Could a campus break become something you participate in?
The project explores emotional respite for university students through a more active relationship with plants. The starting point was everyday campus behaviour: greenery was often something to walk past or photograph, rather than something to engage with.
The design question became how to invite a short, low-effort encounter without asking students to take on the continuing responsibility of caring for a plant.
Interest in plants did not always translate into participation.
The portfolio’s questionnaire summary and observations point to two recurring barriers: limited space and the effort of ongoing plant care. A short break felt more approachable than a new commitment.
These findings shaped the proposed encounter: easy to join, brief enough for a campus routine, and optional to continue digitally. The research suggests design opportunities; it does not establish a therapeutic effect.
Greenery was mostly encountered passively.
Introduce stepping stones that make a bodily action produce an immediate sound response.
Plant care can feel like a continuing obligation.
Make the physical encounter available without adoption or a required app account.
Students wanted an accessible break within everyday routines.
Organise the experience around short visits, with optional mood reflection afterwards.
Make the invitation physical. Keep the commitment optional.
A planted structure gives the interaction a place. Stepping surfaces introduce a simple action, while sound provides an immediate response. The digital layer extends the encounter through plant-related participation and mood reflection.
The spatial sketches explore how the structure, seating and planting could support both individual pauses and shared use.
Step. Listen. Stay for a moment.
In the proposed experience, a student enters the planted space, steps onto a sensing stone and hears a response. A companion interface offers an additional route into plant adoption, reflection and community participation.
The spatial scenes and screens describe the intended experience. They are design outputs, separate from the smaller sensing-and-audio demonstration.
The useful part was what failed on the workbench.
The making record documents an Arduino Uno, HX711 sensing modules, a DFPlayer and a speaker. Tests explored starting audio when a load was detected, assigning tracks to three stones, and pausing after the load was removed.
The notes also record engineering problems: loss of information when a 24-bit reading was stored in a 16-bit integer, unstable sensor readings, and unreliable wiring that caused false triggers. Reading averages and reducing precision were explored; the documentation does not establish that every reliability issue was resolved.
A responsive object is a beginning, not an emotional outcome.
The project made the sensing-and-feedback loop tangible. It also exposed a gap between a convincing spatial proposal and a reliable installation that could operate in everyday campus conditions.
The next evaluation would separate two questions: does the sensing work consistently under repeated use, and do students find the encounter inviting and worth returning to? Any claim about wellbeing would require its own careful study.
