Ocho

What is it?

Ocho is a Smart Dancing Stick to accompany adolescents while they dance in their safe space in a free and creative way. Ocho encourages movement in real time, through feedback on self-expressed improvised body movements.  Using the sticks enables reducing feelings of embarrassment of dancing with the help of improvised, free movements. Adolescent girls tend to systematically compare themselves to their peers, as well as to social media beauty idols, which leads to frustration and shame. These social comparisons together with over self-awareness adolescents tend to feel in these developmental stages, damage their self-esteem. When a teen is in her room, the sticks will blink, inviting her to start a dancing session together. First, she goes into the Ocho app, chooses a song she would like to dance to, open the camera and sets the phone on the stand in front of her and picks up the sticks. Then, she shuts off the lights and starts dancing with Ocho. The more freely she moves the stronger the colorful lights inside the stick will glow. Reaching a maximum movement range and speed will make the sticks vibrate, encouraging the user to expend her movements repertoire. The app converts the lights from the moving sticks into a visual output on the screen, creating a live colorful painting experience. This makes the movement in the dim room become a piece of art you can share with your friends, while keeping the teenagers' anonymity, privacy without the fear of being judged. All the data is saved in the app and you can see your dancing arts in a private library, as well as your progress in your self-expression through movements in the long term.

Project Info

Students: Adi Liberman, Amit Rechavia,  Dror Segev Sapir Shalvi and Enav Sasson, 

Lecturer: Dr Noa Morag

Technological lecturers: Zvika Markfeld

Teaching Assistants: Ofir Sadka

Students' Website