{"id":106,"date":"2026-01-17T21:44:48","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T21:44:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/remnants\/?p=106"},"modified":"2026-02-10T20:17:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T20:17:23","slug":"106-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/remnants\/106-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Focus of the week:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  • Explored the CAVERN space and tested interactions\u2028<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Built an early watering-can prototype with Vive tracking\u2028<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Ran structured team brainstorms across disciplines\u2028<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Refined the user experience flow and emotional journey<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

    As the semester began, we quickly aligned on our next steps: deepening our research, developing a more solid project pitch, and reaching out to professionals for advice and feedback. Once we were back at ETC, we spent time exploring the CAVERN space and generating initial ideas for an experience design that would meaningfully take advantage of its scale and immersive qualities.
    Early on, our artists and programmers built a simple interactive prototype in the CAVERN using a Vive tracker. In this prototype, guests use a physical watering can to water flowers projected on the screen. This allowed us to quickly test our technical pipeline, as well as get a first impression of what it feels like to interact with the CAVERN in the way we envision for the final experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    As part of our research, we also watched the documentary Wine, Women, and Dementia. The film reinforced many of the dementia symptoms and caregiver experiences we had already encountered through prior research, while also offering personal stories and insights we can reference in our design process. Watching the documentary was emotionally impactful, and that emotional resonance is something we hope to capture and translate into our own immersive experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    During the week, we held several design brainstorming sessions and gradually narrowed our ideas into more solid directions. To keep the brainstorm efficient, each team member first listed out all the concerns they could think of related to the project. We then grouped these concerns into categories such as technology, narrative, experience design, and art, and discussed possible solutions together as a team.
    Alongside this, we intentionally generated a large number of \u201cbad\u201d or unrealistic interaction ideas. This helped us push beyond obvious solutions and sparked more unexpected directions and creative thinking. From there, we began drawing clearer connections between our design ideas, our research findings on dementia symptoms and caregiver experiences, and our overall experience and transformational goals.
    Through this process, we settled on a set of design ideas that felt both meaningful and feasible. Based on these decisions, we started to finalize our user experience flow and think more deliberately about the emotional journey we want guests to go through during the experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    One major change to the experience came from a core concern: how do we make guests genuinely care about the garden? If visitors simply walk into a beautiful garden, they may admire it visually, but they may not feel personally connected to it. To address this, we shifted the experience to give guests a sense of ownership from the very beginning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Before entering the CAVERN, guests are invited to pick up a seed packet and choose the type of flower they want to plant. They then walk into the space and plant their chosen flower themselves. To support this interaction, we plan to build physical flowerbeds within the space and embed RFID readers inside them. Each seed packet contains an RFID card, allowing guests to grow their flower by simply tapping the packet on a flowerbed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Once planted, flower buds appear on the screen in the garden. From that point on, guests can use the watering can to care for their flowers and help them grow. Through this sequence of interactions, we aim to encourage guests to form a personal connection with the garden and build a sense of responsibility and memory around what they have created. This connection helps reinforce the metaphor of caring for the garden as caring for someone they love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    On Friday, ETC hosted a workshop where we shared our ideas and received feedback and inspiration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    As the semester began, we quickly aligned on our next steps: deepening our research, developing a more solid project pitch, and reaching out to professionals for advice and feedback. Once we were back at ETC, we spent time exploring the CAVERN space and generating initial ideas for an experience design that would meaningfully take advantage…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"blank","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/remnants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/remnants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/remnants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/remnants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/remnants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/remnants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/remnants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions\/138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/remnants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/remnants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/remnants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/remnants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}