Documentation & Reflection

Week_13_Documentation & Reflection

Junxian Chen - Mon 22 June 2020, 10:23 am

Conclusion

In this last week's work, I mainly focused on the final appearance of the product and dedicated to the completion of the web page.

Appearance Problems

In order to make the appearance of the bracelet and base station more like finished products, I adopted different strategies to transform the appearance of the bracelet and base station.

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The appearance of the bracelet:

For the appearance of the bracelet, I used a streamlined method, that is, removing the extra wires as much as possible, but the problem I encountered in the actual operation was that the jumper I purchased was made of fixed leads and connections composition, which makes it impossible for me to adjust the length of the lead at will. Moreover, because the pins on both ends of the lead are too long, I can’t keep this kind of pin in the final product. This is because a too long pin will make the final product is too high.

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Finally, in order to make the final product image of the bracelet more beautiful, I can only give up the use of pins. After cutting the wire after removing the pin to a suitable length, strip the end of the wire and use it directly. This operation cost me a lot of time, this is because, in the process of directly installing wires without using pins, I found it difficult to fix the wires without pins on the breadboard itself. I can only use glue guns and soldering to fix the leads.

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In the final product, I used a paper box to wrap the outside of the bracelet, so that I could cover the traces of the glue gun and the tin tint, so as to make the final product more beautiful.

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the appearance of the base station:

For the base station, I don’t think it needs a compact space, so I put the base station into a square box by design. In this case, a slightly larger box design can allow the base station to occupy more desktop space, so that the base station can immediately attract the user's attention when the alarm is triggered. On the other hand, in order to try to add a user reward mechanism for the base station, I plan to transform the top of the base station into a display screen to show the recorded user success The number of "stand up".

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The reward mechanism is removed:

Due to the large amount of time spent locking webpages and designs, the user reward mechanism of my original plan could not be realized in the end. In my original plan, I plan to use a simple 8-digital display as a point system to record users’ use of this The number of products. As an alternative, I use the method of manual counting on the front of the base station to simulate the user reward system.

Week_12_Documentation & Reflection

Junxian Chen - Sun 21 June 2020, 2:55 pm
Modified: Sun 21 June 2020, 3:47 pm

Implement of hardware and functions

In this week's work, I mainly focused on the complete the product in hardware and functions. In this week's work, I mainly added the snooze function to the product and replaced the pressure sensor on the bracelet with the button.

At the same time, I started trying to make a webpage that shows products for exhibition week.

The addition of Button

In this week's work, I replaced the pressure sensor with a button. At the same time, in order to achieve the snooze function, I added an additional button to specifically control the snooze function. In the original plan, the "start timing" function and the "snooze" function is integrated into the same button. Under this scenario, when the bracelet is not in the counting state, pressing the button will start the counting. When the bracelet is in the alarm state, pressing the same button will trigger the snooze state. However, in the actual implementation process, I found that this function is difficult to achieve at the code level. The main reason is that the bracelet and the base station are in a cycle of continuous transmission and reception of signals, In this case, there is no effective way to determine whether the user will trigger the "start timer" function or the "snooze" function when the button is pressed. Therefore, I can only use two different buttons to control the "start timer" And "snooze" separately.

The addition of Snooze function

In the previous test, I also received some feedback that the buzzer sound from the base station is too noisy, and expect to reduce some of the volumes. This gave me the inspiration to add the snooze function. Snooze is a function that allows users to delay the alarm from the base station. When the base station starts alarming, if the user has urgent work to be completed, or the user is in another situation which the user cannot leave the desk, the user can choose to use the snooze function. After pressing the snooze button, the current alarm state of the base station will be temporarily cancelled, then entering a waiting state, the waiting time is set to about 5 minutes, users can use this period of time to complete unfinished work and leave the desktop when the alarm sounds again.

In order to achieve the snooze function, I use a counting function similar to the trigger alarm function. However, unlike the alarm state, which is achieved by the signal exchange between the bracelet and the base station, the timing state of the Snooze function is completely on the bracelet Realized. By turning on the snooze state, the bracelet sends a "normal working" signal to the base station, and at the same time, cancels the vibration of the bracelet itself and resets the LED light status. After the snooze time is over, the base station sends the "time out" again to trigger the alarm, the base station triggers the alarm after receiving the signal, and responds to the bracelet "time out" signal, then the bracelet starts to vibrate, and the LED light enters the alarm state.

