The Hug Jacket (2014)

A video game trope is the "underwater level" where your character has a limited amount of air and the player is faced with constantly worrying about where they'll get their next breath.

This project re-imagines that idea and brings it into the real world. The jacket is a standard-issue lab coat with RGB LEDs embedded in the sleeves and a force sensitive resistor mounted in the middle of the back.

The LEDs act as a meter, showing how long it's been since the wearer received a hug. When the wearer receives a hug it fills up the meter and presents a randomly generated pattern of colors based on the input from the hug.

After the hug is over a pattern of green will cascade all the way down the sleeves. Over the course of the next 10 minutes that pattern will shrink and slowly change to yellow and eventually red, angry lights will blink on the wearers shoulders indicating that they REALLY need a hug.