Student's Projects​

 

Students engage in various projects during their MA studies, during the prototyping courses, research seminars, or final project. Projects include a wide range of technologies and design approaches, for example UX design of mobile apps, VR/AR experiences, synthetic media using AI, Human-plant interaction, Robotic objects, Brain-computer interfaces, and more. In all projects, students take an active role, integrating the various skills and methodologies they acquired in the various courses.

 

 

Personal Project: Destiny in the Goggles of HCI: A Destiny Machine Called Matilda

 

 

Would you entrust your destiny to the hands of AI? In this mixed-media project, seekers embark on an immersive VR journey guided by Matilda, an AI bot residing within an abandoned ATM in a forsaken world. Matilda invites her visitors to generate their tailored destiny based on her analysis of you. However, a cleverly designed "bug" hands each seeker with two printed, differing certificates instead of one, urging us to speculate on the familiar way we perceive our present and future selves.

 

Anadin Attar

 

 

 

 

Implications of AI Bias in HRI: Risks (and Opportunities) when Interacting with a Biased Robot

 

As AI progresses, concerns grow over biases embedded in AI systems. This is especially critical for robots since their embodiment and autonomy enhance their influence. People may uncritically accept technology's decisions, unaware of underlying biases. In two experiments, we showed that participants failed to recognize a strong bias presented by a gender-biased robot mediating a debate. Instead, they attributed the robot's decisions to their performance and provided explanations that reflected gender stereotypes. In addition, an encounter with a gender-biased robot increased their stereotypical thinking in general (regardless of the robot and the debate context). This underscores the need to address biases in AI and robotics to prevent the perpetuation of harmful stereotypes.

 

Tom Hitron

 

 

 

Seminar Project : Enhancing Parental Empathy towards Children with ADHD through VR

 

Embarking on an innovative journey, our project delved into Virtual Reality (VR) to enrich empathy among parents of children with ADHD. By immersing participants in an 8-year-old's daily struggles with ADHD, our simulation aimed to offer a unique perspective on their challenges. Motivated by empathy's crucial role in parent-child relationships, especially in ADHD contexts, we envisioned VR as a powerful tool to bridge communication gaps and bolster family support. Our findings underscore VR's capacity to deepen empathy, promising applications in addressing ADHD-related empathy deficits.

 

Avraham Shmuel | Daria Hemy

 

 

 

Seminar Project : WalkAdog

 

Making use of the power of community to connect dog owners, enabling them to help each other walk their dogs when they are unavailable. Dog owners (especially in crowded cities) face challenges finding the time to walk their dogs, and finding someone they can trust to walk their dogs is difficult. Using WalkAdog, they can collaborate with the other dog owners they see on their walks every day and solve this challenge together.

 

Guy Gordon | Rotem Marom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TrueHue: exploring gender fluidity through virtual reality

 

TrueHue is a virtual reality platform that creates a safe space to explore gender fluidity. It was built in mid-2021 for the VR seminar as part of the MA in HCI degree. The product was first demoed at Transitioning Tech, a Microsoft event during Pride month, and later at the MA HCI demo day and at Stockholm’s From Business to Buttons conference in 2022. This project pushes the boundaries of this technology in creating a more inclusive and equitable world.

 

Allie vogel | Adi Klinger

 

 

 

 

Seminar Project: A Robotic Object for Mediating Interactions Between Autonomous Vehicles and Pedestrians

 

One of the central challenges in designing autonomous vehicles concerns passengers' and pedestrians' trust. This challenge is related to their well-established past experience with non-autonomous vehicles, which leads to concern about the absence of a driver. We explored whether it is possible to address this challenge by designing an interaction with a simple robotic object positioned on the vehicle's dashboard. The robot performed simple non-verbal gestures that are easily interpreted as social cues that mimic the interaction with a human driver. Participants' trust ratings and safety-related experience were drastically enhanced by the interaction with the simple robotic object, indicating the importance of social cues and considering road users' past experiences when designing autonomous vehicles. We suggest that robotic objects hold great promise in contributing to safer autonomous environments.

 

Srivatsan Chakravarthi Kumaran

 

 

 

 

 

Seminar Project: Your Personal Bedtime Buddy

 

SleepyHead developed as a voice-activated bot tailored to address various sleep issues, including relationship strains and work anxiety. By engaging in conversations with the bot and practicing relaxation exercises, users can achieve a peaceful night's sleep.

 

 Shira Rubin, Reut Katz

 

 

 

 

Seminar Project: Robotic Objects to reflect intimacy in couple's relationship

 

“Plantis” are two expressive objects in the form of two plants, designed to interact with each other and to reflect by their movement the current relationship status at home, by relying on a sensor which detects the level of closeness between the couple, their emotional state and their volume of conversation.

 

Adi Gilad | Carmel Slavin Brand

 

 

 

 

Personal Project: AR aid for children with Autism

 

Augmented reality-based interaction AR, as a technology that helps children on the autism spectrum. The technology helps with social communication capabilities by "supervising" symbols in the face area of people with whom the child is talking, directing the child to focus attention on the interlocutor's face and facial expressions specificity.

 

Dvir Eran | Shaar Biran

 

 

 

Course Project: mobile app for hiking equipment rental

 

 

Research and design of a user experience for an application designed for renting equipment for trips on the go. A physical and digital platform for collaborative hiking equipment. Using an app, you can order what you need - for as long as you need, collect and return the most advanced and high-quality equipment independently from the rental stations, which are located in strategic locations (camping areas, hiking trails and attractions and extreme sports). Thus, travelers are saved: money, carrying equipment, and even storage space at home.

 

Dana Porat | Danielle Moore

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Personal project: Human-plant interaction

 

Interaction between man and plants, is it possible to measure the quality of life of houseplants and transmit the condition of the plant to man and thus create a more intimate connection between man and his plants.

 

Eden Ofer