Physical computation + installation / 2023
Shuffle
A physical strategy game about balancing the competing demands of student life.
Interaction Designer
Interactive installation
Physical computation
2 months
Shuffle turns the competing demands of student life into a field of physical sliders. Participants balance class, sleep, food, energy, and social life, then watch each choice reshape the system around it.
The questionHow might a physical interface reveal the interconnected consequences of everyday choices and the unseen forces that continually disrupt a student’s sense of balance?
Turn an invisible balancing act into a physical model.
The installation frames student life as a strategy simulation. Familiar priorities become tangible variables, allowing participants to construct their own version of a balanced day and immediately confront the tradeoffs behind it.
Each slider acts as both an input and an output.
Moving one control triggers changes elsewhere. Motorized sliders respond to a participant’s decisions, exposing relationships between priorities that are easy to overlook. The system also introduces external shifts, reflecting how real life can disturb even a carefully planned balance.
A playful interaction creates room for reflection.
Participants quickly discover that maximizing everything is impossible. The tactile negotiation prompts them to consider how time and energy move between responsibilities, and how one decision can produce consequences across the whole system.
The interface makes compromise impossible to ignore.
By turning priorities into connected physical controls, Shuffle transforms an abstract conversation about balance into an immediate experience of choice, consequence, and adjustment.