This Week:

I am currently working on developing the direction I want to take for my concept and how it will relate to the team domain. In the image below you can see some of my brainstorming and mapping of ideas. A lot of the research and context of the team’s original idea was aimed towards households with children and the average family. Based on the background and related work for this problem space, I would like to focus my exploration on homes and households with just adults. So this relates to partners, couples, or housemates living together. It was found through research that children have the most influence on their parents within the home as children learn about being environmentally friendly and sustainable in schools. I want to take the perspective that adults have forgotten or are now too busy with their work lifestyles that they have forgotten the basics of being energy conscious and the Energy Saving Emily device will assist with that.

I have also had a look into the resources and things I have at home which can come in handy when creating and constructing my prototype. I ended up finding some old 3D printed hexagons and strips of LEDs. I thought this could be useful for creating some of the interactions.

I have also been having a play with my arduino and seeing what sensors I can use. I found a PIR sensor which is used for motion. IT is primarily used in outside lights, so when someone walks past the light will turn on. I thought this could be an interesting sensor to use as this could be used to annoy people in my domain. For example every time someone walks past Emily, an annoying sound plays only if they are not being energy efficient.

Work to Do:

For the next week, I have to finish my individual section for the report. I also need to have a good look into what I want my product to look like and what technology I want to see in it. I want to conduct some user surveys or testing regarding sounds or things that annoy people with technology.

Work that Inspired/Interested Me:

I found this Customisable World Clock creation that can be done with Arduino.

https://www.electromaker.io/project/view/word-clock-customisable-and-easy-to-build

I thought this was a good DIY home project to do while at home. It was something quite simple to make and I think I might incorporate some of the features into my own individual creation.