Web page creation and problems

In order to better display my products, I think that using a good color scheme is the beginning of designing a webpage. After consultation with other members of the group, we unanimously decided to use gray and black as the main colors of our webpage, and Choose one other color as the characteristic color to distinguish each of us.

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Week_11_Feedback & Reflection

Junxian Chen - Sun 21 June 2020, 2:33 pm
Modified: Sun 21 June 2020, 2:54 pm

Improvements based on feedback

In the prototype demonstration of Week 11, I got a lot of feedback, this feedback pointed out the current problems of my product. Based on these feedbacks, I plan to make the next improvement plan for my product.

Hardware change plan:

According to the feedback and my testing, the pressure sensor does not perform its function well. Therefore, I decided to replace the pressure sensor with a more convenient and intuitive button. Combined with the previous test, the main disadvantage of the pressure sensor is that it is too sensitive, It is easily affected by other factors and greatly changes the reading value. Since the pressure sensor in the Arduino kit provided by the course is not working, I can only buy the pressure sensor myself. Compared with the pressure sensor provided by the school, the pressure sensor purchased by myself is different. The point is that it has an additional integrated circuit board. This means that this pressure sensor will be much heavier than the other. According to my tests, this extra weight is likely to be the main reason for the pressure sensor’s insensitivity.

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According to the data obtained by my test, when the user tilts the bracelet quickly, there is a high possibility that the reading data on the pressure sensor suddenly rises. I have been very careful during the test to ensure that the pressure sensor itself and his connection line are not in contact with other components. Under normal situation, the reading data on the pressure sensor floats around 100 ~ 300, but when the bracelet is suddenly tilted, the floating range of the reading may reach -50 ~ 450. Under such value fluctuations, It is very difficult to continue to use the pressure sensor. In the early experiments and calibration, I used a simple function to ensure that the final output reading of the pressure sensor became stable. However, considering that the user's final wearing experience, It will inevitably appear that the bracelet is quickly tilted. In this case, if I continue to use the pressure sensor, it may lead to unpredictable some bugs such as early start or termination of timing.

As a result, I finally decided to replace the pressure sensor with a simpler and more stable button. The pressure sensor's operating mechanism looks more cool. and compared with the small button, the pressure sensor has a larger interaction area. But the pressure sensor is too sensitive. The physical position of its location is very sensitive to changes. I think if I will have the opportunity to continue to use the pressure sensor in the future. I may install it on the fixed base station.

Reward mechanism plan:

Another important feedback I received was that as a product, I should think more about how to let users keep using my product for a long time. So far, all the functions of my product have been designed around the theme of "making annoying", this means that my product currently has no "direct benefit" to the user at all. It is foreseeable that there will be a great possibility that the user will no longer use my product in order to be "annoying" blindly. For this problem, I decided to add a certain reward mechanism to my product.

Since my product is currently on the theme of "instant punishment", that is, when the user sits for a long time, the user gets a noisy buzzer, whether the user chooses to use the snooze function or directly away, the impact from the buzzer is short. In contrast, I plan to use a "long-term reward mechanism" to increase the user's dependence on the product.

As a "long-term reward mechanism", it should include a recording system, and every time the user successfully leaves the signal range and waits for 5 minutes, it will be recorded as a successful "stand up". When the successful "stand up" is reached a certain number of times, users will be rewarded.

Appearance plan:

In addition to the function and hardware updates, I also noticed that there are many jumpers and wires on the current Prototype, which makes the entire product look like "unfinished". Therefore, in the future improvement, I should also consider adopting certain Design to make the final product not look like a prototype.

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Week_10_Documentation & Reflection

Junxian Chen - Sun 21 June 2020, 12:49 pm
Modified: Sun 21 June 2020, 12:49 pm

Further research by Wireless

In the process of understanding and using wireless transmitter (NRF24L01), I found that wireless transmitter has good signal stability, wireless transmitter will accurately transmit data, so there will only be two cases that can be: received and not received.

In the process of using wireless transmitters, a pair of wireless transmitters defaults to one being a signal transmitter, and the other is a signal receiving device. They are all based on the support of https://github.com/nRF24/RF24 library. In the process of transmitting, both wireless transmitters can use radio.read() to read the signal, but only one of them can use radio.write() to send. This is because NRF24L01 cannot receive the signal while sending the signal. In order to solve this problem, after searching for relevant information, I decided to use radio.writeAckPayload() to achieve two-way communication. And use a set of signal interaction mechanisms based on only sending special command signals.

https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=421081

First of all, the base station and the bracelet perform signal transmissions by default. This interaction is called "Basic interaction". The role of this transmissions is to confirm that the base station and the bracelet are within the range of the interactive signal. The specific manifestation of "Basic interaction" is that every 1/4 second, the base station sends a "request signal" to the bracelet. After receiving the "request signal" from the base station, the bracelet will reply a "reply signal" to the base station, thus completing a loop.

