Fred Wordie Responsive Environment - January 2015
Mr & Mrs Tap
Brief
01
What is a Brony
02
Initial Research
04
Interviews
06
The Meet Up
08
Design Ideas
10
Co-Design Kit
12
The Concept
14
Development
16
The Product
18
The Brand
20
My Thoughts
22
Working in pairs, you are asked to build on the knowledge and skills acquired in the previous project - an intensive introduction to Arduino technology - to design and build a functioning ‘responsive environment’ prototype, the experiential output of which will be determined by the convergence of a selected context (user + space/moment/activity) and appropriate input (integrated sensors responding to a particular behaviour/presence etc). In order to get you started, we ask you to focus your thoughts on how to augment a previously ‘mundane’ moment... how can a technologically-responsive intervention add value to an everyday task or moment? Although the criteria for ‘added value’ are somewhat flexible, be clear that the challenge for this project is not to ‘improve’ your chosen moment by increasing efficiency/ safety etc, but rather to explore how to make the ordinary extraordinary, to convert drudgery to delight! 1
2
The first four things we looked into
Initial Thoughts We started by asking ourselves what made a task mundane. We started by firstly asking ourselves what made a task mundane. We decided that the main criteria was something that was repetitive and that occurred frequently. With this in mind our first ideas were centred around hoovering, brushing teeth, waking up and shaving. This task were ones that we felt had to been done frequently and were a bore to do. After identifying these areas we then looked into
possible inputs, and outputs that would make the process less mundane. For example with hoovering, we found that one the lack of progress and droning noise were a huge factor in making this task boring. To combat this we looked into the idea of using projectors to project a snail trail of areas you have already hoovered, and sound to produce satisfying noises when you hoovered up dense areas of dirt.
3
4
Initial Ideas After exploring many different mundane and repetitive tasks, we decided to focus on personal Hygiene. After exploring many different mundane and repetitive tasks, we decided to focus on personal Hygiene. Specifically on the brushing your teeth and on shaving. We liked these two dull moments because with both progress is hidden at a microscopic level. Our main focus in making these two tasks more interesting and fun was too enlarge and amplify small actions. With brushing your teeth, we explored the idea of replicating the action of water sloshing around your mouth. We aimed to do this by creating a inner sink inside a standard bath room sink and then moving this inner sink in time with your motion tracked toothbrush. As water sloshed around your mouth, it would also slosh around the sink. As a way of also showing progress we aimed to get all the water to flow away in two minutes, the recommended brushing task. Our second idea involved shaving and more
specifically the idea of bristles falling away under your blade. The idea was to replace your mirror with a wall of bristles and as you shaved your face, the bristles in front of you would retract in sweeping movements. This would be done with motion tracking the shaver, and with a wall of hydrochloric bristles or pegs. We were inspired in part by MIT’s The inFORM table which used pegs to add physical form to a virtual world. However, in the end we decided against these two ideas as we did not see much potential in them and we didn’t like that they would not be public but confined to your home.
MIT’s inForm table
5
A new Direction After deciding against pursuing personal hygiene at home, we decided to look at personal hygiene in more public areas. After deciding against pursuing personal hygiene at home, we decided to look at personal hygiene in more public areas. The main area we decided to focus on here was washing your hands in public toilets. We mainly looked at the idea to amplify the idea of making a person feel paranoid about not washing their hands. We explored these ideas with a few quick video prototypes, with the focus on something happening to you if you hadn’t washed your hands. After sketching out these ideas with video we decided that they were not a great way of making mundane task more exciting but instead would be quite evil or just merely confusing. We decided to keep
or attention directed on the act of hand washing but instead of giving negative feedback to our subjects , we would try and encourage them to wash their hands in a fun way.
6
Left: User not washing hands Right: User leaving bathroom
Left: Black dots outside the door Right: Black dots following the user
Left: Flies outside the door Right: Flies following the user
Left: Flies buzzing on white surfaces Right: Flies fly towards users hand
7
8
Final Idea After finding a space to use for our project, our next aim was to work out how you could encourage a user to wash their hands, with things you would find in a one person loo. After finding a space to use for our project, our next aim was to work out how you could encourage a user to wash their hands, with things you would find in a one person loo. We settled on the tap, and aimed to personify it in such a way that it would encourage your to wash your hands. From here we worked out that our outputs were limited to the direction the tap was facing and the flow of water. We also mapped out our various possible inputs in the bathroom. We decided that the interaction would start with the flush being activated and would end when the user had washed their hands.
We also worked out away to motion track a user as they moved around the bathroom, using motion trackers with a limited field of view. This would allow the tap to follow their movement s and look directly at them. The next thing we needed to do was make a functioning prototype.
The one person bathroom we used and its inputs
9
Making It Work We quickly found that making the tap move and changing the water flow, without leaving any trace of our project in the bathroom, would be very hard. We quickly found that making the tap move and changing the water flow, without leaving any trace of our project in the bathroom, would be very hard. However, we finally managed to get a working prototype by using wooden clamps on both the neck of the clamp and on the handle that controls water flow. We chose not make a fully functioning prototype with motion tracking etc. This is because we felt that given the time constraints it was better to capture the essence of
Our first rough prototype
our idea, rather then focusing on the engineering. So we decided to operate both of these movements with servos, which we then controlled by turning the spindles of two variable resistors. By doing this we had complete control of the tap, and would be able to demonstrate our concept through a video prototype.
10
Exploded view of my final CAD model
11
12
The inner workings of our prototype
Our finished prototype for our video
13
Video Prototype Our main aim with the video prototype was to convey the what it would be like to use a bathroom that had a intelligent tap. Our main aim with the video prototype was to convey the what it would be like to use a bathroom that had a intelligent tap. Therefore we decided to create a short film that focused on users experience. In the film the film the user use the bathroom and then realises the tap is following her. She then tries to leave with out washing her hands. This annoys the tap who starts getting angry by shaking its head and gushing water. This leads to the user interacting with
the tap and finally washing her hands properly. We also decided to call our concept “Mr & Mrs Tap�, as we felt the two heads on the tap acted like the two parents through their mannerisms and
14
Left: Atmosphere scenes Right: User enters bathroom
Left: Tap faces user after flush Right: User enters bathroom
Left: User “dances� with the tap Right: Tap gets angry when user tries to leave without washing hands
Left: User washes hands Right: The tap resets itself
15
My Thoughts I think that both me and my partner struggled with the beginning of this project, due to not being able to find a idea we both could fully commit too. However, once we aligned our objectives and found a idea with both like we were able to work really well together. At times it was a very difficult project to work together on This is not because we found it hard to work together but because we both had a lot of other unavoidable things going on during this project. We
managed to work around this by planning goals for each day and sticking too those plans. Other then learning a lot about work in a team, I also learnt a greater respect for engineering. By the end of the project we had got through various prototypes all in the struggle of making the sink move. I enjoyed making something work, but I did struggle with having equipment (servos) breaking at annoying times. 16