The Amazing Mirror

1. The AmazingMirror By: Brittaney, Taylor , and Dianne

2. Our Problem Our problem is that teens are using up valued time trying to find the right outfit for the day. A lot of teens, mainly girls, are stressed about trying to impress their friends and other peers.

3. Student Survey - Girls

4. Student Survey - Boys

5. Reasons Why We Need a Solution - Pressures of Wearing Name Brand Clothes -“If you don’t have name brand clothes, than you’re not looked up to,” – Brooke Wladyka. - Teenagers want to dress to impress. - Some teenagers buy name brand clothes because the peers around them have those name brand clothes. - When teenagers even have a little money, they spend it on the most expensive things that they can afford. - “Zelt says a lot of ads marketing to teens target their self-esteem to reach into their pocket books. ‘The message they often convey is 'if you don't have this item, you won't be popular or you won't be accepted or you won't be cool, which are obvious concerns to adolescents.’” – canada.com

6. Reasons Why We Need a Solution Continued - Self Esteem Statistics • 70% of girls from ages 15 to 17 don’t participate in everyday activities because they feel uncomfortable due to their lack of self confidence. • About 87% of teen girls have some kind of appearance anxiety from beauty ideals. • In the United States, 92% of young women would like to change something about their physical appearance. • At age 9, girl’s self esteem peaks, then it takes a nose dive. • Three fourths of 8 and 9 year olds say they like their looks. That percentage drops down to about 56% when talking to girls ages 12 and 13. • A survey said that 80% of girls in 8th grade are on some type of diet

7. Reasons Why We Need a Solution Continued - Self Esteem Statistics • 75% of 8 and 9 year olds say they liked their looks. That percentage drops down to about 56% when talking to girls of the age 12 and 13. • A survey said that 80% of girls in 8th grade are on some type of diet. • Out of the 7 million girls and women who have eating disorders, 33% are ages 11-15 and 10% of them are under age 10. • As a result of the messages girls receive from the media, girls constantly question their beauty. • More than 90 percent of girls ages 15-17 want to change at least one thing about their appearance, body weight being the highest.

8. Our Solutions • Fashion Mirror • Hologram • Portable Touch Screen

9. Solution #1- Fashion Mirror For out first solution, we decided on creating a type of mirror and computer all wrapped in one. Instead of the full length mirror being an actual mirror made of glass, it is a touch screen computer. It has a certain type of program that helps you pick out your outfit for the day. The idea of the mirror is to do the work of picking out your clothes so you don’t have to. All of your clothes are in the memory of the computer by taking pictures of them using the built in camera. Then, you download them into the computer. By pressing certain buttons on the side of the mirror, it can do different things like match your clothes, pick out your outfit depending on your mood, and layer and mix your clothes just the right way to make them look like name brand clothes, even though they might not be. One thing that might not be so great about this mirror is that it is rather large considering it’s a full length mirror. Some people may find this helpful, while others may find it a waste of space. Overall, we feel his mirror is great because it saves time and makes your mornings easier.

10. Prototype

11. Solution #2- Hologram Holograms would be portable objects similar to pens. The “hologram” would be portable and you can bring it around to places to try on new outfits. Built into the devise, there is a USB port (that can be opened from the side of the machine). In front of a cashier or in another part of the store, there would be another USB port that you would be able to connect to using a cord given. There are many buttons that will allow you to try on the clothes. The holograms work by having many cameras pointing at the object that would be projected. The different cameras shoot at the different angles of the object to transmit the whole image. The projected images of the “holograms” are mostly speckled and have a very low quality. For clothes that you already have, you can upload the barcode into your computer. We will have this program for all of our solutions.

12. Prototype

13. Solution #3- Portable Touch Screen We chose the portable touch screen because to us it was the one that was it was the one that was the most realistic. The portable touch screen works just like the bottom touch screen of a Nintendo DS Lite. Like the hologram, there would be a USB port in the machine and where ever in the store. There would be a USB/USB cord provided in the packaging of the item.

14. Prototype

15. Our Final Solution We choose for the Portable Touch Screen to be our final solution. It is going to be made of basically the same the bottom of a DS Lite is made of. To us, it is the most realistic kind of machine that we could make. Also, we all like it the best and think that it is the most modern and easiest to understand for more people who would be interested in buying it. A reason why we didn’t choose the hologram is because the technology is a bit confusing and not as well as developed as the portable touch screen. With the actual Fashion Mirror, there are some complex systems that we would have to make for the whole mirror itself, and for a computer. We weren’t positively sure if our mood scanner or “brand store look” would work. There would be some difficulties in the making of a portable touch screen, but there are a lot of products out right now that have touch screens on them, with nearly the same technology inside of them.