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On the basis of "basic interaction", in order to execute other commands, I need to send a "special signals" other than the "basic interaction" signal. However, I ran into another problem, because in order to achieve "basic interaction" function, the signal transmission of the base station and the bracelet is set to a certain frequency (for example, the base station sends a signal every 1/4 second). In this case, if I only send the "special signal" once, it may be encountered a situation in which the command to send a "special signal" conflicted with the signal sent by the base station, which caused the base station to fail to send a signal.

In order to solve this problem, I decided to use a "reply-acknowledge" mechanism to try solve this. The base station will continue to send a "special signal" to the bracelet. Only when the base station receives the "special reply signal" from the bracelet, the base station will stop. However, this mechanism cannot be implemented in the end, the main reason is that when the base station sends a signal, it will occupy all the operating functions of the wireless transmitter, which causes the base station to not receive the signal at this time. In this kind of In this case, I can only try other ways to complete the interaction.

In the next attempt, I realized that the current problem is mainly that a single "special signal" sent by the base station may be blocked. So, I tried another method, that is, to set up a small loop, let the "special signal" is sent repeatedly 100 times in a short time. In this case, the base station will not be shielded from the signal sent in a single pass. Thus, the function is completely realized.

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Prototype 1 complete realization of basic functions

After fully implementing all the functions of the wireless transmitter, all the basic functions of my product in the current Prototype are also fully realized.

Feature list:

Base station:

  1. The buzzer will alarm after the timing is over; the buzzer will stop alarm after the bracelet leaves the range; the buzzer will re-alarm when the bracelet attempts to re-enter the range again; the buzzer will stop the alarm completely after the bracelet stays outside the signal range for a period of time.
  2. The buzzer alarm indicator light goes on when the buzzer alarms and goes off when the buzzer stops alarming.
  3. The chronograph indicator light is green after the chronograph starts; it turns yellow when it reaches about 50% of the countdown, and turns red when it reaches about 10% of the countdown.

bracelet:

  1. After pressing the pressure sensor on the bracelet, the bracelet and the base station will start counting.
  2. After the timing starts, the LED indicator on the bracelet will display as normal status.
  3. After the timing is over, the LED indicator on the bracelet will display an alarm state, and at the same time, the mini motor on the bracelet will start to vibrate.
  4. After leaving the signal range, the LED indicator on the bracelet will show the cooldown state, and at the same time, the mini motor on the bracelet will stop vibration.
  5. After re-entering the signal range, the LED indicator on the bracelet will enter the alarm state again, and at the same time, the mini motor on the bracelet will start to vibrate.
  6. After the bracelet stays outside the signal range for a period of time, the LED indicator on the bracelet will return to the normal state.
  7. Press the pressure sensor on the bracelet again to start a new round of timing.
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Week_09_Documentation & Reflection

Junxian Chen - Fri 15 May 2020, 8:10 pm

Continued follow-up improvements & changes:

A. New interaction inspired by the snooze function of the phone's alarm clock:Imgur

The user can disable the alarm temporarily by interacting with the bracelet, but then the buzzer sound from the base station will be louder. The basic design of this new interaction is that the base station will sound an alarm when the coutdown clock is finished. At this point, the user get feedback from the bracelet and the user can interact with the bracelet to send a snooze signal to the base station. After receiving the signal from the bracelet, the base station stops the alarm before it enters the snooze state, which lasts for 3 minutes, and after 3 minutes, the alarm will trigger again and be louder than before.

The design purpose of this new interaction is to give the user a certain response time to reduce the user's aversion to the buzzer.

B. The IR transmitter/receiver is replaced with a wireless transmitter.

In my ongoing testing over the last week, I have found a number of disadvantages with the IR transmitter/receiver.

  1. the range angle of the IR transmitter/receiver is very narrow, which means that the signal can only be received properly if the IR transmitter/receiver is both pointed in a specific direction. Once the signal is emitted from an angled angle, there is a high probability that the source signal will be accepted as a completely different signal.

