Presentation day: The big finale

Unfortunately we are approaching the end of the project. Unfortunately because working on this project has been a lot of fun and also our result has made the effort worthwhile.

During this last week we have put together the final loose ends of the project. Last time we were still stuck with our Sun SPOT running and measuring on one laptop while our software interface was running on another one. It turned out to be quite a hassle to get everything working on one station. The main problem was off course software versions, libraries and more of this kind of stuff.

The software we eventually used was taken from one of the Sun SPOT example files, namely the "Telemetry on Desktop". We used the acceleration sensor that was on board of the Sun SPOT and exported the resulting vector. In this way we didn't have to care about the orientation of the Sun SPOT when you connect it to your leg. Following this we set a certain threshold for the amplitude and the duration of the signal so that we could distinguish between steps. (see also this YouTube tutorial of the Telemetry example)

If we had more time we could have also calculated more complex data such as speed, force and maybe distinct between walking, running and jumping. Sadly enough, time did not allow us to do this.

When it comes to our iPhone emulator, Jemerie put a lot of work into making this lifelike and realistic. The best part, in my opinion is that it looks so much like the initial designs that we made in our powerpoint from last time.

The final result is a functional working prototype that has a full audio and visual feedback mechanism on a computer and has a wireless range of about 20 meters from the base station.

As far as the group-work is concerned I am very satisfied with this result as well. Because we have divided the work amongst ourselves and tried to maximally benefit of each others strengths.

I look forward to present our result and hear the feedback and comments that our audience (online or offline) might have!

Check out the result on the Fun Shoe website!

Newsflash

This news-message on dutch new-site NU.nl, published 2 weeks ago, emphasized the importance of innitiatives like our own. Products that aim at fighting obesity among children in a way that is both enjoyable but at the same time functional to them.

http://www.nubijlage.nl/gezond-op-school/2622251/steeds-meer-kinderen-hebben-overgewicht.html

(Open with google chrome to immediately translate or use google translate)

The bottom line of this news is that research in the Netherlands this year has shown that from the 2400 kids that were investigated in the ages between 2 and 17, in more than 300 cases the kids were suffering from obesitas. Research has proven time and time again that regular exercise is the key to longevity. Finally, obese kids have a very large chance to become obese adults, so by tackling this issue early on in life we can save lives while at the same time improve quality of life!

Progress in the shoe factory

We are well underway now in the final part of our project. Before the start of these last 2 weeks of project work we have once more presented our plans. This feedback session has provided us with some valuable recommendations to take into account in this final part of the design process.

Part of the given advice was to link the short-term reward (sound effects when walking) that we give the user in some way to the long-term rewards (unlockable features/achievements and of course a better health). Another recommendation concerned the fact that maybe we needed to start more from the user perspective instead of the technology perspective.

This week we started exploring the possibilities of the Sun SPOT, a wireless microprocessor, that to our surprise also contains an onboard accelerometer! The latter makes our earlier attempts to look for an external sensor to measure movement abundant. However, getting a wireless live measurement of the accelerometer going was easier said than done.

Ok, back to the progress of the final project! As discussed at the beginning of this blog entry, we decided to work on our reward scheme for the fun shoe. After all, the reward scheme determines whether the desired behavior (more exerce) will be stimulated enough to result in a healthier lifestyle in the long run for children. The new reward schedule that we have have designed incorporates a mobile device that acts as an interface for the Fun Shoe. On this interface you can see your "avatar" (kind of similar to the old-fashioned tamagochi) that you can improve by exercising more. The sound effects that belong to these improvements or upgrades will sound through the shoe-speakers. Also possible sound effects that can be used with the shoe can be activated through the mobile device. This powerpoint gives an idea of the look and feel of this interface device.

As far as the progress of the whole project is concerned: We have the Sun SPOT up and running now with the accelerometers on board and on another computer we also have an emulator for our mobile interface device running. The to-do's for the remaining sessions are getting the Sun SPOT to run on the same computer as our emulator and to finish the ankle mount for the Sun SPOT. The final thing to do is off course some calibration, anyway...we'll keep you posted!

mobile hardware + guest lecture

Just a short update this time about last weeks meeting. Most of the day was devoted to exploring and getting to know the Arduino and the SUN Spot. Both are independent microprocessors with the latter even being able to wirelessly connect to remote computer. Both bring new possibilities to the table when it comes to prototype building. Obviously prototypes can be made much more interesting when they dont have to be connected to a desktop computer by wire.

Another part of the day was devoted to a guest lecture from a professor from Germany who gave a guest lecture. In my opinion this wasn't that interesting because it was basically a slideshow of examples of interaction design without really going into depth on one of them. I think this lecture might have been more useful to us when we would have had it at the beginning of the course. Also it might have been better to treat a few less examples and just dive into a few of them in more detail.

As far as the big project is concerned. We are planning to stick with our initial idea of making a a shoe that motivates kids to exercise more. During the next meeting we will further crystalize our ideas into a workable planning that will lead to a working product. Our group is still working very well and I think our succes will mainly lie in our diverse backgrounds. During the next post I will probably be able to show our planning and to-do-list for the meetings still te come.

