Outcome

Intention

First, we started with a list of question trying to identify whom we should design for. After we settled on a bedroom for a kid in the future we starting thinking of objects with which kids usually interact, and see how can we enchant those. After a couple of iterations with objects we felt the a teddy bear is something that is sort of a friend to most of the kids and started thinking of ways to make use of that. Our two stakeholders were the parents and the kid himself. from one side, a kid's concern: is that they are usually scared of dark rooms and sleeping by themselves. On the other side, the parents are usually concerned with when their kids go to sleep, and also they want to be able to check on them regularly without suddenly intruding into their rooms. So, we thought that the teddy bear can play a useful role here to lessen the kid's fear when he's alone in his room by being a friend that he can hug before falling asleep, and also triggers something that can tell the parents that he is ok and about to fall asleep.  

Context

The Kid enters his room at night, he'll find the skylight or the cloud with the nice blue color and his teddy bear. the room should look like a room in video game or an amusement park. He plays with his teddy for sometime and at a certain time, he takes the teddy and goes to his bed, hugs and try to fall asleep under these beautiful sky lights. The moment the kid hugs the teddy to things happen: one, it dims the light after 15 minutes of the kid staying on his bed to give him a sufficient time to fall asleep without feeling scared of the darkness. second, it triggers his bedroom door knob to turn on a green color light as a signal to the parents that he is about to fall asleep. 

Process

-We wanted to simulate or prototype the teddy bear to be as real and as intended to be as possible. we wanted the teddy bear to function the moment it is hugged a "normal" hug. i.e: not just pressing it at a certain spot or through a button. we started with a normal FSR sensor (like the one shown in the below sketch). 

-Second, we wanted to try with something is more sensitive than a spotted FSR allowing hugging from anywhere. We ended up using aluminum sheets with foam in between (with holes) so whenever someone hugs (compresses) the layers of the sheets and the foam they touch each other and connects the circuit. We also knitted a t-shirt for the teddy bear and put the foam inside it to give the teddy a more personalized friendly look. 

-Last thing we tried, was a much wider FSR sensors. Three of them wrapped around the teddy's back and front. The FSR worked pretty fine just like the aluminum sheets. However, they looked more suitable for a kid's small hand. If someone with bigger hands almost the size of the teddy bear, he might get the feeling that the sensors are like buttons on the teddy (which is what we didn't want as previously mentioned). But again, for our purpose, both the Aluminum and the wider FSR performed almost as requested. 

 The following link is the full IoT ecosystem Gallery Page: http://integratedinnovation.xsead.cmu.edu/gallery/projects/sleepstars-wip-8295faa7-5fc4-40ee-b535-27295299c750.  

Product

Bill of Materials

- Teddy bear *1

- Square FSR (Force Sensitive Resistor)*3

- Particle Photon *1

- Breadboard *1

- Jumper Wires

- Fabric

Reflection

This project was really impactful on us the way we think about an ecosystem of connected products. In contrast to how simple it was to think of a use case for a single product, it was really challenging to come up with and imagine a scenario where three connected products can be function simultaneously or sequentially and be useful.  Sometimes, it sounds easy to propose a situation for the devices to operate. However, with further probing into the potential possibilities of what is going to happen, the ecosystem ceases to prove being useful for a longer time or for all possible tasks and use cases. For instance, we thought of the door knob to be the trigger to turn on the magic scenery of lights to the kid when he enters his room. However, this case is assuming a kid who will always be outside his room at night and will only enter after 9 pm, which is not necessarily the case every day. That's why we iterated a couple of times to develop something that at least will operate and be useful in most of the normal daily practices of a kid.

On more thing, in projects like this one, we were constrained by time, skills and resources. However, we believe that what we built can really be a start for a new way of bedroom design. A lot can be added to transform the traditional and dull bedroom to an interesting one. A teddy bear that tells a different story everyday and triggers lights and sounds and haptics around the kid in his bedroom and create a lovely space for the kid to feel safe, happy and excited to learn is surely something that can be done and continued after what we started.