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.

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.

Wall decor for the home that tracks locations of family members and reminds them of the importance of spending time together!   

Sallie's Brief: 

Wall decor for the home that tracks the locations of family members and reminds them of the importance of their time together. With many families' busy schedules, it is hard to keep track of who is at home and easy to forget the importance of time together. Home Base was designed to unite families by creating a fun wall decor for them to gather around. Each family member is represented by a frame, and their proximity to the house is represented by the frame's position. When everyone is out of the house each frame casts part of a shadow on the wall. This is due to the frames not aligning. As everyone returns home, the frames rotate to align so you are able to see through all the frames, as the complete pattern appears! This new shadow design will light up the room and gather the family!  

Roisin's Brief: 

Home Base:  Home decor that helps keep track of your family and reminds you of the importance of spending time with your family. Life gets busy and sometimes you forget to check in with your family members. This raising the question of do I make an effort to reach out to your family when they aren't there physically? Our project consists of 4 picture frames, one for each member of a family. Each frame presents a certain family member with a pattern that represents each person individually but together represents one big family. Once they leave the house there frame will fall to the side and when they come home it will come back to the middle. How we got that to work is we create a pulley system with a base frame. There would be two pulleys and the top pulley holds the frame. Using a servo and sensor from Arduino, we can get the frame to move to the side and back to the center. If everyone is home it will show one pattern but apart it's a broken patter. It also cast a shadow of this pattern on them all. It makes you think about your family and brings you all together.

The whole world is wearing face masks to protect themselves from Covid-19. It has become clear that all masks do not protect their wearers equally. The only masks that have been formally tested are the N95 masks that are reserved for medical workers.

In this project, I set out to design and build a low-cost mask testing device that provides a reasonably good assessment of a mask’s protection. By measuring how many particles can bypass the mask, it shows how effective the mask will defend the person from the virus. Right now, mask testing devices are extremely expensive and only used by large manufacturers and laboratories. Only the very high-quality N95 masks are being tested, which are not currently available to the general public.  This means that most people don’t know if their masks can stop a high percentage of virus particles.

My project can quickly test masks and perhaps publish the data to a public database. People around the country would be able to send their masks to a test center and get the results quickly. If the mask was already in the database, they could make an informed decision before purchasing. This service would be important for people who are making their own masks or selling self-made masks. If a seller on Etsy or eBay wanted to get their masks tested, now their customers would be able to see exactly what they were buying. The CDC recently came out and said that cloth masks are often not effective. There’s also a problem with counterfeit masks and those that do not meet the manufacturer’s standards. People need to know which masks are effective to keep themselves safe during the pandemic.

My device is able to calculate the percentage of different sized particles filtered by the mask being tested. It can also measure the change in pressure to show how easy it is to breathe through the mask. This device is for mask producers, mask distributors, service organizations, and end-users.

Brief - Ryan

The Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically increased the number of students participating in remote learning through video conferencing applications. Unfortunately, this learning method provides little feedback to teachers. This real-time student feedback device allows students to give teachers immediate feedback on how well they understand the material and how they are feeling. The teacher will be able to access all of the feedback over the Internet and adjust their lesson accordingly. The students will have a device on their desk with a slider, four buttons, and a heart rate monitor. Each of these input mechanisms will convey different data to the teacher. The slider will convey how well each student understands the material. The buttons will be utilized for quick multiple-choice questions or surveys where the teacher can get immediate results. The heart rate monitor will continuously run and display to the teacher if the students are nervous or tense.

The current problem is that there is no communication between students and teachers on Zoom. People overwhelmingly have blank facial expressions for the duration of the call. The teacher is unable to tell if students understand the material. This device will bridge that gap.

 The technology that this device uses is a linear potentiometer, four buttons, and a heart rate monitor. All of these components will be connected to an ESP32 single board computer. The data is collected and transmitted over the Internet via an MQTT broker to an app or web page. This will allow the teacher and students to be located anywhere in the world and still receive the data in real-time.

