Background
Duration
Location
Course
Group
NOV 2021
Eindhoven, the Netherlands
Designing with Advanced Artificial Intelligence
Course team of 4
Introdution
We want to create an intoxicating experience through the strangeness of the everyday dinner. We wanted to make dinner a profound, precious, and intimate moment that allows users to connect with food and family.
The final concept, CAENA, is a tabletop projection device. Through interactive machine learning, the software generates semi-automatically a tabletop projection suitable for that evening's dinner. The projection also changes dynamically based on the user's movements and the sound of conversation.
Design Concept
After several design iterations, we designed CAENA, an interactive projection system that uses spatial AR and artificial intelligence as an aesthetic way to enhance the dining experience. the CAENA system includes a mobile app, a projection and camera unit, and a desktop control press/knob (pictured above).
Dinner table with CAENA
Setup of the Projection system
As mentioned earlier, the CAENA system consists of a mobile app, a projection and camera unit, and a desktop control push/knob.
The desktop projection light is composed as shown above. We control the projection through the Raspberry Pi, which is connected to a camera for image recognition and a projector. There are two ways to actively control the projection screen.
1. Pre-meal settings and post-meal feedback, where the user can change the settings regarding the event or provide feedback for the experience after the meal in the mobile app.
2. The other is mid-meal adjustment, where the user can interact with the tabletop control press/knob (bottom right) during dinner.
User interface
Tangible control knob
The projection also receives passive control. Based on image recognition, the position of the projected elements changes according to the movement of the tableware. At the same time, when people are talking less, the system assumes that they are concentrating on eating and the projection goes into a "calm" state, with the elements moving at low speed and the overall transparency decreasing.
Projection system with motion detection