Mood Rings: Now for Hallways and Buildings!

Are Media Lab denizens happier than people who frequent the Stata Center? Are mid-terms the buzzkill one would assume them to be? A campus exhibit called MIT Mood Meter can help answer these questions. Cameras in four different locations identify smiles and then estimate and reflect the overall mood of campus.

Mood Meter, which is part of the MIT150 Festival of Art, Science and Technology and will be on display until mid-May, was created by Media Lab grad students Javier Hernandez and M. Ehsan Hoque. Cameras are located in the Stratton Student Center, Building 8 of the Infinite Corridor, on the first floor of the Stata Center, and in the Media Lab.

Smiles are certainly not the only indication of happiness, but Hernandez and Hoque say on the project website that Mood Meter "is intended to raise awareness of how our own smiles can positively affect the surrounding environment and to assess how friendly MIT might appear as a community."

The project site offers a dynamic, real-time assessment of the mood on campus. Check it out.

Also see some photos (below) taken at the Campus Open House this past weekend.