16. Final Solution

17. Lessons Learned (Reflection) • The experience working on the TechXplore project was a good one. We picked a project that interested us all which definitely helped because we were determined to find the perfect solution for this problem shared by many teens. Our group really had to communicate because not all of us working on the project were working in the same class period. Even though we weren’t all together, we still managed to get everything done. We also learned about communication through chatting with our mentor through Vyew book. We used his feedback to help make our project better and change anything that might have needed to be changed.

18. Survey • The Amazing Mirror Survey • Please fill out this survey based on what you thought of our project. Rate each category with an honest answer, 1 through 5, 1 being the worst and 5 being the best. For the suggestions section, you may list anything you think we could have done differently or say anything we might be able to improve on. You can also say anything you liked about our project as well. • Did you understand the project and all of our solutions? • 1 2 3 4 5 • Did you understand the problem? Did we do a good job of defining it? • 1 2 3 4 5 • Do you think this was a problem that needed to be addressed? • 1 2 3 4 5 • Did we do enough research to support our problem? • 1 2 3 4 5 • How would you rate the layout and design of our PowerPoint? • 1 2 3 4 5 • Suggestions:

19. Survey Results • Almost everyone understood our project and the problem. They also agreed that this is a big problem for teenagers. They liked how we showed our problem and our solutions on a power point and how we designed it.

20. Brittaney Brittaney is a thirteen year old girl in 8th grade that goes to OOJH. She often spends time with her big family, including her older sister. and draws, paints, and reads a type of Japanese comic called manga. She loves to listen to music, hang out with her friends, and go on the computer. Brittaney is 100% Chinese, and knows 3 types of many Chinese languages, school Spanish and of course English. She plays piano along with the viola. Her favorite subject is social studies and hopes to become a teacher that may teach that topic.

21. Dianne • My name is Dianne and I go to Old Orchard Jr. High. I am in 8th grade and graduating next year. I am 13 years old and was born on April 1st 1995 in Los Angeles, California. I am 100% pure Filipino. Both of my parents were born and raised in the Philippines. I have 2 younger sisters. Their names are Dana and Dacey. All of our names start with a D. I studied in the Philippines for 5 years, and then I moved back here in the United States. I play the piano and have been playing for 8 years. My favorite subjects are math and gym. My mom is a nurse, and my dad is a courier. I can speak fluent Tagalong. Most of my favorite foods are Philippine foods. This is all the basic stuff about me.

22. Taylor • Hey! My name is Taylor Gardner and I’m an 8th grader at Old Orchard Jr. High School in Skokie, Illinois. I’m 14 and this is my second year participating in TechXplore. My favorite subject in school is language arts, mainly writing. I love to sing and I’ve been playing the flute for 5 years. I love listening to music; anything I can dance to is perfect. In my spare time, I like to read, go shopping with my friends, and I do a lot of babysitting. I am a cheerleader for my school and I am on the school basketball team. I play basketball outside of school too and I’ve been playing for six years. I’ve also been playing fast pitch softball for six years and I play mostly pitcher and shortstop. I have two younger brothers, ages 4 and 9, and a younger sister who is 12.

23. Correspondence with mentor • (Nov 20 11:32a) alumagu1: Okay, let see if this will work • (Nov 20 11:38a) alumagu1: This is my first time using this web interface so I am not entirely sure if this is the appropriate place to respond • (Nov 20 11:46a) alumagu1: I understand that the goal of the project is to provide a computer base technology that will sort the various clothing accessories. The variables for this query are mood, color and brand. • (Nov 20 11:49a) alumagu1: The project will require some sort of a database that will contain all the different images of clothing categorize by the variables. • (Nov 20 11:50a) alumagu1: The survey is a great idea. It will provide data to the project • (Nov 20 11:52a) alumagu1: I do have one question. Can you clarify the mirror portion of the touch screen? • (Feb 6 6:07p) Allan: let me know if you need help over the weekend. I will check here Sunday. • (Feb 10 1:23p) Allan: not sure if you were able to get the ppt file.

24. Correspondence with Mentor It's more like a webcam. Its shaped like an average mirror, but has computer features. It would be the size of a full length mirror with a built in camera like an apple computer. There are 2 options of getting the pictures of your clothes into the program; either take a picture and upload it on to your computer and then the mirror, or there would be like a "finding" option when you describe your clothing very specificly and the mirror gives you a range of options on which you choose from. -Brittaney, Dianne, Taylor

25. Correspondence with Mentor • If I understand this correctly, the mirror will have the following capability: • - Mirror/Monitor • - Built in computer • - Webcam capable • - Touch screen • - Can download and upload data • - Standalone unit • - Can query selection based on criteria such as mood, color and brand of clothing. • *For example, selection option is Fall and the mood is calm/peaceful. The mirror should provide a respond based on these criteria. • Please let me know if this is the expectation of the project.

26. Bibliography • http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_does_a_Nintendo_DS_Lite_work • http://science.howstuffworks.com/hologram1.htm • http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/hologram-16.gif