Brief - Jeremy

The Real Time Student Feedback Device is designed to give teachers analog indicators of a students level of tension, and understanding, stress, and allow them to ask multiple choice questions. The foot slider portion of the device sits on the floor beneath a students foot(Left or Right), and rolls back and forth on a set of wheels. The two wheels are positioned beneath the front region of the arch, on either side of the slider. the position of the wheel is displayed to the teacher on a website. The tabletop portion of the device is designed to have the user's left hand rested on it. It has a slider, four colored buttons, and a heart rate monitor.

The designers think it is important for teachers to be able to see the levels of tension, the level of understanding, and the level of stress of their students. This is because teachers often use the behavior of their students, which is often not conveyed on zoom, to know if they should slow down or speed up the lesson. The floor slider works by checking the position of a potentiometer, a type of position sensor, that is attached to one of the wheels axle. The device correlates a foot position closer to the body to a higher level of tension. The device uses the tabletop slider as a way for students to have conscious input on their level of understanding. The heart rate monitor serves to measure the student's level of stress/excitement. the buttons allow the teacher to ask multiple choice questions.

Chiara's Brief:

‘The Productivity Helmet' is a helmet that combats the tendency to procrastinate and break a fruitful flow by minimizing distractions and providing an escape while completing their work.

With more people working from home than ever before, students and desk-workers are extensively reforming their workspaces, adapting it to maintain a productive workflow, while coexisting with their family members and roommates. In an ideal situation, everyone working from home would have a quiet space to retreat to while they complete their tasks or attend lectures and seminars. But as we know, this is not the case; what was once a dining table is now an office, and most everyone's work fecundity is at risk. Fortunately, we have a solution. Aside from limiting the user's field of view, the ‘Productivity Helmet’ is noise-canceling, provides temperature control, and has embedded speakers and a microphone to account for remote working conditions and render a more comfortable oasis (i.e., Zoom calls, meetings, listening to music, and holding confidential conversations). The goal is to have the user get in the habit of wearing the helmet each time they complete a task that requires much focus. Over time, they associate the helmet with a positive connotation; the user reaches for the helmet when they want to be productive and crank out lots of work.

Mathew's Brief:

The Productivity Helmet is a hood that provides an environment free from distractions, to better facilitate working from home, or in an open office space. The helmet is designed to limit the field of vision and is constructed with materials to help dampen outside noise.

Working from home has been difficult for many, creating unique problems, and exacerbating ones that already exist. Some things that have been lost in our move to work and study from home is routine, a designated work environment, and personal space free of distractions. We created a hood that has a multifaceted approach to combating these work from home specific difficulties but also carries over to other environments like open office spaces.

The noise dampening design helps combat auditory distractions and speakers that can be used for ambient noise enhance this. These same speakers, alongside a built-in microphone, also help facilitate video conferencing and phone calls. The Productivity Helmet also limits the user's peripheral vision, reducing visual distractions, and promoting a productive environment. The main feature of this product is not about its technological functions, it is the space created that the user may then utilize associates for work. The Productivity Helmet is a mindful queue to the user that they are in a work environment. Over time, the user will associate the helmet with productivity, creating a comfortable workspace with a unique design that can be used anywhere.

Anara's Brief:

‘Productivity Helmet’ is a device that aids the wearer in focusing on video calls. The product limits the users peripheral vision to cut out distractions. It also has passive noise cancellation, personal speakers, and a microphone built in to create an enhanced work environment, all in one convenient wearable.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen a large increase in people working from home, and many are struggling to concentrate with roommates or family also at home, working remotely or attending school. Many people do not have sufficient home work environments, and tend to become distracted easily. The Productivity Helmet minimizes distractions, and creates an environment that your brain will positively associate with efficient and focused work. The wearer's peripheral vision is blocked by the sides of the hood so that they only focus on the work in front of them. Additionally, speakers are built into the frame of the helmet to create a surround-sound environment, with an adjustable microphone so that co workers can hear you clearly through the call.

