Week 2 Smart Floor Ideation
Yiu Chun Choy - Tue 3 March 2020, 6:43 am
Modified: Tue 3 March 2020, 6:56 am
Sketches
Poster
Description of Concept
Suitable for households and public areas.
Smart floor is a floor that is able to detect movements, objects as well as liquid placed on it. Depending on the type of that specific thing, the tile where the object is located will respond by displaying different colours on that area. This aims for letting people know what is in front of them to stop them from accidentally stepping on objects.
An example would be potential danger to people such as shattered glass, some pieces of glass are often difficult to pinpoint with bareeye even if one has good eye sight, let alone people who wear glasses. Smart floor would then light up all the tiles where the pieces of shattered glass are at, make it easier to clean up and minimise the risk of getting hurt. The same also applies to small hazards such as water, screws, needles, and the most notorious LEGOS.
There also is a counter measurement specifically for bugs, bugs that cannot fly such as cockroach, I believe most people have had the experience of chasing after a roach with a shoe or magazine in your hand, smart floor can make this easier by sinking a tile that the roach is on, and trap it in a sunken tile that is surrounded by smooth surfaces so that the roach isn’t going to be able to escape.
Discarded Ideas
- All-in-one Stationary kit
- Smart bed that read user movements/postures to adjust the surrounding electronics
- Smart light that read user’s movement to determine whether it should be on/off
Brainstorming Process
I spent most (70-80%) of my time trying to make one of my discarded ideas work, smart bed was the one I was so stubbornly determined to work on, unfortunately the features I could think either does not make much sense to me or it is already out there.
The initial thought was to design the bed to detect user's movement on it to perform different types of services, such as switching the lights off when the user was detected to be asleep, tune the music down and so on, however if I were the user, most likely I would just use voice command to turn off the things I want to turn off, which voice command is already out there.
Inspiration
Saw this in one of my previous courses (DECO2300 if my memory is correct)
Piano Stairs : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw