MIT student blogger Jenny X. '13

Cute! an MIT mood meter – by Jenny X. '13

Are you smiling today?

First off, I hope everyone who came here for CPW had a great timeeeee (and will be coming back soon! c:)

But now for the cute… the other day I saw this installation in the Infinite Corridor.

(You can see me awkwardly on the side taking a picture; the camera’s hiding my face. harhar)

Basically, there’s a camera somewhere recording students going through the Infinite and tracking the intensity of smiles passing by. Students walking through can look up to a screen and see if there’s a hysterical green face (smiling!) or a mellow yellow face (not smiling…)… plastered on their face.

This mood meter is part of the MIT150 Festival of Arts, Sciences, and Technology (FAST) and is one of four mood meters installed by the Media Lab. The other three locations are the Student Center, Stata Center, and the Media Lab. (You can read more about the mood meter installation as well as check out a live tracker of smile intensity at all four locations here)

Here’s a video of the mood meter in the Infinite. Man, we need to get that happiness barometer up.

The best part is walking the opposite way and seeing people look up to the screen and smile… and make faces. SO CUTE. The green and yellow faces are kind of haunted-looking though…those huge circle eyes.

Anyways, smile! At least for the camera :P

8 responses to “Cute! an MIT mood meter –”

  1. Piper '13 says:
    April 16, 2011 at 9:05 am

    I wish they had made a sad face in addition to a neutral face. The neutral face looks so sad raspberry

    But that camera is incredibly amusing to play with, especially if you have t-shirts with things that look like faces on them :D

  2. Shahariar Hassan says:
    April 17, 2011 at 2:15 am

    It’s cool! And as piper’13 said yeah it would be quite a thing to look at! Are those mood meter based on face-line effect?

  3. kat says:
    April 16, 2011 at 8:23 am

    yayyyy mood meter! p.s. i like ur wellies.

  4. Yo fave says:
    April 17, 2011 at 9:59 am

    Gurrrl, I love your outfit in that picture!! Teehee, looking fashionable even on rainy days (:

  5. DanielG says:
    April 17, 2011 at 8:50 am

    Wow! That’s a very creative design.

    In the video, some people alternated rapidly between neutral and happy. Maybe they were smirking…

  6. ThePlaz '13 says:
    April 19, 2011 at 7:11 am

    I don’t think these things are very accurate. They don’t read my mood accurately and they read a lot of other stuff as faces – the Media Lab has some more tuning to do. Often faces blink on and off in split seconds or rapidly change colors.

  7. Daniel '12 says:
    April 22, 2011 at 4:37 am

    The Mood Meter is only worth it once you get past 50 on the Happiness Barometer.

  8. PseudoIntelletualHack '08 says:
    April 22, 2011 at 5:06 am

    Looks like some hysteretic tuning is in order… to prevent the rapid oscillation from one expression to another. But I do like the concept. Aggregate data could yield useful information indeed…