Embedded Files
Ice_cream_man_demo.mp4This is an extension of the project that I worked on in my summer internship at Intuitive Surgical, Due to NDA, I am unfortunately unable to disclose the nature of the actual project itself other than to provide a brief description and explain the basic technical methodology. But, I was able to obtain permission to share this limited footage of a game that I cooked up on the last week of my internship, using the system that I was working on for the summer. I do hope that you enjoy, and perhaps obtain a little laugh from the janky game play.
Brief Description of the Game
Brief Description of the Game
This game is a simple single player game played on the Da Vinci 5 surgeonside console simulator mode. The player controls the MTM arms (the two silver tools shown in the photo) to whack flying cubes. With each cube whacked, the score accumulates, and so do the spawn rate and the speed of the cubes. It is essentially a simple infinitely going game, where the goal is to obtain as many points as possible. Ah, and if you are hit by the cubes, one life will be subtracted for every cube that hits the player.
The inspiration behind this game stems from an innate fear and simultaneous excitement for whenever the ice cream truck came around our campus. The music would seem to loop ceaselessly, not to mention how the mascot seemed to bore holes into our soul with its soulless stare... Therefore, it only made sense to make the ice cream mascot the de facto "boss" of this game.
Overview of my Summer Project
Overview of my Summer Project
As aforementioned, the minigame showcased above was implemented as a part of my summer internship at Intuitive Surgical, where my primary task was to construct an interactive UI prototyping system in Unity 3D for the immersive AR team to use. This UI prototyping system is designed to run on the Da Vinci 5 surgical robot's surgeonside console on simulator mode, which essentially is a training mode in which surgeons will practise how to use the robot's various pedals and controls through a series of exercises, also implemented on Unity. My task was to design this system to not only be able to run on the simulator in real time, but also design a series of different controls for up and coming features that are planning on being implemented.
Since I was building up this prototyping system from scratch, I needed a particular feature to implement UI versions for specifically, before we made the tool to be more general case. Of course, I kept the base architecture of the tool to be useable in the general case such that any new feature that needed visualisation tests for UI would be able to be adapted onto my system. For displaying versions of the UI, I implemented a Colocator Manager that stored each UI element; the user could use the simulator's controls to cycle through different variations, and they could use the attached keyboard to control its location, scale, and colour. Hence, users can add as many variations of UI for the same feature as they would like, and they can interact with a simulated surgical environment while also comparing variations of UI visualisation for that same feature.
While working on the simulator UI prototyping environment, I also had the opportunity to test out the UI on various users, and receive two iterations of feedback for my designs, including presenting it at a company wide open forum presentation. From these various user tests, I was able to reconvene with the designers and update my designs for one iteration, before I moved onto longer, more individualistic testing. By the conclusion of my internship, I had not only constructed an interactive prototype for UI prototyping on the simulator for the rest of my team to use in early feature UI development, but I also was able to obtain valuable feedback from relevant parties regarding how to further improve the tool.
Page updated
Report abuse