Julie Arving

Industrial design student at AHO

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Xmas Knick Knacks

Time

5 days

Aim

This simple project allows you to focus on the how people will interact with your object and the responses it will provide so that you can practice iteration. This also provides an introduction to building simple circuits and coding them to behave as you intend.This provides an opportunity for you to take a project right through from concept, through prototyping and refinement to production and then have the results judged by the general public.

Proposal

X-mas Plushie is an interactive plushie for kids, with attachable ornaments. When you attach an ornament it lights up. Conductive velcro makes sure the pieces stick to the plushie. You can choose between different ornaments or attach several at once. When the batteries in the ornaments run out you can use the plushie as a regular toy.

The plushie is made of fabric and sewn with conductive thread. The ornaments consist of fabric, conductive thread, batteries and LED's. Further improvements: using conductive velcro to fasten the ornaments. Other outputs than light, such as sound.

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Bjørn - An interactive friend

Bjørn is an interactive "mascot" for the smallest children in kindergarten. He is quite shy, but he will appear through the trees if you're quiet enough. Be careful! If you make too much noise, he will run away.

The smallest children in kindergarten (1-3 years old) are dependent on daily routines and familiar activities. This is to ensure predictability and stability in a world full of constantly new impressions.

My product Bjørn is designed to be a mascot for the kids, whom they can interact with every day. When all the children are gathered to sing songs or telling fairy tales, they first have to be really quiet for Bjørn to appear and "join in". When the gathering is over, the children can scare him away by yelling (which normally isn't allowed inside, but, wow, how fun!)

Bjørn is made out of fabric with a plastic bag inside. The product's input is a microphone and the output is an air blower. These two components are connected to an Arduino Uno board. The microphone samples an average sound level for about five seconds, and if the sound level is low enough, the air blower will inflate the bear. If you then make "too much" sound, the air blower turns off.

I quickly decided what my input and output would be. In the beginning I wanted to make some kind of sound measurer. When I chose kindergarten as the main scenario, the concept turned itself around: there is no point in giving a "reward" when there is a lot of noise!

I've had my share of problems during this brief, and almost everything that went wrong could go wrong. I've broken several components, and discovered a few times that my code suddenly didn't work properly, even though I thought it did.

One of the best moment in this brief was when I got to test my product on a child. He loved it, and interacted with Bjørn just the way I had hoped; with excitement and curiosity. The products is fun to use, and that's what's important.  

Watch a demonstration video of Bjørn:

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Ready for exhibition!

Bjørn and I are ready. He is still a bit shy, though.

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Conclusion: My product in fun to use!

I finally got to test my product on a child! I'm really happy that this boy (three years old) liked to interact with Bjørn, over and over again. He quickly understood how the product worked. The most exciting part was when the bear inflated. He found that really fascinating; it was so fun that he forgot to keep quiet, and the bear "disappeared". That's not a problem: I want Bjørn to be a character that you can interact with in different ways. 

It's pleasing to see how vivid a child's imagination can be: My little test subject could see the bear when it was "hiding", but he played along with the scenario without giving it any thought. This was something that I hoped would happen! The bear doesn't have to be completely hidden, because imagination is key in this product. 

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Code, Bjørn, and a storyboard

Today I suddenly realised that my code didn't work properly. I just hadn't tested it enough to notice it earlier (testing is important!) It turned out that the code wasn't "clear" enough. But now I think I've got it:

This is the part that I changed:

if(running == true) { digitalWrite(motorPin, HIGH); } if (!running){ digitalWrite(motorPin, LOW); }

if(gjennomsnitt<60 && !running){ //Hvis lydnivå er under X OG den ikke kjører running = true; //slå seg på } if(total_volume>10000 && running){ //hvis den måler en lyd høyere enn X og den kjører running = false; //Slå seg av }

The bear and his forest box is also finished. It's been really hard to get him to inflate and deflate correctly, and I've done a lot of testing. When I stuffed the bear, too much weight  became a problem, so he doesn't look as fluffy as I want him to. I've decided to call him Bjørn. 

Even though the code works correctly, I'm a little bit worried about a particular problem that may appear during the demonstration: The bear is supposed to inflate when there's "quiet", and I don't know what "quiet" in a room full of people will be. I need to do some more testing.

Now I can focus on the presentation and the movie. Here's a quick sketch of a storyboard idea. Since I don't have access to the "real" scenario with kids, I just have to make a straightforward product demonstration video.

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The last week

We have only one week left of our interactive product brief. On friday everything is supposed to be up and running. Exciting! There are a lot of things that has to come together in the next few days. By the end of tomorrow (tuesday) my goal is to finish the prototype and the main testing.  I also need to make a trip to a couple of stores and buy diverse ting. (fabric, paint, battery, etc.)

Today I've managed to get the proper code up and running, with a little help from my teacher. I sewed the bear together, and then figured out that I need to stuff the cheeks and ears with something soft it to give it some nice "fluff". The bear's forest is also coming along nicely. I need to experiment a bit more with that, but I've at least decided to paint the trees in different colors to make the product more exciting.

