Hi、I’m Tetsuya Kodama, a M2 student.

I participated in the CICP with members of IMD laboratory., which is a research proposal-based project led by students.In this project, our team proposed “Maintaining Work Motivation at Home with AR Avatar Integrated with Robotic Touch” and won the Best award!

Commemorative photo

The team members are described below.
Team leader: Keishi Tainaka
Team member: Isidro Butaslac and Tetsuya Kodama
Supervisor: Taishi Sawabe and Masayuki Kanbara

First,I explain our research briefly.
Based on operant conditioning, which is a method to promote behavioral change by giving a combination of guilt and reward, we proposed “TSUNDERE interaction,” which combines TSUN (cold behavior) as the guilt and DERE(kind behavior) as the reward.If you want to know more detail, please check our pubilication

TSUNDERE Interaction

In this project, we had the cooperation of maid caffe CCOちゃ and Yoshimoto’s comedian 小寺真理さん.In order to create TSUNDERE interaction model, we correct motion data and voice from them.And you can watch the data collection process video on CCOちゃ youtube channel.

Data collection in CCOちゃ

With CCOちゃ maid staff and 小寺真理さん

There were opinions and insights that could be gained by interacting with professionals in the field.I believe that our discussions based on these opinions and insights led to the Best award.Thank you very much for your cooperation.  The CICP also gave me the opportunity to do honest and serious research on my curiosity.Our research is still incomplete, so I would like to work hard to complete it this year!

Hi、I am Keishi Tainaka, a D1 student.

I attended IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality(ISMAR) between November 9 and 13.
In this conference, I presented about my paper, “Guideline and Tool for Designing an Assembly Task Support System Using Augmented Reality“.

If there was no COVID-19, this conference would be held in Brazil, with its beautiful tropical skies and seas. So, this was a remote conference in a virtual world. And the time of the event of Brazil is the exact opposite of Japanese time(JST), starting around 8:00 pm and ending at 8:00 pm in JST. So, it has confused my health.

Before the presentation, I made my avatar first. I made my hair blonde for a makeover.

In the presentation, I did this on the stage.

Even if it was virtual, I was very nervous. The question and answer session was held in English, so I prepared a variety of questions and answers beforehand, because I am not very good at that. I would like to thank Fujimoto-sensei and the lab members for their cooperation in their busy schedules.

As a result, I got some valuable questions from the great professors, which was very helpful for my future work.

During the break, I played dance, boat race and soccer on the beach with my lab members.

This is dancing on the beach with my seniors.

After my presentation, I learned a lot of useful things about the future research and presentation ways from other presentations.

The conference itself was streamed live on Youtube, and the tension and excitement of presenting in front of people from all over the world was something I have never felt before. It made me feel happy to be in the doctoral course.

Next time, I would like to experience that atmosphere again in a real place, so I would like to work hard on my research.

Thanks.

Hello, I’m Zhou Hangyu, D2 student.

I participated in ICMI 2020 during October 25th to 30th. My short paper, “effectiveness of virtual reality playback in public speaking training”, was accepted for it’s workshop, Social Affective Multimodal Interaction for Health (SAMIH).
It was my first time to participate a academic conference, felt a bit stressed but it was online which sounds much better, and everything goes fine. They asked some questions.
What I remember most is the question asking how the facial expression could impact the users, it’s a very important question of our research since we also hide the facial expression form the record. Of cause it’s a important part for public speaking, but getting only facial expression many require more device which may cause some effects to the presentation, and it may not so important comparing to other performance. So we decided to remove that.
But it would be a very interesting topic to clear the importance for each part of public speaking performance in playback.

I also learned a lot from the keynotes at the workshop and it related much to my research, or my future research. They shared their works in social skill training and virtual doctors for mental health, very enthusiasm. It was a good chance to know what research questions are people around world now thinking or facing about, and believe the AR/VR could bring more possibility strongly.

The meeting was nice, but since it was online so I’m sorry that I can not put any pictures here.

Hello! I’m Shuntaro Ueda. I entered this lab in April of this year.
My recent goal is to make international students laugh in English.
This is my first blog post.

We held Super Science High school for 3 days from August 4, 2020.
We were able to carry out face-to-face prevention of COVID-19 thoroughly.

The theme of this time is “Development of learning support system using Augmented Reality (AR) technology”.

The curriculum is explanation about AR, implementation of sample program, and creation of free assignment.
Student made “Chemical reaction experience application”.
She did everything from idea creation to implementation.

Although she had no programming experience, she was able to master interaction with virtual objects and between two AR markers.
The AR app I created for the first time was cheaper, so I felt a little embarrassed…

Visualized chemical molecule

Water is generated when oxygen molecule and hydrogen molecule are brought close to each other.

Matchsticks and firewood registered in the AR marker. When these are brought close to each other, a fire will occur. It can be erased with water.

It was a valuable experience to teach the student what I learned in this lab.
I am glad the she also enjoyed it.

I’m going to make an AR app for improving English conversation.

Hello, I am Kenta Sugiyama who is a M1 student in IMD lab. I had been to Technical University of Munich in Germany as an internship student from 9th October to 6th December. I joined the project team that is working on IMU sensor fusion under supervison of Ph.D. student, Jadid and Prof. Klinker. My work was to run sensor fusion on a microcontroller. I learned α lot about IMU sensor fusion, Kalman Filter algorithm, and implementation on microcontroller.

