Anna Walant

I started developing this program as a single page web app that would be controlled with a Leap Motion. I was inspired by the idea of a community garden: something that provides peace of mind and enjoyment to many contributors at once. However, I am not known to be a good plant mother, so I wondered: what would happen if a community garden were digital?

As I developed it, I imagined that the end result would ideally be displayed either on a large screen or projected onto a wall. A Leap Motion would be set-up on a pedestal near the display. Users would be able to walk up to the pedestal and use hand motions to interact with the program. They would be able to choose to either plant a flower, or care for one that already exists. The flowers would indicate when they need water or sunlight, and the user would be able to provide this for them through gesturing with the Leap Motion. Together, the members of the community would be responsible for keeping these flowers alive.

I originally envisioned my project as encompassing the functionality of the Leap Motion, so I immediately set out to make my way through the documentation so I would be able to program with it. I used svg.js as my library for the initial prototype. At the time I was picturing watching these flowers grow from an elevation view, and in this first sketch it shows the flowers rising soon after they are planted and growing in diameter.

The Final Prototype

The final prototype is more of a simulation than an actual representation of how this would exist in real life if it were to be made. For beta testing purposes it doesn’t make much sense to make the growth of a flower take an entire day, so I sped up the lifecycle of each flower to be between a matter of seconds rather than hours. This way, the user still gets an idea of how the application would function, but doesn’t have to wait the actual time for a digital flower to grow. Additionally, in this beta prototype it exists in a webspace rather than as an installation, and users don’t need the Leap Motion to use it. My prototype functions so that the user can simply use a mouse and arrow keys.