  1. The infrared signal is completely impenetrable to any surface, which means that once the radio transmitter is mounted on a looped bracelet, there is a high probability that the signal will be blocked by the user's arm and not be received by the base station.
Therefore, I decided to use a wireless transmitter instead of an infrared transmitter/receiver.ImgurImgur

Problems encountered:

Buzzer occupies 3, 11 interfaces && TIMER2

During the installation of the buzzer, I found that the Arduino did not compile after the buzzer was installed, which was very confusing to me. I then searched and found out that the tones defaulted to timer2 in Arduino, which conflicted with the base station timer I was using and prevented the system from compiling.

solutions from:

https://arduino.stackexchange.com/questions/33137/how-to-fix-compilation-error-for-tone-using-same-timer-as-other-function

http://www.gammon.com.au/forum/?id=11504&reply=11#reply11

Sensitive readings from the pressure sensor
When installing the pressure sensor, I started with the school supplied pressure sensor, but I found it didn't seem to work. I tried the 9600 band and the 115200 band, but I couldn't get a reading and had to buy additional pressure sensors myself.ImgurImgur But the new pressure sensor also has serious problems. When I installed the pressure sensor vertically, I found that the reading numbers from the pressure sensor has a significantly deviation to 0, whiChat fluctuating between 200 - 300. The pressure sensor should reads zero at rest and should remain the same with no external pressure input. However, not only this pressure sensor does not read zero at rest, but the input value also fluctuates between 150 and 300. More seriously, when I place the pressure sensor flat, the reading from the sensor will fluctuate between 0 and 100. Imgur

Work to do:

1. continue to complete the function of wireless transmitter.

2. try to fix or reduce the deviation to influence pressure sensor.

3. finish prototype.

Week_08_Documentation & Reflection

Junxian Chen - Fri 15 May 2020, 12:15 pm

Continuing to add to the design:

  1. add the new arduino nano board, the bracelet will have the same information processing capabilities as the base station.
  2. planned additions to the base station: Figure 1Imgur
    1. Infrared receiver/transmitter: communicates signal with hand ring
    2. Buzzer: a harsh noise to alert the user
    3. LED lights: a visual reminder to the user
    4. (Optional), use digital display to show remaining time
  3. Planned additions to the bracelet: Figure 2
    1. Pressure sensor: detects if the bracelet is being worn.
    2. Micro motor: gives the user a physical reminder.Imgur
    3. Led light bar: visual alert to the user.
    4. Infrared emitter/receiver: communicates signals to the base
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Design and Process:

How do I start? (Base station start time)

A. The user wears the bracelet and the pressure sensor detects the user and transmits it to the base station via the transmitter, which starts working.

Disadvantages: This situation requires the assumption that the user will be wearing the bracelet, and if the user intends to be lazy or the pressure sensor is not working, the device will not start working.

B. The base station is powered by a computer (or any other user that must use it), and the base station starts timing once the computer is powered on.

Cons: The user is not necessarily sedentary when the computer is powered on.

Advantage: The user's position can be determined by the hand ring, which in turn determines the different behavior of the base station.

The base station will get the status of two users through the hand ring:

  1. whether the user is wearing the hand ring (pressure sensor) or not. If the user's wearing status (pressure sensor value) changes, a data signal is sent back to the base station immediately.
  2. whether the user is within the range of the base station (IR emitter/receiver). The IR emitter on the bracelet transmits data to the base station every X seconds, including whether the user is wearing the bracelet or not.

How to tell if the user is inside the base station, but not on the wrist, the signal is blocked by other objects and cannot be received by the base station: when the last signal received by the base station is that the hand ring is worn, the user is judged to be out of range of the base station with the hand ring on. (Not if a user wants to throw the hand ring in a place where the signal cannot be transmitted, as the pressure sensor does not detect the user) (doubtful)

When the base station is activated, the base station starts timing. The time limit is 30 minutes (can be changed). This means that after 30 minutes the base station will alert the user and remind him to get up and take a break.

Two conditions need to be met in order for the base station to continue timing: (doubtful, should it be AND or OR?)

  1. the user is wearing a bracelet
  2. User at base station range

What happens if the user leaves in the middle of the clock? (Doubtful.)

  1. The time will be paused and will be restored to 30 minutes according to a certain percentage (calculation and formula).
  2. The time will be paused, and if the user returns after a period of absence (5 minutes), the time will be reset directly to 30 minutes.