Anara's Brief:

Spark is a satirical statement piece designed to comment on the overcrowded, fast-paced schedules that many people have today. The set includes three mugs, as well as one base. There is one mug for coffee, based on the Ethiopian Jebena, one for tea, with thinner walls and a smaller handle, and one for hot chocolate that has thicker walls and an ergonomic shape. In addition to the three mugs, the set includes a firepit that all the cups can sit seamlessly on and a fire-starting kit. 

Spark mug is for when the user wants to keep a drink warm, but they don't have access to a heating element. They can use it at work, while traveling, or at home. The concept is sold to office workers and online consumers as a convenient coffee heating device. In reality, using it is quite a time-intensive process. The user has to light the fire, keep it warm, and wait for the drink to heat up. The long process forces the user to take a break from their fast-paced schedule and relax near a fire with a warm drink. Spark is also a vessel for conversation within a community. Each mug is slip cast from a plaster mold made from a 3d print and then fired.

TEO

The Fire Cup is a series of three different mugs that each serve a purpose for separated liquids. One cup is designed for coffee and has been manufactured to look like a mug from Ethiopia and has an origin name of Jebena. The other two mugs are for tea and hot chocolate. The tea mug has been inspired by 1800’s British tea cup designs with lots of color and little details. The hot chocolate mug was made to have a more modern feel. The point of the fireplace to fit all of the mugs is to keep your drink warm while the user is off doing another activity away from the mug. 

Most people are very active, always doing something, which means they have less time to drink their coffee before it gets cold. This product is aimed towards the group of people who are always active and have the time to start a fire and keep their cup warm while they work. 

This product would work by having the user take the particular mug and make a drink. While their drink is being made, the user would have to start a fire in the pit that the mug plops onto. Once the fire is going and the beverage is made, pour it into the cup and enjoy. A large number of people struggle with tasks, and this product could help by keeping a person on task and making sure they do all of what they assigned themselves to do. 

Dexi blocks are wooden shapes that connect together and make letters for dyslexic kids to help them read in a fun, engaging, and hands on way. Dyslexic Children suffer from struggling to learn how to read and if they do not start learning early, they will be poor readers all the way into high school. Studies show that dyslexic kids see everything in a 3D form in their head, even 2D letters. When they are reading, the letters they see are viewed in 3D. These blocks allow the children to create the 3D letter and hold it, rotate it, and break it apart revealing the shapes and curves of how the letter is formed.

Each block has 2 small magnets which allow them to click into place whenever a letter is assembled. That sensation amplifies the urge to keep connecting more letters together which keeps them engaged. The more they strive to learn, the more successful they will be with their reading career in the future going into high school. 

Jaden - Fake Predator

There are many problems that can and will occur while working on a farm but with the help of different tools these problems can be lessened or solved. A problem that has repeatedly occurred on farms are pests eating and destroying crops. The fake predator project is to stop pests, specifically voles from destroying crops. This project is designed to look and act like a hawk which is one of the voles' most dangerous natural predators. The fake hawk has an adjustable head and wings along with a voice box that generates hawk sounds to scare away the voles. This project was specifically designed to help Land Sakes farm, with the ability to adjust the height of the hawk so it can fit in the high tunnel and be easily stored away. As well as being waterproof so the hawk can handle weather changes. The fake hawk is perfect for any farm who wants to save time, money and resources. 

Macy - Fake Predator

This fake hawk solves pest problems on farms, specifically voles. This idea sparked from information gathered, which showed that voles often don’t destroy crops out in fields due to predators. The Vole Vigilante was born to create the illusion of a predator, with multiple features to scare off the voles. 

These features include hawk sounds, movable wings, a movable head, feathers, and other artistic designs to replicate the look of a red-tailed hawk(commonly seen in Massachusetts). With all these features, the Vole Vigilante will scare off the voles, similarly to a scarecrow. This project is intended to help Land Sakes Farm. Recently they have had vole problems inside of their high tunnels. The Vole Vigilante will help save the farm: time, money, and crops.