The Breather - Process Documentation - #LULLZ

The Breather

The Breather, an IoT ecosystem designed specifically for the stress of working in a high-end kitchen.

Being a chef is stressful. That's why we've designed a stress relief IoT ecosystem that reacts to a chef's workload and stress levels, offering moments of escape in a highly hectic environment. Our system has been designed to react to breaks in food order frequency and biometric stress indicators, such has profuse sweating and racing heartbeats.

It has been designed to be non-intrusive through the use of subtle tactile and auditory feedback mechanisms and helps improve communication up to the Executive Chef when any given food station is over burdened, allowing for him or her to send in back up. 

FINAL ECOSYSTEM DESIGN

The Brain

We've designed a smart door that welcomes front of house staff back in the kitchen only when it's not too busy. If the kitchen is experiencing a back log (more orders coming in than going out), the shutter window on the door will shut providing a subtle cue to LEAVE ME ALONE.

The Signal

Once inside the kitchen, we learned through our research that the Executive Chef is concerned about monitoring his team's productivity. One way for a team to be productive is if they aren't over stressed, but finding moments of peace in the kitchen is nearly impossible. To this end, we designed a "Smart Apron" to gently remind chefs to take a mental break - even if they can't leave the kitchen.

The Hat

And, because we wanted to design something that was somewhat more whimsical, we added a touch of magic to The Breather Ecosystem by building a massaging hat. This hat provides physical relief at the moment chefs need it most.

Click on any of the above links to read more.

Final Input/Output 

THE BRAIN

THE SIGNAL

INPUT: Moments of inactivity (event sent by The Brain)

OUTPUT: Light vibration and visual indicator that the chef is taking a light mental break

THE HAT

Final Bill of Materials

Our initial BOM was way out of scope for this project totaling in at over $700. We have since adjusted our prototype designs to fall within the $100 budget range.

The Brain:

• 1 x Acrylic Sheets 24" x 24"x .47"
  
• 3 x Acrylic Sheet 12" x 12" x .23"
• 5 x Balsa Wood 1" x 1" x 36"
• Screws & Bolts
• 2 x Spray Paint
  
• 1 x Stepper Motor
• 1 x Stepper Motor Driver
• 1 x Door Magnet Sensor

The Signal:

• 2x Chef Jackets Waiter Coat Short Sleeves Underarm Mesh Many Colors
  
• 2x Bone Conductor Transducer with Wires - 8 Ohm 1 Watt
  
• 1x Stereo 3.7W Class D Audio Amplifier - MAX98306
  
• 1x Aunt Martha's 28-Inch by 35-Inch Cotton Kitchen Apron, White
  
• 1x TF Card U Disk Mini MP3 Player Audio Voice Module Board For Arduino DFPlayLO

The Hat:

• 1x Chef hat
  
• 1x Metal head scratcher
  
• 1x 3D-printed gears and housing
• 1x Heavy guage wire frame
• 1x Elastic cotton outer covering
• 1x Velcro head strap
• 1x Brushless DC fan
  
• 1x Servo
• 1x Soil monitor
  
• 1x On/off switch
• 1x Particle photon
• 1x Breadboard and wiring

INITIAL IDEATION

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 25TH

Our Process

1. The key to working in big groups is getting everyone on the same page.
   
2. Then we went to explore the life of a chef.
   
3. Meanwhile, we kicked off initial ideation, How Might We's and started to form teams.
   
4. Advait jumped in with a great team schedule.
5. We had to make some tough calls, so I organized a Design Sprint a la Google.

DECISION ONE: Fine Dining or Fast Food?

We first had to decide what type of kitchen environment we wanted to design for. We ended up deciding (8 to 3) that we preferred designing for the high stress environment of fine dining.

DECISION TWO: Pragmatic or Whimsical?

Our second decision was whether we wanted to come up with a pragmatic or a whimsical solution. We decided to let our design lean toward the whimsical side, trying to add a bit of delight and joy in the highly stressful fine dining kitchen setting as many of us know chefs in the industry and have seen the impact that the high stress environment can have on people.