If the timing is normal, the LEDs on the unit will gradually change colour for 30min - 10min: green; 10min - 5min: yellow; less than 5min: red If the timing ends normally, an alarm will be triggered

Technical issues

  1. How the signal of the hand ring is sent and received by the base station, whether the signal of the base station feedback hand ring and received by the hand ring.
  2. How the power is supplied to the hand ring

Possible solutions:

Infrared Remote Control Technology Figure 1

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Week_07_Documentation & Reflection

Junxian Chen - Fri 8 May 2020, 7:57 pm

Relevant background research

  1. Hazards of sedentary:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2996155/
  2. If standing and slight movement can reduce the damage of sedentary https://www.juststand.org/the-facts/ & https://thewholeu.uw.edu/2019/07/15/sitting-disease/
  3. Why sedentary people don't exercise https://www.verywellfit.com/why-arent-you-motivated-to-exercise-1231389
  4. The acceptance level of wearable devices https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305892154TheAcceptanceofSmartWearableDevicesthroughHealthCognitive & https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283908240UseracceptanceofwearabledevicesAnextendedperspectiveofperceivedvalue
  5. motivation for standing up and moving
    1. Gamification
    2. Competitiveness
    • All are an incentive and cannot be effectively translated into long-term practical action
  6. What to do about people who don't like sports

main

This week I mainly focused on determining user wearable devices through user surveys and determining an interesting interaction between user attachments and base stations.

The main purpose of designing an user survey is to investigate which interaction method the user prefers in clothes patches, bracelets / watches and headscarves (or other). Considering that my main concept is to face personal users who work at home alone, therefore, they tend to wear more casually when sitting for a long time. In the questionnaire survey, I will focus on understanding the users working/studying environment and figure out what kind of wearable items users can accept in the home environment.


Questionnaire

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScPpD8bGPTNcFqCwA7Yo51c4vj46RiRpyr2BelJ0W3dbNwsNQ/viewform

Result of questionnaire

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1EuOgky9aS10GIwCUw9oHls0Z5cBk4FhGRO6WRyS2Y/edit#responses

Based on the results of the survey, I finally decided to use a bracelet as the user wearable device.


How to achieve the interaction between users and base stations bracelet, and let this interactive fun and effective.

The position of the base station is fixed, and the bracelet can move with the user.The purpose of using a base station is that when the user sits for a long time (every 30 minutes)(how to trigger?), The base station will react ( for now is making a harsh noise) to force the user to leave the table. When the user leaves the table far enough, the noise will stop and enter the cooling cooldown(2-5 minutes). Returning to the table before the cooldown has not ended will trigger the noise again. Only after the cooldown ends (wristband gives feedback), the user can return to the table, and the base station counts down to zero and starts a new cycle.

work to do

How should the user interact with the bracelet?

From current point of view, the biggest problem currently encountered in the user interaction part is how to achieve the information interaction between the wearable device and the base station.

Points to note when using the bracelet:

The size of the bracelet

The elasticity of the bracelet: whether it will affect the user experience

There should be as few parts as possible on the bracelet

Week_06_Documentation & Reflection

Junxian Chen - Sun 3 May 2020, 11:57 pm

About using Mrio

In the week 6 event, we used miro to explore the "how to observe passengers on the train" project. This is the first time I used miro, this new tool made me realize that in the design process, different designers may have a completely different understanding of the same problem. Through the miro, we can consult the views of different designers to supplement our own designs.

Another advantage of using miro is that I can express my design systematically. By disassembling a project, we can clearly see how different parts of a project are divided and cooperated, which will help me finds the shortcomings in the current project and then supplements them.

About Team Concept

At present, the main concept of our team project is to "help people reduce the adverse health effects of sedentary". Studies have shown that sedentary is indeed harmful to health. But through a closer examination of the main purpose of the project, I think that we simply put "Reducing sedentary" as a goal is not clear and specific. Therefore, I think we should start by narrowing and clarifying our purpose to improve our concept. As a result, through our investigation, one of the main solution to the problem of sedentary is to try to stand up and move a little every 20 minutes. However, It is impossible to expect everyone has strong perseverance to complete this operation. In many cases, users may be lazy, work too nervous, or simply forget about it so they are unable to complete this operation, we found that the main common point of these reasons is that users often do not realize that 20 minutes have passed, so I think we should improve our concept to "how to make users realize that they are sitting for a long time and should stand up slightly. activity".

About personal Project

After deciding on the main team direction, my current design idea is to alert the user through a base station that can be placed on a table, and a device attached to the user will interact with the base station and complete the alert to the user.

Possible attachments for the present:

Bracelets/wristbands

Patches on clothes.

headscarf

Possible Solution

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Week_05_Documentation & Reflection

Junxian Chen - Sun 5 April 2020, 10:29 pm

Team Section

In this week's event, our team focused on modifying the team area. From the feedback from last week, we realized that there are still many defects in our current team area that need to be revised.

