Week 5 – February 14, 2022
Biometrics and Sensor Integration Inner Matter kicked off the week by narrowing down our biofeedback sensor options and discussing other types of biometrics we could integrate, specifically looking at respiration rate. Constanza did a great job compiling all of our research into a massive spreadsheet which allowed us to more methodically check the pros and cons of each device. We ended up looking most deeply into the Elite HRV Corsense monitor. Gillian scheduled a meeting with someone at Spren to talk about their API, but they did show up to the meeting. On Tuesday, Gillian and Faris with biofeedback specialist, Dr. Christy Lewis from the Biofeedback Education & Training Center in Plano, Texas. She gave a lot of good insight on what activities affect HRV the most, what professionals use HRV for, and how she measures HRV. She urged our team to look into using an emWave HeartMath product. Faris…
Week 4 – February 7, 2022
Biometrics and Sensor Integration This week while working on sending Heart Rate data from the Apple Watch to his phone, Zibo discovered that the API for monitoring HRV is kept private by Apple. Despite the ability to trigger short-term HRV measurements using the Breathe app, Zibo can’t integrate that feature into our own application. It’s been all hands on deck to solve this issue, with the first day of problem solving dedicated to seeing if we could calculate HRV from Apple’s 5 second BPM readings. Our conclusion was that this would not be possible without having the meditator take 20 second long breaths (10 seconds breathing in and 10 seconds breathing out) since HRV relies on measuring two intervals within the same half of the breathing process. The 5 seconds of bpm just isn’t minute enough for us to get a valid HRV from. After meeting with our instructors, we’ve…
Week 3 – January 31, 2022
Production This week’s production tasks revolved around getting ready for 1/4’s, contacting our resources at Equa, and planning meetings. Constanza created the first drafts of both our half sheets and our poster. Gillian worked with Heather to write and edit the project description. Art and UX We decided on using the waterfall environment for our project. We chose this environment through an in-team survey where each team member’s preferences regarding an environment’s “Color Palette”, “Biome Type”, “Design”, and “Meditation Guide” were ranked on a five point Likert scale (1 being most suitable for meditation and 5 being least suitable for meditation) and averaged with the other members’ preferences. We also averaged every members’ general environment preferences. The waterfall environment averaged the highest in every category except for “Meditation Guide”. As a team we got together to brainstorm potential biofeedback indicators and guides specific to the waterfall environment. As a potential…
Week 2 – January 24, 2022
Production In production this week, we met with our project instructors, Heather and Dave, where we discussed what success means for our team, a concept we are still grappling with. Constanza made four logo designs based on the team’s typography and shape preferences discussed in a meeting this week. Gillian began working on 1/4’s preparation including a slide deck, project description, Gantt chart, condensed schedule, and writing out our team’s goals and scope. The group together worked on a metrics matrix and jam board containing our composition box info. Deeper Conceptualization The conversation we had with Dave and Heather this week tied in well with out Jam Board, which discussed our goals, inspiration, research, experience, components, stakeholders’ needs, and brainstorming process. We also had the chance to take a Transformational Framework workshop, which helped us to begin distilling the “why” and “how” of our project goals. This workshop showed a…
Week 1 – January 17, 2022
We Are Team Inner Matter We kicked the first week of our semester project off with a lot of planning and discussion. Being a pitch project, we already had a good idea of each team member’s role and the sort of project we want to make. Our goal has not changed since our pitch project and we still aim to create a vertical slice of a single, high quality VR meditation that integrates heart rate based biofeedback. Gillian is the producer and responsible for managing project progress and communication both within and out of the team. Constanza is the UX Designer and Media Artist who will help design logos, posters, interviews, playtests, and our meditation user experience. Zibo is a programmer in charge of networking the Apple Watch and the Quest 2. Faris is both a programmer and technical artist specializing in shaders. Lauren is an artist responsible for storyboard…