Last week, Juan Cuadra came to our meeting to talk about this really cool project that he's working on to make some kind of interactive play experience for child patients of the Diamond Children's Hospital at the University of Arizona Medical Center. If you're interested in helping out with this project, please email Juan at: juan.cuadra7@gmail.com
Here's a quick summary of the project (this is my summary of the meeting, not a list of what Juan's looking for specifically, so if you have questions, please ask him directly):
- The goal of the project is to create something that will allow kids to play some kind of game without having to touch any toys or controllers or anything (which is an important safety precaution when dealing with patients). The display will use cameras, sensors, and projectors to make the game work, and there's an opportunity to make the game work with the Kinect.
- The project is mostly undefined and currently seeking funding, so if you were to get involved, part of your responsibilities will be to help define the project further, much in the same way that a game designer would define a game project, and it will likely involve doing some user research so that you can better understand the space that you're working in.
- In addition to the game design work that needs to be done, there is also engineering work to do, such as programming, art, sound, etc.
- There's also work to be done on the setup of the display. The technologies that will be used for the cameras and sensors are still to be determined, and you'll also have to figure out how to program for that technology.
Like I said during the meeting, you can probably get course credit for working on this project by pitching it to either a CS or SISTA professor as a potential research project. If you have questions about the specifics on how to do that, you can talk to either me (ldelac01@email.arizona.edu) or Zuoming (zuomingshi@email.arizona.edu)
So if you're interested in volunteering for this super cool project, please contact Juan Cuadra: juan.cuadra7@gmail.com