Problem 1: The ethical principles that should be followed when designing.

When designing a product, we should try to avoid using emotional voice to communicate with users. This form is easy cause the user to resist, thereby greatly reducing the user's intention to use the product.

Based on this idea, the change we made to the design was to convert the voice into a single prompt tone.(Even cancelled) At the same time, we should also consider accessibility and problems 2

Problem 2: The user lacks interaction with the current design

In the cushion design we proposed last week, the cushion will only respond to the user's actions, but the user cannot directly interact with the product. Therefore, in order to add more interactive functions to the product, we decided to give up the cushion and design a new product.

In the process of redesign, we started from the interactive mode, interactive objects, interactive environment. The members of the group proposed new proposals, and then filtered and updated the proposals through discussion and voting.

In the discussion last week, we decided to interact mainly with voice and touch. Considering that voice is difficult to achieve and the efficiency is too low, we finally decided to use touch to interact. The next step is the purpose of interaction, The purpose of our design is to help the user to leave the computer and the desk after sitting for a long time. I initially considered using items that may appear on the user's desk to interact, such as a keyboard that can be shock people, a vase that can be noisy, etc., but in our further discussion, we found these interactions may not achieve the effect of letting the user leave the computer desk. All the interactive methods we can think of can be completed while sitting:(. At the end we gradually shift our attention to the Wearables. As a wearable, he can always monitor the user's physical condition, and will warn the user once the user has not moved for a long time.

The revised team concept

Four white LED patches (8cm * 2.5cm each) have sticky back surfaces and the user can paste and remove the patches on clothes such as jackets and trousers at will. The purpose is to provide more flexibility in wearing and personalized fit, while they are also easy to carry because which has access to tables and can be used in different scenes.

When the user places the patch on his clothes and sits down, the patch starts timing, and the percentage of the current time and total time is displayed on the LED, such as 0% at the beginning. This percentage is also displayed on the LED patch as a colour progress bar in order to provide a more intuitive way to prompt. When he reaches 100%, the patch will start making a beep sound with maximum brightness to remind users that they have been sitting for 55 minutes.

There are two interactive games based on the location of the patch on your clothes.

Case1: When the patch position is close

Similar to a hamster game, the displaying of four LED patches is turned off. Then a random patch lights up for 0.2 seconds and disappears, then another patch lights up and disappears. And so on. Users can shoot up to a certain number of patches (for example, 20 times) that light up. The game will end.

Case2: When the patch location is far away

Users need to shake patched body parts, such as legs and arms. The number of tiles decreases with the shaking time, and the user can stop him when 0 is reached. When the game is over, the beep stops and the time is reset. The goal of these games is to provide a more diverse and playable interaction to reduce sitting time for users, compared to warfare and walking.

Individual section

In this week's studio, I tried to ask tutor for personal design suggestions. I will try to re-establish my personal design from another angle. (The previous electric shock keyboard has become obsolete)

The first understanding I got was: When generating a design idea, you must first clarify what problem the design is based on, and whether it can effectively solve this problem.

Based on the first understanding, I realized that it is wrong to casually think of a design. Instead of thinking about whether there is a better design than an existing idea, it is better to start from the problem and think its optimal solution.

However, this way of thinking will make the work progress very slow, and it is difficult for me to decide where to start solving the problem.

Things to do next week:

We plan to complete the report team part next Monday. I will continue to ask tutor for new inspirations using the studio time next Tuesday.

Week_04_PresentationFeedback & Reflection

Junxian Chen - Sun 29 March 2020, 11:52 pm
Modified: Sun 29 March 2020, 11:53 pm

In this week, we took an online studio, which is much better than I thought.

We present the team idea: something (a sitting mat) that force people to stand up after a long time sitting.

Feedback from slack:

  1. expect a gentle and comfortable interaction.
  2. can the electronic be put into the cushion and work well when people sit on it?
  3. The balance between bothering notice and annoy. (set a curve of bothering level)

what if people are in some important time, very close to end a project or in a meeting. the mat will definitely be annoying.

