Module 2 Activity Research

Weekly Activity Template

Lucy Warren

Project 2

Module 2

For these last couple of weeks, my goal has been to explore test subjects to use for our temperature and heart rate monitoring. This exploration includes, gathering candiates, noting their characteristics, and dissecting them for further testing.

Workshop 1: Cardboard Prototype

This was one of the gurilla testing workshops that we did. It was fun, I liked rapidly creating with the cardboard. Emily, Nicole and I made two stands, one from the video tutorial and one built on our own.

This is our phone stand during the video tutorial. This is before we bent the cardboard to finish off the stand.

This is our finished phone stand from the tutorial provided.

This is me randomly cutting out cardboard for our second phone stand. I had no real plan in mind other than messing around and finding out.

This is the second phone case finished. It has several layers of cardboard on the back to give the user more adjustability for screen angles.

This is the backing of both phone stands. This is just to show the difference in adjustability between the two designs.

Workshop 2: Hunt for Candidates

During reading week, it was my job to find candidates for our project. I travelled to Value Village and took photos of possible candidates. My goal was to find 3 animals that had different sizes, fur textures/thicknesses, and different species. When picking out animals, I had my group with me, I asked them if they had preferences or opinions about the animals I presented. Overall I'm very happy with the selection we agreed upon.

This is the selection of stuffed toys at my local Value Village. They had a decent variety to choose from, most toys were packed tightly.

This is a closer look at the toys, most of them seemed to be in good condition. Some of them were seemed to be gifts/souvenirs from different places. Others were build-a-bears, squashmallows, webkinz, etc.

The first chosen candidate is Pongo, he is a palm sized penguin approx. 6 inches tall. Pongo is a good fit because of his size and his flippers. He has a nice, small, holdable size. This will allow us to test the limits of how small a plushie can be with sensors attached.

Our second candidate is Mario, he is a small-medium sized bear. Mario is good for another variation of smaller sizes. He would be the best for hiding the sensors since he has a lovely sweater. Hug-wise he would also be a good fit.

The last candidate is Miffy, she is the biggest of the three. Miffy is a good candidate because she displays a realistic size for a plushie. Miffy’s size was the most common found in the piles at value village. Another positive feature is that their fabric is light, it will be easy to cut into her.

Week 8: Dissection

My week 8 activity was cutting up the candidates and exploring different areas where to place the sensors. The aim was to investigate what kind of materials were inside the animals, I was looking for: fabric thickness, stuffing compression, and overall the general layout of the stiching.

This is me trying to open a hole in Mario. I forgot my sewing scissors so I tried to stab a hole into him using my embroidery scissors. I wanted to make a little hole to make cutting with a knife easier.

In this photo i'm cutting one of Miffy's paws open, the idea was to put a heart sensor in her paw. So when the user holds her paw, we can read their heartbeats on our screen.

Sewing buttons on the cut pieces of fabric was something Nicole and I explored. The thought process was that sewing buttons on the fabric would allow us to make inner ciruit modifications without having to resew it.

This is the dissection of Pongo. Like the other animals, I followed the seam line so that my modifications would be less noticable.

Looking at the fabric from the inside of the animal was very important. I wanted to see how thick/thin the fabrics were, this could potentially pose a problem with the sensors. If the fabric is too thick the sensors might not pick up the user's temperature/heartbeat. I documented the inner fabrics for all three animals.

Week 9: User Behavior

This week we wanted to focus on the placement of the sensors. The best way to determine this was user testing and observing how the users handled all three animals. We did two rounds of testing, one with the animals on their own. Then another one with heart patches on them. The heart patches are supposed to be an indicator of interaction. The photos below are the most common held positions we observed. These tests were conducted by me and Nicole. Nicole was the main facilitator while I observed and wrote down notes.

Mario was mainly being held in the stomach area. Users liked his shirt. When he was being held, he was facing the user. This implies to put a sensor near his chest or hip area.

Other users hugged Mario, holding his back in their hand. This confirms the placement of the sensor in his stomach (possibly upper stomach) area.

Miffy was very popular among users. Users mainly held her by her ears, they played with them. Due to this, we added holes to place sensors in her ears.

This was the most common way users held Miffy. She got lots of hugs from users, mainly cradling her or placing her face in the user's chest. We debated on cutting open her upper chest area to place a sensor in.

We observed that pongo was the least held out of the three. He was mainly held by the stomach area, but users often did not interact with him. Poor Pongo.

Additional Research: Textile Investigation

One of the possibilities we explored are different textile options for the sensors. The idea is to place the sensors into the fabric. then sew it into the animal. This pocket is supposed to keep the sensor from falling out of place. Some of the main things I looked for was thickness, staticness, and fraying. I wanted to make sure that the fabrci would not mess with the results of the sensor.

Characteristics: Thick, Bulky, Grain is very tight, does not fray easily

Characteristics: Light, thick, very fuzzy has lots of static. Gran is very tightly woven.

Characteristics: Light, Thin, Almost see through, Grain is tight and does not fray easily.

Characteristics: Thick, bulky, warm, hass one side that is more scrappy than the other, Grain is tight and not stringy.

Characteristics: Heavy, thin, grain is tightly woven but it frays very easily.

Project 2

Project 2 Prototype

This is the current prototype of our project. Emily and Abby worked on the electrics, ensuring that the code is working properly when hooked up to Miffy. Nicole worked on user testing and researching, while also helping me with the textiles. I worked on modifications and placements on the animals themselves. Nicole helped me with placement suggesting based on the research we conducted, in return, I taught Nicole how to sew.

This is the current prototype. Miffy was the most popular animal so we've decided to mainly user her going forward. The temperature sensor is placed in her right ear and is working on the arduino app.