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Takegawa Lab. - xFuture Lab.
Takegawa Lab. - xFuture Lab.
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  2. Safari of the Future

Safari of the Future

Greetings

Safari of the Future unites two contrasting fields: zoology and IT. What kind of new experiences and emotions can we provide by combining IT, which is extremely artificial, with the natural world? What can we do to enrich the environment in which the animals live? The targets of this research are not only people, such as the visitors who come to the safari park and the keepers and veterinarians who look after the animals, but also animals, specifically, those in the safari park.


‘Pokerepo Safari’ is a specialized online reporting system created in collaboration with safari park keepers. The system makes it possible to view lively animals from your own home. Combining this with ‘Living Stuffed Animal’ gives you a vivid perception of an animal’s breathing. This work truly uses technology to create new appeal regarding the safari park experience. In addition, there is ‘ELEG’, which is an attempt to enable communication with elephants.


These are just a few examples; we are exploring many more ideas of how to utilize IT to make safari parks even more enjoyable. Almost like magic, we combine IT with all the people, plants, animals, things and events in the field of the safari park. That is Safari of the Future.

Safari of the Future is promoted in cooperation with Fuji Safari Park (the largest safari park in Japan).
Some of the works were produced as part of the PBL (Project Based Learning).

Prof. Yoshinari Takegawa

Project

(Click thumbnails for details)
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Pokerepo Feeder
Providing a remote zoo-animal feeding experience
Pokerepo Safari
Living Stuffed Toy
Animal breathing can be felt by anyone, anywhere
Sense of Life
Ever wondered what an animal’s hearbeat feels like?
GABURECO
Looking in on feeding time at the safari park
ELEG
Elephant sensations through good vibrations
elEmotion
Just pop on your trunk and see what it feels like to be an elephant!
Furecon
Controller for communication with virtual animals
Miwakke
Search. Distinguish. Learn
Buzzchecker
Allowing you to grasp focus points with a single glance

© Future University Hakodate, Takegawa Laboratory, All Rights Reserved.

Buzzchecker




Allowing you to grasp focus points with a single glance

Buzzchecker is used in online safari park tours. The purpose of this system, which films and transmits a 360 image of the safari park, is to make it possible check what points tour participants are looking at, on the spot. The points at which online tour participants are looking are displayed in red, thus the system can visualize the focus points within the transmitted image. Using Buzzchecker enables the tour conductor to keep track of viewers who are looking the wrong way, and generally guide participants towards the points to which the

conductor wants them to pay attention. In addition, this system makes it easier to grasp what participants want to look at. Thus, Buzzchecker can improve online tours and increase participants’ degree of satisfaction.

GABURECO



Looking in on feeding time at the safari park

GABURECO is a camera for use on the jungle bus at a safari park. The device comprises a miniature camera mounted onto the tongs that are used to give food (meat) to big-game animals such as lions. Using this device makes it possible to obtain vivid images of the appearance of a lion eating its food. The lion’s teeth, saliva, tongue, fur, and so on, can be photographed at close range. We can expect not only to obtain beautiful photographs, but also the educational effect of learning about an animal’s way of life.

Pokerepo Safari



Pokerepo Safari is an online tour system for safari parks, which we have developed in collaboration with safari park keepers. The online tour enables participants to observe, through video images, animals that it is not normally possible to look at or touch. A safari park keeper acts as a reporter and provides easy-to-understand information or interesting stories about the animals. Because it is a live transmission, the tour offers a chance to see animal facial expressions and movements that can only be seen in that moment, meaning that the tour is fresh and full of new discoveries no matter how many times one experiences it. There is also the benefit that people who do not like the smell of animals, or are allergic to them, can easily enjoy the safari park. An exciting new safari park experience awaits.

Pokerepo Feeder



Providing a remote zoo-animal feeding experience

Animals have a habit of becoming friendly towards those who treat them well, for example by stroking or feeding them. In this system, users can experience ‘feeding, which is one of the attractions of a zoo, from a remote location, i.e., somewhere distanced from the zoo. By using this system from a remote location, the user can not only give animals food through remote operation, but also view the animals feeding, on a monitor. Thus, the user can obtain a sense of actually experiencing animal feeding on location. In addition, as the face of the remote operator (user) is displayed to the animals on a monitor, it is expected that the animals will grow accustomed to the remote operator.

