each person’s smart phone connects to the TV interface through the app, and each person’s avatar is viewable on screen. Everyone can then use their smartphones to navigate the onscreen content selection interface, control their avatars for playful interaction, and to load their personal video watching preferences so that multiple-user TV content like-matching can occur. With our avatar-based phone app and TV interface, the television watching experience is enhanced by improved ease of choosing what to watch and enjoyable interaction with friends! Team Electric Mobility Norway - E-ModulImagine a future where commuters can seamlessly travel in a world where electric vehicles are integrated with existing transportation. Team Electric Mobility Norway (EMN) presents a vision of smart, adaptable train spaces that improve the commute experience and serve as a test platform for emerging mobility trends, including recent investments promoting bikes on trains. At EXPE, a prototype module will demonstrate how a medium-to-long distance train commuter can easily bring aboard and secure a bike - and even charge an electric bike! A system with various easily installable and reconfigurable train modules could serve as a holistic, future-oriented solution that addresses changing transportation needs in Norway. Team El País - PuntoDPuntoD is a space where young people can comfortably socialize with their friends and new people and learn more about ultra-local happenings around them. The project sponsor, El País, is a newspaper in the city of Cali, Colombia, and they tasked the design team to create a solution that would increase brand awareness for the newspaper among young people in Cali. Through extensive benchmarking and needfinding, the design team determined that youth in Cali had three major needs - the three I's: Interaction, with the environment in both the physical sense and the digital sense; Integration, bringing young people together; and Information, increasing young people's awareness about what is happening locally and what their friends are doing in real time. In order to meet these needs, the design team created PuntoD to be a space to bring people together to interact face-to-face. Within the space is an information interface that focuses on ultra-local information, provided both by El País and users of the space who have something to share, that is especially relevant to young people in Cali. The design team predicts that providing these services will improve the brand image of El País among young people and lead to increased sales. Team VWAudi - SynTactHow will drivers interact with their vehicles in the urban environment of 2025? The Audi Gesture-Based Interface (GBI) addresses many of the limitations of current car interfaces by relying on "soft" hardware, which means the UI utilizes flexible hardware that can be updated and personalized for each user, even in car sharing scenarios. A combination of touch and midair gestures performed in the center console and around the steering wheel serve to restore easy & instant access to all of the functions necessary for navigating through a stressful urban environment. At EXPE, Team VW/Audi will be showcasing a prototype interface built into a 2010 Audi Q5. Team GDF-SUEZ - SymbioséeGDF-SUEZ, the largest independent utility company in the world, has commissioned our team to create a system to bridge the gap between energy-efficient building renovations and the building's occupants. Through a combination of visibility, sensing, and prediction technology, we have created a system to reshape the paradigm of energy efficiency as building health and personal comfort, creating an emotional connection between the building and its users and making their lives both more comfortable and more energy-efficient. Team ACC (Aperture Construction Company) - LynxACC - The vision of our project is to come up with a system that allows for enhanced communication on the construction site. It has been established through extensive user testing that the main problem on the construction site is not a lack of data on site, but rather a lack of communication. Our project specifically targets the communication between the superintendents in the trailer and the foremen on the construction site. The system presented at EXPE will allow for the foremen in the field to easily convey their questions to the superintendents in the trailer via streaming video and audio between the foreman's phone and the superintendent's computer. This will be accomplished via an application on the foreman's phone combined with a program on the superintendent's computer. In addition to these features both parties will be able to mark on pictures taken from the field as well as on construction drawings and share these markings in real-time with the other party. This communication will be further facilitated by the Stanford Station which is a pan/tilt gimbal system with a camera and laser that can be controlled by the superintendent, giving him a physical presence in the field. Pairing this system with Building Information Modelling (BIM) technologies such as Autodesk's "Revit" software will allow for increased functionality and the display of BIM data on site. Team Thales Angénieux - Project EuclidThales Angénieux is a manufacturer of precision optics, specializing in high quality zoom lenses for motion picture and broadcast productions. Increases in camera technology, as well as processing power, are enabling cinema to go in directions never before possible, and Thales Angénieux wants to be at the forefront of the cinematic revolution. They have tasked our team with developing the movie camera of the future. We have created a system, referred to as OmniCam, that films a scene from every point of view. While a traditional camera merely captures how a scene looks from exactly one point of view, OmniCam uses a system of cameras, depth sensors, and image processing software to capture the spatial information of the scene. The information is stored as a point cloud, which allows for the scene to be viewed or reconstructed from virtually every perspective (even perspectives where there was never a physical camera). From this reconstruction, the movie maker can then select camera shots by placing a “virtual camera” anywhere in the scene during post-production, much like how an animated film is made. This system would allow for more control and flexibility in the filming of a traditional movie and could serve as a creative tool for directors to take storytelling to the next level through immersion and interaction. Team SAP - nibThe next-generation notebook is a digital tablet that focuses on a beautiful writing experience, notebook-inspired user interaction experiences, and a seamless transition between workplaces. The tablet includes workplace integration to allow users to move from place to place without worrying about how to transfer or convert files and content. By integrating the tablet with the user’s lab or office, it makes it possible to more completely replace paper.
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