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.

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.