The animal that is chosen for the Head-Mounted Display(HMD) design project as the primary market are the polar bears. It is important because of the threatening situation they are facing. According to the article “Imperiled polar bears face a new threat in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge” of WWF, the continuous decline of their sea-ice environment due to global climate change, polar bears have been classified as a threatened species in the US since 2008. The seriousness of the matter motives me to design a head-mounted display for the polar bear to help them distress from both the shrinking of their sea ice habitat and the negative effect that the seismic tests that are performed from the world that is outside of Zootopia world have caused.
Before start designing the product, the first thing to do is to understand whether it is worthy to design such a piece of equipment. So a survey to 100 randomly chosen polar bears would be conducted. The survey included questions such as “what do you like/dislike about the environment you live in?”, “would you use a product that is designed to help you distress?”. Assume there is a strong need from the polar bear population for this equipment and engineers understand how polar bears’ mental model are.
To design this head-mounted display, the sizes of the polar bears’ head have to be measured. According to the article, “polar bear facts” by Alina Bradford, “polar bears are also the largest species of the bear”, so the HMD hardware would have to be designed differently than the HMD that human use. The method that would be used to determine the head sizes of the polar bears is to sample randomly 100 polar bear patients. For the consideration of accessibility, the mean of the sample head size and the variance and the standard deviation would be calculated for the means of determining the size of HMD so that the equipment could be used by as many polar bears as possible. The range of the head size would be determined by the sample to estimate how flexible the HMD’s size should be for the smallest and biggest head size. The HMD’s shape would also be modeled as polar bears’ head shape. The optical system related qualities of the polar bears would also be considered, such as the field of view, the distance between the polar bears’ eyes. These qualities could be measured with the head size.
The restrictions that this HMD would have is to be cold resistance since polar bears live under very low temperature. It would also need to be water resistance due to the reason that they swim and hunt for food in the ocean. For the affordance consideration of this HMD, the bottoms on the equipment would be labeled clearly and easy to be understood by the polar bears so they would know how to use the HMD by just looking at it.
To satisfy the goal distressing. Two software features would be designed initially. First software is design as displaying different images using the technology of virtual reality. One of the most important display would be the image of the “ice world” which in this case would be an ideal world for polar bears to live, a world full of sea ice. As indicated by Andrew E. Derocher in the article, “Polar Bears and Climate Change”, the consequences of the global climate change have shrunk the feeding period for polar bears and the extends the period the bears must starve with less stocked fat in their bodies. Especially to female polar bears as they give birth to small bears that weigh less, who would have lower survival rates. With the lower survival rates, the population of polar bears is facing an obdurate decline. Therefore, the perfect image of an ice world would be created for the purpose of reducing the pain and stress of the polar bears who are facing the terrible environment condition, especially to female polar bears that are in the period of giving birth. This HMD cannot change the fact that sea ice is declining but it helps the polar bears to physiologically feel better.
The other function that the HMD should have to help the polar bears to destress is to have the ability to play different music and sounds. The polar bear family almost never interact with any human, but in the environment that they live in, they always hear and feel seismic tests that the humans are performing for the need of finding gas and oil, according to “Protect Polar Bears from Seismic Testing” of WWF. Seismic testing is a produce massive noise for the polar bears and it is not compatible or ideal for polar bears. What is more harmful, according to WWF, is disturbing female bears and making them leave early could result in harm, or even fatality, to their children. So with the sound feature of this HMD would help the polar bears to relief from the loud and noisy stress.
Before releasing to the general public, the equipment must be tested out. The objective of this study is to test out if the HMD that is specifically design for the polar bear population can effectively reduce stress that is created by environment for polar bear. The hypothesis is that the HMD equipment is that specifically designed for the polar bear can effectively distress for the polar bears. The independent variable would be using/ not using the HMD equipment. And the dependent variable would be the stress level of the polar bears. This experiment would require 200 polar bears that are randomly chosen from different areas, at different ages, and different genders. The bears are ensured that they agreed to be tested and the test will terminate if any dangerous situation happen. The polar bears are randomly divided into four groups. The first group will be treated with the HMD equipment with the feature of image only, and the second group will be treated with the HMD equipment with the feature of sound only. The third group will be treated with both features, while the fourth group does not get treat with the HMD. The test will be a 15-day period. The stress level would be measured by test equipment before and after the treatment each day, and the polar bears form each individual group will not be able to see what other groups’ treatments are because the test will be a blind test in order to avoid eliminate bias. The reason that the experiment is conducted this way to see the effectiveness of the HMD has on the stress level of the polar bears. If it is stress levels are bears are significantly reduced for groups that are using the HMD equipment compare to the untreated group, then it indicates that the HMD equipment is effectively designed for distressing. The statistical test of simple regression would be applied in this study because it is to compare whether changing the independent variable would change the outcome of the stress level. If there is not a different or if the measurement result indicates that the equipment has a negative effect on distressing then the equipment would not be released, but to be studied and improved first. Multiple regression is another statistical method that is applied in this experimental study to indicate whether changing the combination of different technological features of this HMD would change the difference out the stress level outcome. Compare the test result from the first three groups would indicate the effectiveness of distress of the two features that are designed in the HMD equipment. The purpose of this comparison is to see the technological considerations when evaluating the impact and efficacy of this HMD for further improvement. By conducing this study, engineers who are designing this HMD would also be able to learn more about how polar bears interact with the equipment, which is their mental models.
In conclusion, this Head-Mounted Display is designed to distress the suffering polar bears from the declining sea ice habitat and relief them from the negative effects that the seismic tests created.
Reference:
Polar Bear. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/polar-bear
Bradford, A. (2014, November 24). Polar Bear Facts. Retrieved from https://www.livescience.com/27436-polar-bear-facts.html
2019-2-10-1549778646