2015 - 2020
Wearable Device, Human Augmentation, Dance, Interaction, Hardware design, Software design
GROOVE is a wearable grove device and software that can interact with music, video and lighting in real-time just like a VJ/DJ, and change their performance as dancers wish by  gesturing according to the audience reaction or other external factors.
For street dancing in public spaces such as parks, the gloves themselves are also equipped with LEDs so that they can be staged anywhere.
My Role
- Founder / Project Lead / Prototyping / Interaction Designer / Dancer
Mainly engaged in UX design and interaction design, and in the process, prototyping for hardware and UI design for software. Lead concept definition, ideation, and user testing as a dancer.
Team
Shinnosuke Komiya (2015 - )
Kazunori Hori (2017 - 2020)
Yuta Ide (2017 - 2020)
Shin Kanouchi (2017 - 2018)
Chris Takara (2017 - 2018)
Masaya Tsuruta (2018 - 2020)
Akira Matsuda (2018 - 2020)
Amon Igari (2018 - 2020)
Ippei Tanaka (2018 - 2020)
Fuminori Nagasawa (2019)
Yoji Shibuya (2019)
Awards
2017.4
Exhibiting in SXSW 2017
Media
2017.4
NHK BS1 Special 「若者よ 世界を驚嘆させよ!大見本市SXSW」
Skills / Tools I have used
Sketch / Photoshop / Illustrator / Fritzing / Arduino / ESP32 / Swift (iOS / MacOS) / Openframeworks
Imagination into Reality

Motivations / Problems

Dancers usually perform prepared dance routines on the showcase and are restricted from changing them based on the audience’s reaction.
In addition, it may be hard to discern which moves are difficult or highlight to an inexperienced audience member.
I am a dancer as well, so I would like to change the common sense by increasing the performance vectors of dancers, including myself, and augmenting the body.

Design Process

Research

How do dancers want to perform?
How do audience enjoy the changes of performance?
I have been researching the current state of street dance to increase the resolution of these questions in the following ways.

Dancer interview
Observing live performance
Literature review
Dance battle by myself


Performance factors

Diagram of what is related to performance
Classification of dance types and scope of GROOVE

Conventional timeline of dance performance and GROOVE's goal

Prototyping

In order to verify the actual experience, I created a prototype device and tested it myself as a dancer.
At the same time, I also confirmed where the technical difficulties were and set guidelines for the design.
Based on this verification, I asked other dancers to experience the device to get feedback, and also submitted a paper to get academic feedback.

1st Prototyping

Sensors / Components

I decided to develop this device mainly focusing on a dance called LOCK dance.
LOCK dance includes a lot of arm swinging movements, and I thought that sensing arm swing would allow us to sense a lot of expressions.

Flex Sensor x5

To sense the degree of bending of the fingers, flex sensors are placed on each finger.

6 axis Accelerometer Sensor x1

To sense the swing and rotation of the hand, I placed a 6 axis acceleration sensor on the back of the hand.

Pressure Sensor x1

A square shaped pressure sensor is placed on the palm of the hand to verify if the expression increases with the strength of the hand grip.

LEDs

To sense the swing and rotation of the hand, I placed a 6 axis acceleration sensor on the back of the hand.

First Prototype Video

Submitted academic verbal presentation

I gave an oral presentation at a Japanese conference called Interaction to get feedback from an academic perspective as well.

Iterations

We iterated several times based on the improvements we found from the initial version of the prototype.
Mainly, we strengthened the durability of circuit boards, improved the user experience by developing software, and increased the degree of freedom by making devices wireless.

Improving the circuit board

Due to the intense movement of the dance, the board was easily broken, so we changed the board to a flexible board and designed the circuit.

Developing User Interface

To find out what kind of gestures make dancers want to change the equalizer of the music, the lighting effects, and the LED patterns on their gloves, we prototyped with professional and typing tools, and then created an app for iOS in Swift.
The UI was designed to allow users to intuitively decide on the triggering gestures and effects, and to interactively check how the effects they set work.
2nd prototype for SXSW 2017

Exhibiting in SXSW 2017

In order to see the reaction of the dancers and the audience, we won the University of Tokyo's program to exhibit at SXSW, a well-known music, film, and interactive festival.

Performance / Evaluations

After SXSW, based on the feedback from the audience and dancers, we improved the circuit board, housing, and updated the software.
We have changed the flex circuit board to another plastic based company's one to make them more flex.

New flex circuitboard
New housing prototype

Performance for endurance testing and real audience response @ Mashup Award

Introduction video for new features

LOGO Design by me

Awards

2016 - 09
JPHACKS
JPHACKS SXSW Award
UTokyo to Texas Award and exhibited at SXSW
MashupAward(produced by Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd.) Grand Prix (Got JPY1,000,000)
2017 - 01
The University of Tokyo
2017 - 11
RecruitHoldings Co., Ltd.

Next Step

GROOVE is revered not only for its concept and product, but also as a next gen IoT device. As a beautiful combination of digital and fabrication, we believe our device has applications beyond dance and can be used for organizing dancers with tech communities.

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