My idea that related to this proposal:

shock keyboard:

For most of the time, people usually sit in front of a computer to working and gaming. Given that the theme of our group is to make people stop from long time sitting in an annoying way. I thought that since people sit for a long time to operate a computer (playing a game or working) , We can design a keyboard that can shock people to force people to stop working. This design is to place a conductive iron piece on the keys of the keyboard, this design does not necessarily need to disassemble the keyboard for installation, only needs to be replaced Keycap. When the user operates the keyboard for a long time, the timer in the keycup will record the user's active time on the computer. When the time reaches a certain threshold, the keyboard will warn the user, "you should stop working, get up and take a break". If the user ignores the warning to continue working, the conductive iron piece on the keycap will be energized and shock the user while using the keyboard. The level of electric shock will increase as that time user does not want to give up using the computer increasing.

Week_03_Documentation & Reflection

Junxian Chen - Sun 22 March 2020, 11:40 pm

The work done:

World Cafe

In Tuesday studio, we mainly working on the world cafe activity. we are randomly put in a table with a specific topic. For each round, we try to analyse these topics and generate some new idea based on this topic and the posters that related to it. After each round, one person on this table will stay and be the host for the next round.

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On the "Everyday Sustainability" group. we mainly work on how to achieve the design "Artificial conscience". This idea seems a good one but by the discussion from our group, we found that this idea(cactus) is lacking interaction to users(user will not actually interact with this conscience). so we try to add interaction, but in the end, we find that will lead this design with no meaning. (user has no reason to interact with this product)

On the "change through Reward" group. At first I think that may be very easy. However, when we to deep to discuss the meaning of "reward". For example, some thing that young people thing as "reward" may not recognize by elder people.

Team forming

on Wednesday studio, we mainly work on team forming. Based on our idea: bothering staff.

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we discussed how to make a thing that really bother people.

we thought one idea that basically from tutor's suggestion. A device that using in class and meeting. It is obvious that no one should be allowed to use phone in a meeting. So if anyone do so, like send a message during the meeting, this device will automatically copy this message and send it to every one.

How it related:

The world cafe is really a good idea to generate some new product. When different people looking at the same idea, they may generate different ideas towards different areas of this idea.

However, this activity requires the host can completely tell the new members what the idea was. At the same time, it is really hard to understand what the last group of people have written done.

In conclusion, I think this kind of activity is useful in generating some basic idea. However, it may not suit for a final decision.

Work to do:

try to create three design and discuss them in group. Then chose one as proposal presentation topic.

idea_01: Noisy bookmark

A physical noisy bookmark. if you put it into a book and leave it for a long time and never read it. The bookmark will keep making annoying sounds.

idea_02: Biting box

A box that can bite a human finger. The six sides of this box look exactly the same. Only when the user touches a specific side, the other 5 sides will spring up and grab the user's finger.

(in small game?, in a bar or party?)

(may have a little electric shock?)

idea_03: A cup that cannot drink.

The user cannot drink the water in the cup. But other people can see bubbles in the glass

The Drumer

Junxian Chen - Sat 14 March 2020, 3:22 pm

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When you practice an instrument alone or want an improvised solo at a friend's party, the performance is often dull because of the lack of drums. Or, when you practice, you often mess around to follow the drums of the accompaniment. Now With the help of a drummer, you can easily complete a rhythmic performance anywhere.

A drummer is a small box that combines a high-speed camera, a microcomputer, and a subwoofer. It will see the hands you are playing the instrument and infer the melody you are playing.[1] Therefore, any instrument played with both hands can be accepted by the drummer, such as guitar, saxophone, accordion or even piano. When it analyzes the music you are playing and compares it with similar melody in the library, it will play the responsive drums bit to keep up with your performance according to the speed of your current performance.[2]

If we want to switch the drum point in the performance, we can make the drum sound more compact by speeding up the performance. Or, we can solve it with a touch pad connected to the drummer. For myself, I really like playing guitar while beating with my feet , which inspired me to design a touch pad. The touch pad is a soft pad laying on the ground, divided into two parts A (front) and B (back). When we give it a special instruction (Two consecutive rapid hits). The drummer will respond accordingly to change the rhythm pattern of the drum. For example, double-hitting the A board will make the drummer more noisy, although the speed of the drum will not change ( The tempo is based on your playing speed), but the drummer will add more fancy and rhythmic patterns. Conversely, hitting the B board twice in succession will make the drum softer.[3,4]

For beginners of many instruments, it is not easy to maintain a certain speed for a long time. When the user stop due to mistakes, the drummer will not stop immediately but continue to play for a few seconds. Waiting for you to catch up.

Overall, this is the drummer, it is recommended for beginners of various instruments (except drums). He is suitable for use in small and closed environments such as rooms, garages.

