iSchool Capstone

Award Winner

2016

A Virtual Reality Adventure Into Anxiety

The experience of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is often stigmatized and poorly understood by those without anxiety. Further, there are very few interactive media forms that focus on the experiences of GAD. Of those that do, the vast majority fall within the horror genre intended to induce anxiety and provide shock-value without representing an overcoming of such experiences. Fragments uses the HTC Vive Virtual Reality Headset as an exploratory medium for representing a fictional experience through anxiety. Using dramatic storytelling, thorough domain research, and principles of immersive play, we aim to present a positive, fantasy adventure about a personal experience of overcoming anxiety. Fragments will simulate the physical and emotional responses of anxiety to help those without anxiety understand these experiences and critique the stigma toward anxiety. Our audience will be traversing a world rife in metaphor and symbolism that can encourage those with or without anxiety to discuss together.

Automated Data Analysis Framework

The Financial Inclusion Insights (FII) team at the Gates Foundation is responsible for performing data quality checks and analysis on survey data collected from eight countries in Africa and Asia. The survey data is related to usage of mobile money and digital financial services (DFS) in these countries. The current process is manual and tedious and involves multiple people working simultaneously to perform data analysis. Our solution solves this issue by automating the manual process and generates customizable data analysis reports. The result is a robust, modularized and highly customizable framework which will make it easy for FII to explore the “what”, “how” and “why” of demand side trends in mobile money and other digital financial services (DFS). This helps FII model, construct, and perform better research to understand the impact of DFS and promotes adoption of these services as they are revised using the research insights.

aWear

There are currently no effective methods of monitoring the health of your loved ones in a real-time, automated, and efficient way. aWear provides a solution in the form of a companion application to a user’s wearable technology (such as Microsoft Band 2) that allows family members to control and monitor when they receive alerts of their loved one’s health information when they cannot be by their side. In doing so, we have increased interconnection between elders and their loved ones, expanded the usage of wearable technology to a new demographic, and help raise awareness for heart related health problems.

Curato

Although the internet provides a wide breadth of information in an extremely easy manner, a common issue people face -- regardless of the type of information -- is an overabundance of information. Services like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and GoGoBot provide lots of information, but do not always provide an easy way to whittle restaurant/activity choices to help a user make a decision. Moreover, the results of a search may not always be relevant to that user’s personal interests, due to how general the results are. Curato attempts to provide a single, convenient application to help users find businesses and points of interest relevant to their interests by taking advantage of simple machine learning algorithms.

Echo

Echo is an interactive sound visualization tool, designed to help students learn about sound design and audio engineering. Currently, students do not have the resources that they need in order to learn about audio engineering and acoustic environments. Most modern sound visualization tools are proprietary and require industry knowledge to discern meaning from them. Echo aims to help teachers keep their students interested and engaged in learning about sound design concepts by implementing a unique approach to sound visualization. We discovered that virtual reality is the ultimate medium to immerse someone in an acoustic environment, and will promote the highest level of understanding in all of our users. Our goal is to lower the barrier of entry into the professional sound design and audio engineering industry. This will effectively enrich the knowledge pool in the industry, therefore leading to greater insight and discovery for acoustic designers on all levels.

Everest

With it becoming more difficult to treat acrophobia (fear of heights) through vivo (‘in life’) exposure therapy, how can we provide an exposure therapy treatment that utilizes virtual reality so that those suffering from acrophobia (fear of heights) can gradually overcome these fears in a safe, inexpensive, and practical manner? Everest has created a virtual reality experience that is geared towards those three traits. Powered by the Oculus Rift and other VR headsets, Everest separates exposure therapy treatment into 3 stages that will help gradually treat all levels of acrophobia. With this new way for exposure therapy treatment, acrophobia patients will no longer have to overcome their fears in real life situation that risk their health and wellbeing. Instead, this inexpensive virtual reality substitute will allow its users to overcome their fear at their own pace and in the safety of their own home.

Exposure: A 3D Interactive Narrative for Creating Empathy for People Experiencing Homelessness

Seattle’s young homeless population has long been underrepresented—their stories are largely absent from public conscious. In the University District, young people often face discrimination, stereotypes, and violence from University of Washington students rooted in unaccountable misperceptions. Using Unity, Exposure has created a 3D interactive narrative to challenge preconceived notions of homeless youth and allow an audience of University of Washington students to step into the shoes of a fictional young person experiencing homelessness. The audience will interact with a cast of characters and vignettes based upon stories curated through community-grounded research. By exposing our audience to this community, students are encouraged to confront prevailing misperceptions of young people, develop empathy for them, and engage with movements addressing causes of homelessness. Just as film and literature can communicate lived experiences and motivate social change, the use of an interactive medium will be a novel approach to represent a community long neglected.

Information Management Solution for The Museum of Flight

The Museum of Flight receives a huge amount of research requests from its patrons/customers. The requests are collected through paper forms, stored in editable PDF’s and processed in Excel for reference and tracking purposes. Due to inefficient processing and primitive technology, the resource usage is high and redundant. They strive for a robust information management system which is intuitive to use, can be accessed from multiple locations and stores data centrally. The Data Flight capstone team assessed the requirements and designed a database management system for the museum of flight. The new system is built on cutting edge technology, incorporating important features like central storage, multiple session access to update data in real time, and multivariable reporting. As a prospective patron/customer of the museum, your requests will be processed much faster. The solutions takes paper forms out of the equation and contributes towards a clean and greener environment.

One Photo to Save A Child’s Sight: Vision Screener

In their early years, children are susceptible to vision-impairing diseases such as lazy eye, astigmatism, strabismus, and even cancer. Although these diseases can almost always be successfully treated if caught early, they often have no obvious signs. While examination by an ophthalmologist or optometrist will detect these conditions, only a small number of parents take their children for such an examination. Vision Screener iOS aims to provide parents with an iOS application to take a more proactive approach in monitoring their child’s eye health and find local specialists. By snapping one picture, parents can easily conduct at home photoscreening to check their child’s risk for these diseases. With our app, more children will be able to get needed vision care sooner and be able to see the world as they deserve.

PainlessVR

PainlessVR is a research tool that allows researchers from medical, psychological and any other fields to test hypotheses about Virtual Reality without any development at all. The goal of the product is to improve future virtual reality pain management applications by removing the barriers to researching virtual reality. PainlessVR allows researchers to modify, and by extension study, variables regarding color, sound, context and cognitive load. Improving VR pain management would mean improving care for those who are unable to take traditional pain medication such as burn victims or recovering opioid addicts.