2D-3D-forest

Quick expression testing

The product scenario

I also need to make a presentation, and a storyboard for a product movie this week. Right now I don't have any particular ideas on how to make the movie, since I don't have access to the proper scenario (kindergarden). I will have to think of something. 

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Sketching and testing

Some work from yesterday.

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After a little trip to a fabric store and some sewing (never thought I would do that in this project!), this is what the bear looks like at the moment. I managed to make a shape that inflates decently, but it will of course need more adjusting.

The programming code is also backwards at the moment; now the bear inflates when you talk to him, and he never really deflates (because the air blower makes to much sound). I'm thinking that he'll inflate when there has been "quiet" for a certain amount of time, and to make him disappear you have to "scare" him away with noise. Luckily the fabric I'm using has a little bit of weight, so I don't need to make a deflating mechanism. Inside the bear is just a plastic bag with a hole at the top to ensure that the fabric inflates correctly.

 I realize he looks a bit creepy, perhaps because of the lighting, but I think it will come together quite nicely in the end. Now I need to make the box/forest that he's going to hide in. The trees will support the figure as it inflates, so I won't have to help out with my hand, as you see here.

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This is a relay! It is an electrically operated switch that uses electromagnetism to mechanically operate a switch. The video shows the switch clicking back and forth. This little piece turned out to be a life saver for me. Finally all he electrical components in my projects work, so now it's time to develop the concept, and tweak the code a little bit.

Yes!

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Second prototype

I've thought a lot about what kinds of activities you find in a kindergarden on a regular day. One of the things I rembember from my days as a kindergarden assistent, is the time before lunch when we gathered all the kids to sing songs and telling fairy tales: the samlingsstund ("gathering time"). 

The samlingsstund can almost be compared to a ritual. In kindergarden, and escpecially with the youngest kids, it's important to have routines and daily activities that  stay the same everyday, to make the kids feel like they're in a safe environment. So I've thought about making my interactive product a part of one of these rituals, perhaps the samlingsstund.

This is a simple prototype I made earlier today; a bear who's hiding in the forest. When it's quiet enough, he will appear and watch you curiously through the trees. In the samlingsstund, the kids will have to be quiet enough for the bear to appear. And perhaps he will disappear when the kids wave good bye to him after the gathering?

This is just one thought, but I like the idea. The next thing I'm going to do is figuring how I can make a prototype that deflates - and if I need this to happen at all.

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A week filled with...problems

If there's one thing you need to know about working with electronics and coding... : You will eventually face a lot of problems. A lot. I finished my first simple prototype on tuesday,  three days ago, and I feel like I've been stuck in the same place since. Problem after problem har surfaced, and when I managed to fix one, another one popped up. I know this is a part of the process, and that is why I'm writing about it. But I have to say I'm a little frustrated. It's unsatisfying to feel like you should be miles ahead of where you are at the moment.

The cloud has stayed in the box this week, unfortunately.

On wednesday at lunch, the transistor that I used suddenly got very hot. I ended up breaking two transistors, trying to figure out why. At the same time an error code appeared in my Arduino coding program. The code I wrote wouldn't get uploaded to my Arduino board. It turned out that I had probably broken the board when the transistor overheated. Luckily our teacher could lend me another board. We solved the overheating transistor-problem by switching it with a relay; this won't get hot, but it only works as an on/off-switch.

After two days, I couldn't figure out why I didn't get the relay to work. It was not easy to understand how it worked, since I found it hard to understand the information I got from the internet. Today's conclusion it that the relay is also problably broken. Yep. One thing I've learned: don't get too attached to small electronic parts.

Some of the stuff that I've broken/that are broken

But! These are all problems that can be fixed. I just have to switch my focus a little bit; while I'm struggling with the electronics part, I can sketch and prototype using a little "Wizard of Oz'ing"; I don't need the input and output to work right now to explore the endless possibilities for my final product. 

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This is the Angry Cloud, and he inflates when you're making noise! I finally got the microphone - input /air blower - output to work! The cloud is made with tape and thin paper, japanese style.

PS: Turn your volume up!

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Brief 13: Inventing interactive products

It's due for the 13th and final project of this semester. The brief is to make an interactive product with one input, and one output. The context is up to us to decide, so we have a lot of thinking, drawing and prototyping to do!

We started off with some good ol' forced relations! It works like this: Pick two or three words (ex. angry tree trunk) and draw as many ideas as you can, before sharing them with each other.

I have chosen to make some kind of a noise detector that will tell you something about the level of sound in an environment. The input is therefore a microphone. The output I've chosen is a squirrel cage blower. So my task is to make an interactive products that tells you something about the decibel level by, basically, air. 

Sketching up scenarios and places where sound plays an important part, either positive or negative. Kindergarten could be interesting...

A very schematic way of showing how air can affect it's surroundings, and what shapes that may appear.

Up until now I've done a lot of thinking, and started sketching different scenarios, different shapes and uses for my product. I've also tested the blower, to see what it can do - and if it is usable in my project in the first place.

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Arduino week: The digital piano

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Arduino: The servo and the potentiometer

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Arduino week: The speaker

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Arduino week: The photocell