Prototypes

This time I mainly want to update you on the progress of the technical hardware part of our product. By now we have created two different type of 'measuring shoe's' by using two different types of sensor.

Prototype #1 makes use of force sensors that are built into a sort of a flip-flop that can be worn over your shoe. This prototype measures force of impact and is therefore also able to detect the number of impacts. An image of the prototy

pe can be seen below.

The first photo shows the force sensitive flip-flop connected to the computer

The photo below displays how the force sensor is implemented into the foam flip-flop

On the photo below you can see the prototype in use.

The second prototype that we built makes use of bending sensors and is attached to a shoe by means of rubber bands. This solution is very elegant and can be used on (or even in) any shoe. The photo below shows an image of the prototype.

All of the given sensors displayed the amount of steps on a computer screen and the impact of the step. Also the computer played a tune when a certain amount of steps was reached.

Our next step will be to use one of these prototypes to make a final usable and testable prototype that will be more specified in both function and target audience.

Interesting insights

This weeks lecture has opened my eyes to 2 new perspectives on designing computer and other human-technology interface applications, namely the following two:

- the fading notion that every bit consumes power and needs a physical place to call home

- that it is actually possible to design products that persuade you to use them for a longer time instead of throwing them away at the first sight of a better one.

The latter issue is discussed in a paper by Verbeek and Kockelkoren (1998), they argue that products that are designed nowadays are made to look at its best when they are fresh of the shelf. Off course this fits within the view of the consumption economy we live in. If something is (seemingly) broken, scratched or can just be replaced by a newer version we will replace it. However, when products were to be designed by using materials that will increase in aesthetic value with longer use, then it might be able to create a sense of older = better. Designing only the exterior of a product to enhance durability will not work, company policies also need to modified to fit this new sense of durable consumption. Change in earn-models combined with durable design could maybe be capable of breaking our habits of consuming at any cost, reduce our lust for new and stimulate appreciation of the used.

A second and probably much more trending topic in the near future is the notion that every 'bit' of information has to have a physical location for storage (Blanchette, 2011). Along with this physical space for storage goes the power its consuming herewith. At first hand it might seem a trivial fact that every bit needs a physical location of storage, however streaming services like Spotify and Netflix have heavily decreased the awareness in consumers that by streaming they are actually retrieving bits from an often unknown location. The costs for storage and transportation of this information are not at all known to the consumer. In 'the old days', when all your data was on your computer, you could actually hear the work the computer had to do to retrieve all your data. New technologies have caused this awareness to the background.

A new era in computing called 'cloud computing' is about to take earlier mentioned streaming services to the extreme by placing almost all of the data and processing power in the cloud - a distributed network of computers - and therefore separating the consumer from any notion of power and storage consumption.

The latter not only puts constraints on designers but also on the way we use our computer and especially what damage we do by using it. Damage you ask? Because we have no feedback about the consequences of our internet surfing behaviour on energy consumption we have no idea what for instance a google-search costs us. Literature research shows that consequences of the trend of streaming and cloud computing have not been explored in much depth. A short article by Berl, Gelenbe, Di Girolamo, Giuliani, De Meer, Quan Dang & Pentikousis [2009] does investigate the possibilities of energy saving in the ICT business and conlude that cloud computing might save energy in the long run because there are more possibilities for monitoring, controlling and regulating internet usage. An important fact they leave out however is the behavioural changes that will occur as a result of new streaming and cloud services that are rapidly gaining ground.

I think the above is a very interesting discussion and will be a major point of focus in the environmental discussion in the near future. Streaming services and cloud computing hold great benefits in this increasingly mobile society, the question however is...at what (environmental) cost?

New ideas

Since the latest blog entry, the idea for our prototype has taken a bit a walk on the wild side. After some discussion we have decided to go for a more fun version of the initial idea. Fun is actually the key word in our new, and probably final idea. The idea of a shoe that senses movement still stands, however we would like to enhance this "intelligent shoe" in the sense that it registeres steps and their intensity. The feedback that is given according to the amount of activity in the shoe sensors will be done through sound. A shoe that is fitted with 2 (or more) force sensors and a speaker will allow for tons of interactions that can benefit people in a lot of ways, mostly health-wise. As you see, the end-goal still stands: "get people more healthy".

The principle we will be using is "fun theory" as illustrated in the YouTube video below

Fun theory basically assumes that behavior will be displayed more often if it is fun! Therefore our interactive 'fun-shoe' will give young children a goal to engage in physical exercise more instead of staying in and playing video games. Goals can be set in different ways: rewards per certain amount of steps, intensity of sound according to amplitude of movement, make sounds (music) together.

Although this idea has the potential of activating people - and especially children - more, there are still a lot of questions surrounding the implementation and the actual behavior that this fun-shoe will illicit in real-world situations. The first step now is to build an actual (hardware) prototype that allows for exploration of behavior involving this artefact.