Hive
Spring 2020 | Creative Tech IIIin collaboration with Martin Bernard, Aishwarya Janwadkar, and Alana Zhang
Project Description
This project simulates a bee hive, represented in two views: an inner view of the hive, where one can hover over any bee to see what type of bee it is, as well as an outer view of the hive in its surrounding environment.
This view offers a few different ways to interact with the hive: plant flowers that bees can pollinate, change the temperature of the environment, and add pesticides to the flowers. Performing any of these interactions impacts the overall health of the bee colony.
This view offers a few different ways to interact with the hive: plant flowers that bees can pollinate, change the temperature of the environment, and add pesticides to the flowers. Performing any of these interactions impacts the overall health of the bee colony.
User interactions:
+ Users can visit the hive at any time of day and observe behaviors.
(Less active at night, active during the day)
+ Users can see a bee’s role by hovering over one.
+ Users can create new food sources outside of the hive.
(different types of flowers).
+ Users can add pesticides and change temperature outside of the hive.
+ Users can visit the hive at any time of day to observe different behaviors.
+ Users can visit the hive at any time of day and observe behaviors.
(Less active at night, active during the day)
+ Users can see a bee’s role by hovering over one.
+ Users can create new food sources outside of the hive.
(different types of flowers).
+ Users can add pesticides and change temperature outside of the hive.
+ Users can visit the hive at any time of day to observe different behaviors.
Research & Concept
We chose bees because we had a shared interest in environmental issues and sustainability, and are aware of the importance of bees in a broader ecological system.
This work developed over the second half of the class, where we originally started with the idea to simulate the bee waggle dance and as an educational tool.
Initial design, focused on communicating bee dance behaviors
Updated UI direction showing the beehive inner + outer views at night
(designed by Aishwarya Janwadkar)
(designed by Aishwarya Janwadkar)
In the second interation and extension of this project, we decided to shift away from this idea, and instead conceptualized an interactive prototype where a user could observe bee behaviors based on environmental factors that they can affect with UI controls.