MIT Mood Meter

MIT Mood Meter is designed to assess and display the overall mood of the MIT community.  By gathering and aggregating affective information (i.e., smiles) from people as they move around campus, the Mood Meter can estimate and reflect the overall mood of MIT during the Festival of Art, Science & Technology. Although smiles are not the only sign of a good mood, they can be used as one barometer of happiness. This project is intended to raise awareness of how our own smiles can positively affect the surrounding environment, and to assess how congenial MIT is as a community. The dynamic, real-time information may lead to answers to questions such as, “Are people from one department happier than others?,” “Do midterms lower the mood?” or “Does warmer weather lead to happiness?” The Mood Meter is displayed in the Stratton Student Center, the Infinite Corridor in Building 8, the Student Street in the Stata Center, and the Media Lab and is viewable on the project website, MIT Mood Meter.

Funded in part by a grant from the Council for the Arts at MIT, Special thanks to UROP student Will Drevo, undergraduate in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Lakshmi Parthasarathy, Harvard University.