Blacksburg, VA., Feb 13, 2015 In the Human-Computer Interaction Capstone class, students formed teams based on project interests. Matt, Tyler, and Romico will be working on a “Photo Clouds” project this semester.
Visualize a day during summertime. Clear skies, a cool summer breeze, and a bright sun overlay outside. Ten minutes later, the atmosphere changes dramatically. Clouds suddenly fill the sky into an overcast. That’s when everyone knows that a storm is coming. Rain falls on the ground and it brings up newness and life. Matt, Tyler, and Romico are these clouds forming together. Their plan is to bring something new to the field.
Matt Bock pitched this idea to the class. “This idea came up when I my extended family came over one time. I realized that many photos were being taken through smartphones. Then, family members would ask to send them certain photos and I noticed that process took a while,” said Matt. “The basic idea is to set up a cloud during an event and have all photos taken during the event to be stored in that cloud.”
We noticed during a scouting assessment that this idea isn’t new. Applications already exist with most of the features that we desired. It was discouraging but only for a few minutes. Our next idea is to find ways to bring a new concept to the idea. Questions to ask would be, “What are those applications lacking? Is there a new creative idea that us 3 can figure out?”
The Photo Clouds Team is a team of three senior level computer science students at Virginia Tech: Matthew Bock, Romico Macatula, and Tyler Haines. All three of them have extensive skill sets in computer science after their years of study. With several semesters of experience in the field of humancomputer interaction at their disposal, the team is dedicated to creating the best experience possible for their users through rigorous testing and design iteration.
