As a team, we wanted to work on romantic relationships. From there we chose to focus on the ambiguity in modern day dating. The team began by mapping out their current relationships and their phases. We spoke about these phases and chose to break them up into 'stages', 'actions', and 'emotions' to better understand the nuances of relationships.
From there, possible inputs and outputs were brainstormed to understand what we could sense and output. These were they discussed in tandem with the phases. As a team, it was decided that the final design should focus on moving forward or backward in a relationship - as opposed to the phases one may be moving away from or towards.
It was decided to use water as a metric of where you are in the relationship as water is easy to manipulate and carries a weight that can a user can feel and understand - enabling something abstract ("moving forward") to become tangible.
Initially, we wanted to use a cup which users would continually fill to indicate their (hopefully) increasing interest in the relationship. It was decided that when both users filled the cup to its maximum capacity, the cups would pour over to create a waterfall effect to indicate both users are ready to speak to one another.
After discussing this idea further, the team chose to move to vibration instead of pour over effect. A speaker and solenoid were explored for this effect but they were not compelling to the team. Finally, the team chose to add bubbles to the system instead.
The bubbles were the used to indicate users were at the same stage of the relationship (mapped to equal levels of water), with a light indicating that both users are ready to talk.
The Vase is made up of three parts:
Water Chamber: The upper chamber of the vase holds the water poured in by the pair. At the top will be the ultrasonic sensor attached and facing into the vase. The six walls of the vase were made from laser cut co-polyester and glued to shape using a glue gun. After the glue gus had set on the outer walls the silicone sealant was added to the inner walls.
[NOTE: When adding the silicone it was hard to get it on the walls after it is put together so we needed smaller hands]
[NOTE: Silicone Adhesives should never be used indoors without proper ventilation; Lest you want to lose your brain cells]
Bubble Valve: The one way valve can be found in soap dispensers. You can unscrew to them and and look at the pump. The lower section is made up of a one-way valve and a spring. After cutting it off you can pull the spring out and hold onto the valve. We used a pipette to create a funnel for continued airflow but prevent the ball bearing from getting too far from the valve. The valve was then glued into the bottom face of the water chamber and sealed with the silicone sealant. Then seal the bottom face to the water chamber. These valves were very unreliable, as the ball kept getting lodged.
Pump and Electronic Housing: The bottom part of the design is made up of six sheets of laser cut co-polyester. Since it didn’t require the ability to hold water we didn’t add any waterproofing silicone.