Concept

Charlie is a digital eating assistant that helps promote healthy eating and wellbeing of children who are picky eaters. Charlie will live in a physical sphere that is connected to a placemat which can be placed under plates, bowls or cups. The intended use for Charlie is that after something has been lifted off the plate, the placemat detects this and tells Charlie, Charlie, then performs an encouraging emote or display something similarity to virtual cheering. This is intended so that children are inspired to eat all their food (especially greens). This is mainly focused on those children who refuse to eat their greens or certain foods whilst also implementing a no food wastage policy at a young age.

Charlie will have different animations that play on a display, these animations will vary for how much food is eaten, what kind of food is eaten, and if no food has been eaten after a certain time. Using these animations, hopefully, the children are encouraged to eat everything on their plate

Another Idea of Charlie was to use a dinner tray that corresponds with the dinner mat so that Charlie knew what food the child was eating. Each section of the tray could be set to greens, salad, meats etc. With these selected areas, depending on what was on the tray, Charlie could demonstrate specific animations.

What is cool about this idea as not only does Charlie help promote healthy eating but can help distract the child as the parents focus on getting ready for the day. Charlie is then used for both the child and parents needs. This also helps those parents who dislike placing their child in front of the T.V or an iPad at such an early age.

Concept Sketch

A3 Poster