DimSum Diners

Initial Ecosystem Proposal

Team Mashed Potatoes is working on the traditional Chinese brunch restaurants called YumCha/Dim Sum. The differentiation factor for these restaurants is that the customer base is largely the elderly population who sit there throughout the day have a good time with their friends. The server moves around with carts containing food baskets. These carts are stopped by the customers if they want more food. Ideally, a food basket is shared by a number of people.

In this project, we are focusing on primarily three interactions. Firstly, since customers do not come in close contact with kitchen a lot, how could IoT help them in setting up a channel to the chef, for them to pass on appreciation for the food or shortage of food. Secondly, how can ambient devices be put into place to guide the trolley to the table which needs food rather than the customer having to shout out to them. Thirdly, since this is a space for social interaction, how can we use ambient devices to motivate people to stay away from their smart devices and interact more with others.

Defamiliarization Process

Step 1: Exploring the spaces and personas

After going wide in the familiarization process, we needed to narrow down on a space we wanted to work on. We started by quick brainstorming wherein we each came up with 5 ideas of very specific spaces or kind of personas we wanted to work on. After creating an affinity diagram, we had a voting round wherein each one of us had 4 votes. This led to the elimination of multiple ideas which was followed by second round of voting to merge ideas and come up with top 10-12 ideas we wanted to discuss in depth and proceed ahead with. The ideas we boiled down to were:

1 . Designing interactions for a cosplay restaurant.

2. A traditional Chinese brunch restaurant.

3. Designing a zen experience in a Japanese restaurant.

4. Designing for a Marijuana cafe.

5. A setting which would ease the process of proposing to your loved ones.

6. Enhancing the experience of a chef in the stressful kitchen area.

7. Designing for the least favored seat in the restaurant.

8. Designing an experience when noisy kids are around.

Step 2: Finalizing the context

In this step, we discussed each and every one of the above spaces in depth from the perspective of "Scope of IoT" and "Interest of the team" in order to finalize our idea. After heavy discussions, we decide to go ahead with the "traditional Chinese brunch restaurant" and decided to also focus on the chef's experience in this space.

Step 3: Familiarization 2.0

Once we decide to go ahead with our idea, we had to familiarize ourselves with the space so that we could identify the pain-points and design for the right interactions. Once of our classmates helped us get familiar with the ins and out of Dim Sum restaurants. 

Step 4: Divide and Conquer  

Once we were familiar with them, we started sketching out the different interactions we could design for. We split up into sub-teams to brainstorm about ideas and materials regarding the 3 primary interactions we were designing for:

1. Enhancing the interaction between the chef and the customer

2. Enabling the customer to communicate better with the mobile food cart

3. Designing for creating enhanced social experiences

Step 5: Funneling of ideas

Once the sub-teams individually came up with ideas and methods for execution, they presented them to the rest of the team members so that they could receive feedback and tweak their ideas to better communicate with other IoT objects in the ecosystem. Once this was done, teams finally tweaked their ideas, compiled a list of materials they needed and generated concept sketches

Object 1

Enhancing interaction between the chef and the customer

When the customer knocks on a particular point on the table, this device on the chef side creates an image on an acrylic sheet out of steam to convey to the chef that he/she really appreciated the food. On a level below this, we have lotus floating on water which move from side-to-side in order to give a glimpse of the demand of food by the customers 

Object 2

Enabling the customer to communicate better with the mobile food cart  

This object hopes to explore how can ambient devices be put into place to guide the trolley to the table which needs food rather than the customer having to shout out to them. We are planning to use Magnetometers and high strength magnets to convey information to the cart about food demand. Splitting the chopstick holder into 2 parts will convey the info and the panda figurine on the trolley will guide the server to the table.  

Object 3

Designing for creating enhanced social experiences  

Since this is a space for social interaction, how can we use ambient devices to motivate people to stay away from their smart devices and interact more with others.  This device will sense that once everyone places their phones on the center stand, an electronic painter starts creating a painting which will get interrupted if someone picks up their phone. This motivates them to stay away form their phones and interact with friends. 

Bill of Materials