Hasso Plattner Institute

The Human Computer Interaction (HCI) is a broad field around hardware and software user interfaces, virtual reality, 3D printing, and haptics. I worked on a two player mobile game, played on back to back tablets, where one player’s in game actions would affect the other person. Even though it is the same game, different in-game items show up for each player. For example, when one player tilts the device to collect coins, the other player is deflected off course by an in-game magnet. I used my knowledge about human perception and game design as well as programmed in C# using the Unity game engine.

Being in such a diverse research group have given me exposure to many different fields. After living and breathing research for three months, I’m starting to further discover and refine what field I’m specifically interested in and want to pursue. HCI strikes me as quite close, but not quite. I’m actually coming to like prototyping and development, testing out fresh ideas and having long conversations and meetings. I have yet to experience the full breadth of writing papers and attending conferences, but academia still remains an interesting option for me to pursue.