In Germany, it was colder than in Japan. Even in October I felt the same as in Japan in winter. You need to bring warm clothes even If you plan to visit Germany in only autumn.

The right picture shows a famous slider in the Maths and Informatics building of the university. I was going to slide on the last day, but the entrance was closed on the day, so I couldn’t slide… (Maybe I have next time!)

In the university, ”Language Cafe” is held once a week like the picture below (I got this picture from the University website). You can speak the language what you want to speak if you sit that language table. Actually I could make many friends who are interested in Japan. I was surprised and happy because many students were interested in Japan and could speak Japanese.

I had great time and great experience in Munich. The all lab members were kind and I could concentrate in my research project. Thank you for all! 

Hello! My name is Hitomi. I’m M1 student.
This time, we went to Shiga prefecture for two nights and three days research camp.
It has been a while since I entered the laboratory, but it was a good opportunity to get along with my seniors and teachers.
So, I would like to show some photo of the camp!

Not only play but also study is one purpose, so there was a presentation on the final day.

This camp was very hard, but It was very benefit.
I will put a group photo at the end. Thank you everyone who participated in the training camp!

Hello, I am Taisei Watanabe, M1 student in IMD-lab.

Oulu Airport

I had been to University of Oulu as an internship student for 1 month from 5th Feb. to 28th Feb. I also join the sprint-project team same as Ayaka. And, my work was estimation of human 3D-joints and calculation of sprint information (pitch and stride).

Left picture is taken in Oulu Airport. When I arrived in oulu, actually I forgot to bring my coat. So, I felt super cold wind there. Otherwise, when I arrived in my room in an apartment, I was surprised that the room is so warmer even compare to my room in Nara. Warm water heating is super gread!

University of Oulu

Right picture is outside view of university of oulu. I think the amount of snow is less than Jan. So, I was more lucky than Ayaka about the coldness. But there was another problem. If the temperature is higher than 0 degree, of course the snow melt. And then, If the temperature will be lower than 0 degree again, ICE will be made on roads. The ice was so dangerous, I heard from many people who got pain from the ice. So, if you want to go to Finland, please be careful about the ice!

Bronze statue of police in oulu-city

Other, there is a bronze statue of police in the center of oulu-city. Above picture is that one. This monument is quite well known in oulu-sity. But one problem is around the statue is surrounded ice. I don’t know the reason, people is not in around there when I came.

Anyway, the days in oulu was so interesting. That’s why, there ware many great restaurant in the university, and there was many friendly people. So I could concentrate in my research activity. Thank you for all!

Hi, my name is Ayaka Matsumoto, M1 student in IMD lab.

University of Oulu

I have been in an internship at University of Oulu in Finland since 7th January. Here, I join the project team that is working on 3D pose estimation from 2D images with Ph.D. student, Lam and under supervision of  Prof. Janne. This project is using Machine Learning, so I’ve learned about it for a month before I started my internship. It is very challenging work for me, because I have less knowledge about Machine Learning. However I hope I will be able to get some results for this project.

By the way, it is basically -15℃ here, and in the morning and night it goes under -20℃! I have never experienced this super cold weather before, but I’ve never experienced this incredible scene where everything is covered with snow as well. It is very beautiful. Since the campus building wall is painted with fresh color, you can enjoy the contrast between white world of snow and colorful world of college.

It is 3pm. It is getting dark.

White tree covered with snow.

Blue & Yellow hallway

Orange & Yellow hallway

Green lecture room

Hello everyone! Jayzon (Master’s graduate) here.

Last November 24 – 27, Kato-sensei, Okahashi-sensei (Occupational Therapist from Kyoto University Hospital), Matsumoto-san (M1), Inoue-san (M1), and I went to Tainan city in Taiwan to attend the 2018 JST-MoST Conference on Information and Communications Technology (ICT) for Accessibility and Support of Older People. The conference was organized via a collaboration between different universities from Japan and Taiwan, and was mainly focused on addressing issues related to super-aged societies using ICT.

View of Tainan City from the hotel.

Photo of the conference venue. Photo courtesy of Okahashi-sensei

One of the main events of the conference was the poster presentation. Matsumoto-san presented her current research about developing strategies for promoting and sustaining motivation for rehabilitation, Inoue-san presented about designing, developing, and evaluating an augmented reality (AR) music game for finger rehabilitation, and I presented about integrating the finger pressing evaluation training system (PETS) with AR. (Photos courtesy of Okahashi-sensei)

Towards the end of the conference, 3 best poster awards were presented, and Inoue-san and I received 2 of the 3 best poster awards.

Given that we were already in Taiwan, we did not miss the chance to visit the night market and try the stinky tofu (臭豆腐). Inoue-san and I thought it was delicious, but Matsumoto-san hated it very much XD.

We also had a tour of National Cheng Kung University (国立成功大学) and were introduced to different research laboratories.

Finally, before going back home, we visited the Hayashi department store (林百貨) to shop for souvenirs. Hayashi department store is one of the most iconic department stores in Tainan city, dating back to the period when Taiwan was colonized by Japan. Across the department store is a branch of the Nippon Kangyo Bank (勸業銀行), another iconic building that was also established on the same period.

Hayashi Department Store (林百貨)

Old Branch of Nippon Kangyo Bank (勸業銀行)

Overall, we really enjoyed Tainan city, and we definitely would love to go back. Here’s hoping for a stronger collaboration between Japan and Taiwan in the near future!