Team

Yuan Fang
Weiran Tao
Shuainan Yang

Type

UX Design
UX Research
Service Design
Experience Design

Tools/Software

After Effetcs
Unity
Arduino Uno

Duration

Fall 2021
3 weeks project

Circle of Life

In this project, we used "machine washing" as a symbol of excessive competition in a particular field, which has led to a state of mutual overwhelming and internal friction environment where people stop moving forward with their potential and goals. This washing machine is an interactive device to make the audience question the draining anxiety of seeing others overachieving. You want to keep up the pace and eventually lose yourself in a "loop."
We designed a control panel that consists of a pump head, a rotary knob, a pair of plugs, and outlets. They indicate the elements of pressure, the machine's spinning speed, and the on/off switch for the device. Interactively, We, users, will represent the pressures themselves. When users approach the washing machine, an animated figure will jump into the spinning washing machine and participate in the involution. Their actions symbolize the involution since they are unaware of what they are chasing. When users finally unplug, and the cycle stops, they will find that they end up chasing just a sock all the time. This lost sock can represent the meaningless goal that people numbly pursue, or it can express the self in a pointless loop, depending on the viewer's understanding.
Through this project, we hope to draw attention to the fact that we are in a constant quest for better and better and that we should rethink our real goals or focus.

blog: https://peat-homburg-137.notion.site/Circle-of-Life-fdceeeaf13434572bde05bc1554ca45f

Progress

This is the draft idea for this project. After we draw this draft, we first build up elements in the C4d and import them into Unity to make the animation. The last step is to connect the Arduino with Unity.