Things to do/think about:
Absolutely no more than 8 Slides!
1 Intention Slide. For build projects, describe the Problem and Solution. For conceptual projects this can be expressed as Intention/Solution. The slide should include the name of the project and a one sentence statement of both the problem and the solution.
1 Brainstorming Slide. This should be a clean sketch of your initial ideas. If you do not have a nice drawing or lost yours, create one now!
2 Iteration Slides. These slides should show early prototypes of your design. Focus on big changes. You do not need to show tiny Changes.
3 Final Slides. These should show clean images of your final project.
In the text section for the process post, write a paragraph introducing the design problem or the main idea and how you are tackling it. Then, describe the main story or theme, mechanics, development, challenges, and other parts of the creative process you experienced. Each iteration should have a paragraph describing how you how you modified the project after receiving feedback.
1. Design Problem and Solution:
You should begin with a clear statement of the problem and the solution as both a one sentence description and a short paragraph expanding on the solution.
Here is an example from the Reaction Shelter project:
2. Further Ellaboration:
3. Iterations
Each iteration should have a paragraph describing how you how you modified the project after receiving feedback.
Here is an example from the Backcountry IV Project:
Upoload a short video showing your project in action. Do not count on your project working as you expect during the presentation.
The Problem:
It is challenging for doctors to collect accurate self reported information from children about their level of pain due to lack of communication skills, fear, anxiety, and discomfort. Traditional 1-10 pain scales do not fully address these issues, often leading to uncomfortable children and inaccurate symptom information.
The Solution:
Penelope the Pain-O-Monster is a plush toy that uses integrated pressure sensors to allow children to express their source and level of pain through play. An additional “Fun” mode provides distraction from pain and anxiety.
Detailed Solution:
The stuffed animal has force sensors in different body parts that light up from blue to red depending on how hard they are pushed to show the child’s pain level. There is also a game mode with an interactive lights game to take the child’s mind off their situation.
Further Elaboration:
Main Story or Theme: Our project is a spin off of our Emotion Owl project which was for kids with autism to express themselves. We thought about making a different stuffed animal to help kids in hospitals, we realized that the pain charts that patients used to express their pain could be made more interactive and easier for a child to use. We read that playing with stuffed animals can take the children’s mind off the pain so we decided to incorporate a game mode.
Mechanics:
We have a switch that turns the stuffed animal off, puts it on the pain-o-meter mode or the game mode. It is connected to an exterior power to be able to power six LED light strips and six force sensors. Everything is connected to an arduino which is basically a small computer we programmed. The lights and force sensors are matched up to different body parts. The child would press where it hurts with as much pressure as it hurts and the light in that body part will turn on. The color goes from blue, not that much pain to red, the most pain. The game mode has a random strip light up and the child has to press the corresponding force sensor in that body part as fast as they can before they restart.
Development:
We started out by having many ideas about what we would put in the different modes, like a heartbeat and rainbow colors. We also thought about sound and smell but those were all very ambitious. We liked the game where different colors light up in a pattern and you have to press the force sensors in the same pattern, each round the pattern got more complicated. This was hard to generate randomly because there was no simple way to repeat the past exact two colors again in the same place and then add another random color. We decided it was still fun to have limited amount of time to press the force sensor corresponding to the light that lit up, there was no pattern in this game but there is a random aspect because the lights lite up in a random order after you press the right force sensor. In the pain-o-meter mode we knew that we were going to have the color go from blue to red depending on the amount of pain. We decided to make a stuffed animal that looked like an alien with a heart pocket. We had two iterations of our ‘alien’ we ended up choosing one that looked more like a monster.
Challenges:
We faced a various programming challenges. First we had to find a way to connect the arduino board to an external power source, we used a portable charger and cut an USB cable to connect the wires to. It took us a while to set up the three position switch and have all the power connected to the board so that the LED lights were controlled by the switch and not the portable charger directly. We also had trouble connecting the two modes and getting them to work correctly. Robin helped us a lot with the coding and helped us use arrays to keep track of all the different light strips and corresponding force sensors. We couldn’t quite get the game as sophisticated as we first envisioned but we made a game that is still usable and fun. We also had so many delays in the program that is messed up the two independent timers for the heartbeat. We decided to not use a heart beat.
This design is comprised of a base to hold all of the LEDs, a reflective cone to project the light and a distance sensor. The idea is to have something that projects light upwards and when you put your hand through the light it will change color and it will make a sound all depending on how close your hand is. It projects light upwards by have a one made of mirrored acrylic and felt surrounding the circular base. With this project we are trying to make space more tangible. When you walk through space normally nothing happens. We want to be able to actively affect the space around us. We hope this project will make people be more conciencious about the space around you. We want to make space something you can influence and change.
We created an experience of floating dodecahedrons. We were inspired by Tai Chi with its slow motions and movements allowing the body and mind to be in sync with each other. We wanted to simulate this experience but for an everyday person who does not practice Tai Chi. We did this by creating dodecahedrons that have lights inside. A light turns on and the user has to slowly move their hand towards that dodecahedron to turn the light off. The light slowly fades as the person gets closer to the dodecahedron.
We made the dodecahedrons out of laser cut balsa wood and all the light and sensor work function with an Arduino. The dodecahedrons have a wooden frame on the inside and the panels are woven together with white thread.
In our studio, Products for Wellbeing, we looked at different ways to ease or alleviate stress, and improve wellbeing. We focused on stress because it is extremely prevelent in today's society, especially in young adults. Our group decided to create a Shower of Lights, or a light cocoon to help mitigate stress. The shower of lights extracts the stressed out user from the outside world by inserting them into a light cocoon that can be used in various places such as offices, classrooms, bedrooms and other stressful areas. For one to achieve perfect bliss, we created a stress free way of turning on the light cocoon by connecting two magnets from the bottom of the white bed sheet together.
The lights in our cocoon provide an color changing scheme that is calm, mollifying, relieving, and in no way ardent. Our product is important because there a few other products that address stress reduction in a manner that is portable and attractive to young adults. No other product encompasses the ease of turning the product on, the same intricate array of therapeutic lights, or the alluring net that makes the lighting opaque, keeping the user within the cocoon.