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 got in touch with HeartMath and was able to get ahold of their API documentation. After further researching HeartMath and evaluating the value HRV compared to respiration rate could lend to our experience, we started to craft a couple of different gameplans for how we would integrate the data and breathing activities needed for a good HRV rating into Equa’s training session.
Wednesday, the team met with Heather and Dave to discuss our options for proceeding with the project. With their support, we met with Equa and came to the mutual conclusion to focus more on respiration rate. Equa offered to let us experiment with their Hexoskin shirt. Since then, the team has been researching more about the Hexoskin and respiration rate as a biomarker.
In between all of this, Zibo was able to create a server that communicates between the Quest 2 and the server. This lays the groundwork for using essentially any type of biometric we want and lets us float between sensors.
User Experience
Constanza began testing different types of motions and buttons that guests could use when interacting with the UI. She did this by reading a portion of the adapted Equa script and replacing the “Tap once for __. Tap twice for __.” interaction used in the mobile app with a series of brainstormed interactions. She then noted the ease of which the interactions were performed. Constanza is currently still testing these interactions out, so we will hopefully have a more steadfast idea of which we’re using by the end of Week 6.
Art
Lauren began applying textures to rocks and making more realistic trees for the environment. On Monday she was able to get a one month subscription to SpeedTree 9, which helped her to sculpt out more vegetation.
Faris worked on developing the waterfall and its splash effects.
Sound
On Monday, Faris built out a framework to apply sound files and silences in Unity and Gillian finished up adapting and reorganizing the Equa script. On Tuesday, Gillian recorded Faris voice acting parts 1 through 3 of the script, which includes an intro all of the way to See Out. Gillian edited the sound files on Thursday and Friday. Faris began implementing them on Friday. Having all of the sound files in by Monday 2/21 helps keep the team on track for playtesting dates in the following weeks.
Production
This week had a lot of meetings, mostly involved in Biometrics and Sensor Integration. Gillian jumped between biofeedback related meetings and process grade meetings for each team member. She also edited and submitted the Team Photo and began preparing for 1/2s presentations.