Playful Murmuration is a speculative museum experience for children to learn about a natural phenomenon and socialize through teamwork.
Project Length: 13 weeks (Spring 2025)
Team
Jessica Chen (Physical Controller)
Role
Creative Technologist, Interaction/Experience Designer
Tools
Unity, Optitrack Spatial Tracking System, Arduino, 3D Modeling/Printing
The Experience
Playful Murmuration is a collaborative spatial game where children role play as a birds of a flock to learn about the behaviors and behind a natural phenomenon.
Insights & Learning Objectives
Through subject research, we identified three simple learning objectives to work into the gameplay.
Mini to Mega Units
Each bird coordinates with the 6 around them. Unlike humans, this communication is unaffected by quantity or distance.
Strength in Numbers
The constant shifting patterns and movements of a murmuration confuse predators, making it hard to catch individual birds.
Human Impacts
Exposure to urban noise causes stress and disrupts communication. This auditory interference leads to less cohesive flocks.
Interaction Overview
Primarily focused on a young audience, we wanted to create an interaction that required minimal text instructions (some kids can't read yet!) so we incorporate light, color, and shape feedback as part of our iterations.
Individual Interaction: To communicate with the flock, squeeze and hold birdy controller to match the highlighted ring. Complete to attract a small flock of 6.
Co-creative Interaction: When small flocks come into proximity of each other, a larger ring game forms. Upon completion a much larger flock will form around the players.
Active Teamwork:
An enemy enters the scene! Players work together by evading and completing target rings to drive it away.
Process Snapshot
Distilling insights from murmuration, learning in young children, and interaction design to synthesize the gameplay and overall experience story.
