Title | EYE PLAY THE PIANO |
Brand | THE UNIVERSITY OF TSUKUBA’S SPECIAL NEEDS SCHOOLS |
Product / Service | THE UNIVERSITY OF TSUKUBA’S SPECIAL NEEDS SCHOOLS |
Category | B08. Digital Design |
Entrant | HAKUHODO KETTLE Tokyo, JAPAN |
Entrant Company | HAKUHODO KETTLE Tokyo, JAPAN |
Advertising Agency | HAKUHODO KETTLE Tokyo, JAPAN |
Production Company | AID-DCC Osaka, JAPAN |
Production Company 2 | INVISIBLE DESIGN LAB Fukuoka, JAPAN |
Production Company 3 | TOKYO Tokyo, JAPAN |
Name | Company | Position |
---|---|---|
Shota Hatanaka | Hakuhodo Kettle | Creative Director |
Keitaro Kamijo | Hakuhodo | Producer |
Masashi Ohashi | AID-DCC Inc. | Technical director/Programmer |
Kenjiro Matsuo | Invisible Designs Lab. | Technical director/Sound producer |
Yuri Morimoto | AID-DCC Inc. | Designer |
Takayuki Kitai | AID-DCC Inc. | Motion designer |
Yoshiaki Kajiyashiki | AID-DCC Inc. | Programmer |
Masaru Kinoshita | AID-DCC Inc. | System Engineer |
Kentaro Muraishi | Planner | |
Toshiyuki Takei | Tokyo/Taiyokikaku Co./Ltd. | Producer |
Kazuma Kitada | Tokyo/Taiyokikaku Co./Ltd. | Director |
Masayoshi Takayanagi | Tokyo/Taiyokikaku Co./Ltd. | Production Manager |
Rintaro Kozasa | Tokyo/Taiyokikaku Co./Ltd. | Production Manager |
Miwa Onishi | Taiyokikaku Co./Ltd. | Production Manager |
Shingo Ikeura | Camera | |
Keiichi Tomita | Camera | |
Ryosuke Toyama | Camera | |
Takami Yuasa | Blue Bayou | Sound |
Keiichi Nakajima | Editor | |
Yoshitaka Honda | Editor | |
Kota Numajiri | Piano Player | |
Takashi Uno | PR planner | |
Ryo Muramatsu | P-point | PR planner |
Children with physical handicaps who have difficulty with the movement of their hands or feet often have limitations with regards to“individual expression.” Children who went to that school were not able to conduct various activities such as exercising, drawing pictures or playing instruments as easily as normal children. This is where we came up with the idea of making good use of one part of their bodies that they could move freely, the eye.
In Japan there are over one million seven hundred thousand (1,700,000) people with physical disabilities and three hundred (300) schools for the physically disabled where children with physical disabilities attend. Through the practice of their educational philosophy of, "expanding the possibilities of children" the University of Tsukuba’s Special Needs-Schools strives to deepen the understanding of education for the disabled to the world public and also plead to education-related personnel including the national institution in hopes of further improvement and development to the current state of Special Needs Education.
We developed the universal piano system,“Eye Play the Piano,” by using an eye-tracking system within a head mount display so the piano could be played without the use of hands or arms but rather by blinking on the desired key to play that note. The arrangement of the standard keyboard, which is designed to be played by hand has been reassembled to an interface which can be played by “sight.” A very rich and varied musical performance can be obtained through the combined application of the mono-tone mode and harmonic mode. The project to use the system in a musical performance was started alongside Kota Numajiri, a student of this school who was born with Spinal Muscular Atrophy and had never played a musical instrument. In December of 2014, after 4 months of practicing, the student played the piano for their first ever Christmas concert at this school.
Eye Play the Piano gave an opportunity for disabled people who have lost their arms or legs, or people with muscular diseases to try a new experience, that is to play musical instruments freely without using their body. This project was covered by the media of 37 countries, and played an important role in spreading the uppermost notion of education, that is “to open the children to infinite possibilities.” As a result, this project has won the media publicity of over 9 million dollars. By making the Eye Play the Piano application an open source application, anyone around the world will be able to experience the system if they have access to the head mount display and musical instrument. Moreover, through charity fundraising, we were able to donate the device to other 53 schools in Japan. Furthermore, the Ministry of Education has started to fully introduce the system to expressive education, which has advanced the future of special education in Japan.