Brief:

Alex:

Some children with Autism struggle to convey their emotions to people around them. Patch, our soft plushy creature, will aid children with autism by lighting up a certain color correlating to a button with a face on it. Our project focuses on a small demographic; however it is important to assist everyone with different types of complications. Our project helps better the understanding and bond between a child with autism and their caretaker by simplifying the process of expressing their emotions. Our group has done research into what are some daily issues a person with autism goes through. We found that ⅓ of people with autism are non-verbal. Patch is easily functional and simple to understand. Patch’s stomach has six little patches that each have a face on them. Each face has a color on it which when pressed, lights the stomach the same color, making it easy to communicate your emotion. 

Zoe:

A common characteristic of those on the Autism spectrum is difficulty expressing emotions. The design is a stuffed animal with color patches, where each color correlates to a different emotion. When the child presses one of the patches, a light emitted from the animal's stomach communicates the child's emotion.

Patch is designed to provide non-verbal children on the Autism spectrum with an alternative way to communicate their emotions, and to aid their caretakers in responding to their emotional states.

Patch is a stuffed animal with color patches surrounding the stomach. Each patch has a face whose color represents a specific emotion. When a child presses each patch, a button beneath the patch and connected to an Arduino causes the stomach to light up  with the color that correlates to that emotion. The caretaker will be able to see the light and identify the child's emotion. This is a direct and intuitive  way for these children to communicate how they are feeling.

GloFlo is designed for overtaxed people to manage stress and improve focus by encouraging them to take a moment to relax their minds. The soothing white light energizes the mind and helps the user focus. The lamp consists of lights on the end of eight arms that move up and down. The mechanism is controlled by the users hands in proximity of the sensors on the device. As you move your hands closer to the sensor the lights move up and if you move them farther away the lights move down. If you remove your hand from the sensor entirely the lights move back to their original state in the upwards position. An Arduino inside the base relays information from the ultrasonic distance sensor to the servo which moves a certain number of degrees depending on the distance measured from the sensor to the moving hand. The servo spools up string that attaches to each of the arms, which then pivot on the y-axis in unison. The lights, which are always powered on while the device is plugged in, are attached to the end of each arm. The meditative motions conducted by the user in combination with the soft white lights will serve asa helpful way to reach a calm and relaxed state of mind.