Miwakke



Search. Distinguish. Learn

Miwakke is an application that makes learning about the characteristics and habits of animals enjoyable. Via a camera, the app recognizes animals inside a safari park. If a user wants to know about the characteristics of elephants, the user starts up Miwakke and holds their phone up to an elephant, which causes a frame to be displayed around the recognized elephant. Pressing within the frame displays habits, characteristics, photographs etc., of elephants, in the style of an illustrated reference book. The app is a user-participation style reference guide which also has a function for users to record and share photos and videos that they have taken. In future, we intend for Miwakke to be able not only to distinguish between animal species, but also between individual animals. Users are able to look up information on the very lion that is in front of them, and view and register pictures and videos of that lion. It will even be possible to automatically generate a reference guide about one’s favorite lion and form a fanclub!

Living Stuffed Toy



Animal breathing can be felt by anyone, anywhere

Living Stuffed Toy is a system that allows the user to feel the breathing of animals, from a remote location. By touching Living Stuffed Toy while looking at video images, the user can experience the breathing of animals, which is transmitted from the zoo in real time. The user feels the rhythm of animal breathing through the stuffed toy, meaning that even from a remote location the user is able to experience animal hearbeats, which can usually only be experienced in a petting zoo, alongside video image. Furthermore, the system provides the opportunity to feel the hearbeats of animals that cannot normally be touched at a zoo, as well as providing a real sense that the animals one is watching are just as alive as oneself.

Accomplishment
Tsuji, M., Takegawa, Y., Matsumura, K., and Hirata, K., “ Investigation on Enhancement of the Sense of Life in Safari Park Online Tours with Animal Breathing Reproduction System,” In Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Animal-Computer Interaction (ACI ’22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 3, pp. 1-–5 (Dec. 2022).

Furecon


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Controller for communication with virtual animals

Furecon is a device that enables the user to experience, in a virtual space, coming into contact with animals that it is not usally possible to touch, such as lions. Using the cushion-type controller that recreates the animals, the user can freely explore the virtual safari park and select the animals that they want to touch. After selecting an animal, the user strokes the cushion, which expresses the animal’s emotions, such as whether or not it is enjoying being touched. The reaction of the animals in the virtual environment changes depending on what part of the cushion the user strokes, creating a realistic experience.

elEmotion



Just pop on your trunk and see what it feels like to be an elephant!

elEmotion is a piece of equipment modelled on an elephant’s trunk, which is attached to the head. The wearer can experience what it might feel like to be an elephant, thanks to a microcomputer that enables the wearer to move the trunk however they wish, e.g., grasping things, or waving the trunk about. The device is designed so that the ratio of head size to trunk length is the same for the human device wearer as for an actual elephant. Furthermore, we use fabric that is close to the feel of an elephant’s skin, thus providing an even more realistic elephant experience. In future, we plan to add more of the unique features of an elephant’s trunk, such as being to sense smell, suck up water, and use the trunk to communicate. We think that elEmotion will give people the chance to think about how animal feel and to experience an animal’s way of life, and be effective in the development of education relating to animals.

ELEG



Elephant sensations through good vibrations

Elephants are capable of sensing things, such as the presence of other elephants far away, the weather, and the movement of large herds of other animals, by low-frequency vibrations that they feel through the flat soles of their feet. By using ELEG, the user can perceive the vibrations that an elephant emits. Emitting virbations in the same way as an elephant may enable us to communicate with elephants.

Sense of Life



Ever wondered what an animal’s hearbeat feels like?

Sense of Life is a hands-on-experience style display that imitates the hearts of animals. The display recreates the size of an animal’s heart and the speed and strength of the heartbeats. By touching sense of life, the user can experience the heartbeats of animals small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, such as a mouse, or large animals that there is usually no chance of touching, such as an elephant. By comparing various animal hearbeats, users can get to know the difference between animal and human hearbeats, and understand more about animal life. In addition, from the heartbeats users can get a feeling of the power of life and the importance of life.