Buzz | Devpost

Inspiration

Have you ever felt like someone was right around the corner or behind you?

It’s not always an accurate hunch, but we don’t need to look to sense someone’s presence — unconscious cues in our auditory environment, peripheral vision, or air currents alert us to the position of people around us.

We all have the unconscious ability to sense our body's position, orientation, and position without using sight, otherwise known as proprioception. This allows us to type on a keyboard without looking, scratch an itch, or look at our surroundings as we walk.

Unfortunately, basic proprioception doesn’t allow us to sense exactly where or how other people’s bodies are positioned and oriented.

But imagine this:

A) You could tap your friend’s nose with your eyes closed

B) You could sense your partner’s incoming dance movements

C) You’d never bump into someone again

You’d be physically synced in crowded and busy areas.

What it does

Coordinating physical labor across large groups is difficult & dangerous.

Buzz extends user proprioception by alerting users of their coworkers' positions and activities, allowing users to move smarter and work safer in high-volume settings.

Proprioceptors detect physical stimuli throughout muscles & joints. Neuron impulses from proprioceptors make us aware of our body position & orientation, even if we can’t see. The Buzz Cuff, a non-intrusive ear cuff device, collects and shares proprioception data to support an extended sense through a visual brain-computer interface. Extended proprioception helps the group sense everyone’s body position, helping busy bees fly together.

How we built it

FigJam for concept ideation. Figma for wireframing, component building, and prototyping. Figma Make for early concept testing and iteration.

Challenges we ran into

Extended proprioception brings privacy concerns related to intrusiveness and identity, which we account for in our design. While this technology alerts and tracks position, Buzz does not keep history of position. Alerts do not tell users the location of others, but instead focus on direction and distance from said user. Additionally, Buzz does not work outside of designated work areas, and users' proprioception is only extended when wearing an ear cuff, a nonintrusive device we designed (reference slides) that pairs with the interface.

Identifiers are used to show names, profile pictures, distance, activity status, and gradation which pose further privacy challenges. Buzz does not keep history of these identifiers, and the application cannot be used outside of designated areas determined by the router. Users’ proprioception would only be extended when wearing the complimentary ear cuff. In a work setting, supervisors would collect them outside of designated time preventing unwanted information sharing. The Buzz Cuff will not store data nor show locations, only user position, making the technology relatively nonintrusive.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We not only tackled a safety-critical issue, but designed from a first person POV to create our first augmented reality (AR) interface! Buzz requires speculative technological innovation that we really had to think outside of the box for.

We're proud of pushing the limits on our skills by writing, illustrating, designing, prototyping, and editing this project from scratch.

What we learned

The human body is capable of a lot more than we're conscious of and our brains can be impressible powerhouses of information. Proprioception is one of dozens of senses humans use to navigate the world.

And the conventional use of tools shouldn't limit what you can imagine or build!