Julia Herzog
Julia Herzog

Plant a smile –
A digital garden
that blooms
with your smile

There’s not enough smiling in the world – and we want to change that! With the "Plant a Smile" installation, we create a playful interaction designed to make people laugh. At its heart is a friendly digital sun that uses various approaches – from jokes and unexpected actions to cute and friendly gestures – to bring out a smile. Whenever someone laughs, the sun responds by planting a flower in a digital garden. The more people smile, the more vibrant and lively the virtual landscape grows.

More information

Master semester project 2024
Technical University of Applied Sciences Augsburg
Team members: Luisa Lentze, Robin Geramb, Julius Kocks, Benedikt Hrazdil

Our sun’s mission: to make people smile

The sun is the main character designed to make users laugh. With a unique personality, it can show emotions, perform actions, move in the garden, and interact individually with each user. To spark smiles, the sun has a variety of actions, including making jokes, giving compliments, offering playful gestures, or surprising the user. It can either act autonomously or respond to the user’s actions.

And so the garden keeps growing

With each smile, the sun plants a flower in a digital garden. The more smiles, the more vibrant and beautiful the garden grows. If no one smiles for a while, the garden may wither, so it needs care to keep growing. It encourages regular smiles to keep the garden alive.

Friendly & playful design

The design language aims to be friendly, and ideally funny, quirky, and capable of sparking positive emotions. Elements like the sun's wobbly, slightly long nose, bright colors, and the "imperfect" style reflect this approach. We were strongly inspired by the great works of artist Joe Taylor.

The installation can be used in places where you want to improve the mood, like offices, festivals, museums, or even hospitals. For this project, we chose an office setting, where the installation hangs in a foyer, framend like a piece of art. Employees can brighten the office by smiling at the sun, helping create a positive atmosphere and strengthen team spirit through the shared garden.

The sun not only encourages smiles but also gets people to interact. To make sure people engage, we created a “motivation screen”. Instead of going idle, the sun stays active, moving closer, waving, or taking care of the garden, sparking curiosity and inviting people to interact.

Flower generator & technical magic

We designed diverse, dynamic flowers using the L-System for growth and wind effects. A flower generator enables real-time adjustments, while simulated airflow makes plants sway. The implementation uses Vue.js and Pixi.js.

Julia Herzog

The face tracking allows the sun to detect and respond to users' movements and smiles. This was implemented using the JavaScript libraries face-api.js and p5.js.

When a user smiles, the face tracking detects it, triggering the planting of a flower in the digital garden.

Unfiltered & real – behind the scenes

team

user test

making the frame

offtakes

Julia Herzog

Plant a smile –
A digital garden
that blooms
with your smile

There’s not enough smiling in the world – and we want to change that! With the "Plant a Smile" installation, we create a playful interaction designed to make people laugh. At its heart is a friendly digital sun that uses various approaches – from jokes and unexpected actions to cute and friendly gestures – to bring out a smile. Whenever someone laughs, the sun responds by planting a flower in a digital garden. The more people smile, the more vibrant and lively the virtual landscape grows.

More information

Master semester project 2024
Technical University of Applied Sciences Augsburg
Team members: Luisa Lentze, Robin Geramb, Julius Kocks, Benedikt Hrazdil

Our sun’s mission: to make people smile

The sun is the main character designed to make users laugh. With a unique personality, it can interact individually with each user. To spark smiles, the sun has a variety of actions, including making jokes or giving compliments. It can either act autonomously or respond to the user’s actions. As soon as a user laughs the sun plants a flower in a virtual garden. The more smiles the more beautiful the garden. 

Flower generator & technical magic

We designed diverse, dynamic flowers using the L-System for growth and wind effects. A flower generator enables real-time adjustments, while simulated airflow makes plants sway. The implementation uses Vue.js and Pixi.js.

Julia Herzog

Unfiltered & real – behind the scenes

team

user test

making the frame

offtakes

Julia Herzog