I incorporated open source color tracking code and developed my own additional functions that are required for my project. The program now is able to track multiple colors and creates visual output accordingly. The top left corner indicates the calculation drawn from actual environmental data.
My Open Framework code is published on GitHub
The final program was able to track three different colors. Yellow green and blue. I was using pink yellow and blue as the color scheme before. I modify the color because the new color sets fit better with the overall concept of energy system and environmental education topics. I modify the tracking accordingly.
The idea with the technology is that whenever a new color is detected on the surface, there will be particles starting to emitted based on the location of where the color blob is detected. The numbers of particles emitted are based on the data for each energy source. Based on the visual, it indicates the differences amongst different energy sources for users. Each of the energy source emissions have different levels of impact to the environment, this piece of information will be seen based on the visual display. A total data will be calculated on the top right and top left corner indicating how the town is doing in terms of its environmental health.
I have been receiving feedback regarding the design form of how I want to approach this problem space of environmental challenges. I agree with many feedback that I received, where the interaction could be more, more like a game. I thought it is a great pieces of feedback and tried to accommodate the idea into my user experience design. I mocked up the interaction logic with a board game. The purpose of tech here is to automate the calculation with users’ interaction.
I tried to modify my concept to make the interaction more fun. But I decided to keep this interaction more data driven. The reason being that, based on my design intension, where this platform should be a interface that increases the transparency of data around environment. Whereas other suggestions such as changing the concept to an abstracted board game and such, defeats the purpose of my approach with my Thesis project.