Week_02_Documentation & Reflection

Junxian Chen - Sun 8 March 2020, 7:33 pm
Modified: Sun 8 March 2020, 7:33 pm

The work done:

for this week, we mainly working on presentation and idea brainstorm. Also, there is a soldering introduction this week.

presentation:

in this week presentation, I found a lot of interesting ideas. At the same time, some of these ideas do not fully use design rules, for example, the PT.8. which is a robot to help people and provide suggestion while they are doing fitness. it is designed as smaller as it can, but why not just use the phone? the phone has everything function that PT.8 has.

There is also an interesting idea: voice control elevator, which sounds good but it may face the challenge of accent. On the other hand, in a general situation, would you prefer to push a button or speak out? For me, I think to push a button may be easier.

For my own design, I have designed a smart cup that will tell users it is time to drink. Unfortunately, I don't know this idea already exists. So now, I try to change my idea into an office system which includes as many office things as we can. And try to make every product be your pets, for example, the smart calendar.

brainstorm:

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In this week's activity, we collect every poster together and list the close ideas. When it is an idea only, it sometimes hard to compare it with a similar product. By this activity, I found it will easy to help to tell the weakness of each idea and the relation between ideas.

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soldering:

I also attending the soldering introduction this week. I used to repair my broken earphone with soldering, by learning this skill, I can image lots of interesting things that I can make in this course.

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How it related:

The lesson I get from this week's activity is, The new idea is always not come up by yourself alone, communication is necessary, even search through the Internet is also a single way communication. The result that not to communicate is the idea you spent hours to come up with an idea that already exists.

The next lesson I got is extending the idea may lead to a surprise result. For example, when I think about the smart cup, I try to think what if every item on the desk become smart product. which leads to the idea of smart pet family.

Work to do:

By the end of this week, we get a list of 17 ideas.Beautify the Self

Change through discomfort

Altered Landscapes

Enhanced mundane spaces

Everyday sustainability

Musical things.

Emotional totems

Musical metrics

Emotional intelligence

Sassy tech

Guided movement

Bothersome tech

Change through positive reinforcement

Digital sensations

Creative Learning

Body as controller

Ability-centric interactions

I can see some ideas that appeal to me. which I hope I can give more advice next week.

Work that Inspired/Interested Me:

The smart calendar. The advanced of this idea is this smart calendar will talk to you to make a plan, and it will give you suggestion that if your plan has crash with other plan or you may hard to attend meeting A after you just finish meeting B.

Week_01_Documentation & Reflection

Junxian Chen - Sat 29 February 2020, 5:39 pm
Modified: Mon 2 March 2020, 3:39 pm

The Work done:

  • This is the first week of this course, we mainly worked on a general introduction and inspiration. During the contact this week, I was introduced with lots of interesting ideas. However, I found it still hard for me to come up with some new ideas. For example:
    . After watching this, the key element I can found from this video is that when we cut/stop some moving things, some interesting interaction happens. But I am hard to combine this interaction with meaningful actions.
  • The next part was working with the group to discuss the relationship between new interaction and Accessibility & Universal Access. By discussion, I understood the challenges that a new interaction may face when this interaction want to be accepted by a specific group of people(people needs accessibility access)
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  • There was also a brainstorming in this week to help me come up with ideas. But, it still looks like making up a story to me. With the different meaning of words, we can easily make up a story of them, but it may not have any actual function.
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How it Relates:

  • with this week's activity, I found the most difficult part of this course, for me, is to decide the idea.
  • How to decide my idea:
    • find out the region of this idea: general world → accessibility group → people need help ≈ people that need help in a specific area → people may not notice that they need help → general health problem → specific for university students →→→ Irregular lifestyle (Irregular sleep and so on) →→→ drink water Irregularly.
    • At the same time, I am also thinking about what kind of new interaction can be used to support this idea: control something in a special way(basic idea) → something is not controlled but react to the human activity → what is NOT controlled by human but react to human activity? (have self-activity) → Pets → how to combine pets into design? → if the user did something, they will do something to draw the user's intention → to make the water cup to be a pets → health family include other products.

Work to Do:

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Work that Inspired/Interested Me:

  • when people use their finger hit the table to play some bits. it is easy to find the bits from a song. but it is hard to find a song with only bits. Is it may be possible?

Week_01_Introduction

Junxian Chen - Wed 26 February 2020, 8:22 pm
Modified: Wed 26 February 2020, 8:22 pm

Hi, this is Chen. This is my last year of software design and UX. Interest in programming and hand-making. hate report...

Expectations from this course:

  1. making some cool things.
  2. writing some coool code to let them run.
  3. cooool!