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freak! is a project I developed to involve lay-persons in the work of environmental health research with a playful approach that uses game technologies. Inspired by 1990s virtual pets, freak! is a Nintendo DS that has been modified and instrumented with various sensors to detect different kinds of pollution: air pollution, electromagnetic radiation, and noise pollution. In order for the virtual pet freak! to stay alive, the player must expose the device to high levels of the detectable pollutants. In working to care for the pet, the player endangers him or herself. The motivation behind this project is to provide a playful means by which everyday users can explore their environment, searching for pollutants. Additionally, it is intended to spark conversation about pollution levels, interpretations of sources of pollutants, as well as the nature of toxicity levels in terms of what is deemed as pollution. The project debuted at the ACE 2009 Graduating Show at UCI.
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For my Microcontroller and Hardware Intelligence classes, I combined projects to build my own data glove. Using lengths of plastic tube and infrared emitters and detectors, I created my own bend sensors that determined the relative bend of the tube based on the amount of infrared being detected. I then sewed the sensors to the fingers of a simple cotton glove. I used an Arduino to process the sensor data and send gesture information to the computer in a rock-paper-scissors game for demonstration.
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In my Computer Game Technologies class, we had to develop a working prototype of a game over the course of the semester. As a development team, each class member was assigned different game modules and mechanics to work on (graphics, audio, ai et...). I served as project lead which put me in charge of creating the game engine, integrating other student modules, and developing and managing the game's object system. The project was done in Microsoft's C#.
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