CATEGORIES: ANYTHING BUT EFFICIENCY

We came up with 7 broad topics to help guide us away from the overly pragmatic design solution of increased efficiency. Those were:

• Culture 
  
• Safety & Sanitation 
• Communication 
  
• Stress (mental) 
  
• Food Quality 
  
• Physical Comfort 
  
• Education/Training
  

We then narrowed down to our top 5 topics (adding menu experimentation)

• Mental Burden / Stress 
  
• Food Quality 
  
• Teamwork / Communication 
  
• Environment 
  
• Menu Experimentation
  

FINAL TOPIC

We ended up deciding on a combination of Mental Burden / Stress and Teamwork / Communication because those topics were so undeniably important to the fine dining kitchen environment.

Kitchen Layout

We started our ideation by first visualizing likely kitchen layouts and asking ourselves key questions about the environment:

• Where do people spend most of their time? 
  
• What challenges might they have communicating with one another? 
  
• Where do people walk within the space? 
  
• What surfaces are visible and accessible?
  

Initial Ideation: Ecosystem 1 (Apron)

Designed to gently suggest to a chef to take a small mental break with a light vibration, we wanted this personal ambient notification device to create a moment of escape in an otherwise highly stressful environment. 

We explored a variety of locations for the vibration motor and ended up deciding on the back of the neck as our user testing indicated that resulted in the least amount of ticklishness and disturbance while the chef was in the middle of a task.

As in the final design, we knew from the start we also wanted to provide feedback to others around. We planned to incorporate a visual display of lights to provide feedback to the executive chef and the rest of the team when a given station was either overburdened and in need of additional help (red) or taking a mental break (green).

Initial Ideation: Ecosystem 2 (Chef's Hat)

The hat, as mentioned above, was a bit more on the whimsical side. The initial design was similar to the final product with the motor and head massager fixed inside a slightly oversized chefs hat. We wanted to incorporate a fan, but it needed to be fixed within the inside of the hat to avoid disturbing any delicate plate presentations.

We planned for the fan and the head massager to be triggered by biometric indicators of stress and moments of high workload.

Initial Ideation: Ecosystem 3 (The Brain)

This part of the IoT ecosystem went through the most changes. 

Originally, we wanted to have displays with station status information (see colorful sketch at the bottom of this section). This was voted down by the team as it was too literal and we wanted to challenge ourselves to make something more ambient. 

Next we thought we'd design a table that would rise and fall based on the weight of the plates placed on the table - a symbolic representation of that station's workload. We received feedback that this would likely be EXTREMELY annoying for the chefs and even though our design didn't need to be business viable, we couldn't, in our right mind, design something so ergonomically incorrect.

Finally, we decided on a door that closes as food orders pile up and a back log is created. This is the final design, which you can see in more detail on The Breather's Brain #LULLZ page.

Initial Input/Output for Devices in the Ecosystem

As of Sunday February 26, 2017, our ecosystem design consisted of the following Inputs/Outputs. See above for the final solution.

THE BRAIN

INPUT: Food orders and weight sensors to determine back logs and moments of inactivity

OUTPUT: Signal to both other devices when there is a lull in activity and slight table height change (3 inches) as more orders are piled onto one person.

THE SIGNAL

INPUT: Moments of inactivity (event sent by The Brain)

OUTPUT: Light vibration and visual indicator that the chef is taking a light mental break

THE HAT

INPUT: Moments of inactivity (event sent by The Signal)

OUTPUT: DC motor powered head massager (with manual override switch)

Initial Bill of Materials

Our initial BOM was way out of scope for this project totaling in at over $700. See above for the final materials used in this project.

The Brain:

• 2x MDF
  
• 2x Acrylic
  
• 4x Spray Paint
  
• 10x Load Sensor
  
• 10x Load Cell Amplifier
  
• 1x Mux Shield
  

The Signal:

• 2x Chef Jackets Waiter Coat Short Sleeves Underarm Mesh Many Colors
  
• 2x Bone Conductor Transducer with Wires - 8 Ohm 1 Watt
  
• 1x Stereo 3.7W Class D Audio Amplifier - MAX98306
  
• 1x Aunt Martha's 28-Inch by 35-Inch Cotton Kitchen Apron, White
  
• 1x TF Card U Disk Mini MP3 Player Audio Voice Module Board For Arduino DFPlay LO
  

The Hat:

• 1x Chef Hat
  
• 1x Metal Head Scratcher
  
• 1 set of 3D-Printed Compenentry
  
• 1x DC Motor
  
• 1x Actuator
  
• 1x Heart Rate Monitor
  
• 1x Pulse Sensor
  

Categories: Top 5 Topics

User Research: Persona