User:Vilius
Contents
Contact
Vilius Vaura
0975637@hr.nl
Product Design
Project 2
CalmCat
by Monika Sumauskaite, Vilius Vaura, Sol Chadwick
A jacket created to calm down a stressed-out cat. When the cat, wearing this jacket, meows anxiously or an increase of a heartbeat is detected, straps tightness and applies gentle pressure on the belly of the cat, stimulating specific acupressure points, that are proven to have calming effects.
Acupressure points
It is known that acupressure techniques can help to relax and overcome stress in humans and animals, like cats. There are multiple bumps on the inside of the jacket to stimulate those points when the cat is stressed. [1][2]
Sound/Heartbeat activation
The tightening of the jacket could be activated in a few different ways. The technology could use sound/voice recognition, that would be able to distinguish a stressful meow.
Or a heartbeat sensor could be used. Normal cats pulse varies from 140 to 220 beats per minute. An integrated heartbeat sensor would detect its rise and activate the straps.
Self lacing/tightening technology
The Calm Cat jacked would include a self-tightening, “cat activated” straps. The technology could work on similar principles as Nikes or Back to the Futures self-lacing shoes.
Project 3
Ring dial phone dissection
I chose to dissect rotary dial phone because I was very curious how dial mechanism works. At first glance, it looked complicated, but after further investigation, electronic part of it appeared quite simple. This whole mechanism acts as a button in phone's circuit, generating pulses according to the number you choose.
Microphone This part creates electrical signals from sound waves. When membrane starts to vibrate from sound waves, with the help of electromagnet it generates electrical signal.
Speaker: This part creates sound from electrical signals with electromagnet and vibrating membrane.
Dial mechanism: As the dial rotates, it interrupts the circuit running through dial mechanism, like a button, creating dialing pulses. For example, if you dial number "8" you create eight pulses, dial "0" and you make ten pulses.
Bells: These half sphere metal objects are used to create sound to indicate an incoming call.
Electromagnet: When the phone rings, this electrically controlled magnet switches on and off rapidly, moving a clapper in between the bells and making them ring.
Tilting switch mechanism: This detects when the handset is lifted or put back. If the handset rests on the switch, it cuts off the connection between the phone and the local exchange. The circuit is opened only when you lift the handset.
Remake
After thinking for a bit about what could I create new from this phone, I realized, that instead of creating something new, I should upgrade it. I came up with idea to solve this phone's biggest flaw - forgetting what you have dialed. I tried to eliminate this problem using Arduino UNO and LCD screen.
First of all, I connected Arduino to the dial mechanism and uploaded a code. That gave me access to rotary dial's generated pulses. After making that pulses could be read by Arduino, I added an LCD display. Upgrading the code did the trick, and after a week of trial and error I managed to make the screen show dialed numbers. To make this upgrade work more naturally I connected microcontroller's circuit to tilting switch mechanism.
After putting everything inside phone's case I had successfully created upgraded rotary dial phone's version. When person lifts the handset from the phone's dock, tilting switch mechanism turns on LCD display. Numbers dialed by rotary dial are displayed on LCD. Once you put down the handset back on the dock, screen restarts and turns off ready for another session.
Mapping
Final Project
HUGLUX jackets
For my final assignment I collaborated with Monika Sumauskaite to create HUGLUX jacket. This jacket has tiny white LED lights on the front and the back to mimic stars in the night sky. When two people wearing these jackets hug each other, wearable turns on for a couple of seconds and LEDs light up embracing the beauty of physical human contact. For this project we created two working jackets.
Elevator pitch
Touch has always played a major role in human communication either as an introduction or an expression of feeling like love or empathy. In the contemporary world, we tend to isolate ourselves from people around us by looking down at our phone screens. This causes an increasing problem of loneliness and anxiety in many young people. We are social species, therefore we have the inner need to connect and express feelings an emotions verbally and physically. These jackets serve as a metaphor for the importance of human connection we lack in the digital age. It is is an example of a relationship between human and technology that affects and encourages relationships between other humans. It makes you notice and think about people that surround you. When two people decide to lift their heads from the screens and show affection to each other by hugging, jackets light up like a starry night. It starts a chain reaction, encouraging other people to notice the light and spread it around.
Concept of the project
The idea behind this project is to bring awareness to surrounding people that lack physical connection to other people and rather stay lurking in their phones or laptops. Jackets are used as a metaphor for the importance of physical contact in people’s life. Electronic technologies nowadays are so advanced that many people find it easier to connect with others via these technologies than meeting them eye to eye. Lack of real conversations and live communication can make a person less social and outgoing leading to depression. Me and Monika decided to create a different type of technology that in contrary to most of today’s electronic communication devices encourages people to use a physical contact more, put their phones back to their pockets and enjoy eye to eye conversation. This idea came to our heads after we experienced this problem ourselves. Being far from hometown and family, even in a different country, we didn’t have any other way to communicate with our families than via our phones and laptops. Though video calls helped us to see them and talk with them, the experience is far too artificial. Each time after call ended, we missed that feeling of real honest conversations, since we were seen through small device camera and nobody could now what we were doing outside that frame or even if we were lying about something. You can’t shake hands or give a hug via phone and that reminded us that our family is not here. This experience sparked our HUGLUX idea. These jackets that we created are not particularly to encourage hugging, they are for people to stop hiding behind their screens, go out and be more social. This project was a big challenge both for me and for Monika. In my opinion we have different knowledge, skills and understanding of the term “design”, but that is the reason why it was so easy to work together. Since we wanted to make this project interesting for us, we decided to learn as much as possible during it’s making. None of us previously had any experience sewing or working with Arduino LilyPad before, also it was our first personal circuit and code, which weren’t copied of the internet and that was a big deal for us, because before these past four months we didn’t know anything about Arduino or basic electronic circuits.
The making
The process of making these jackets started with buying “bomber” jackets and ordering electronic parts. We did a brief research of electronic components and decided that we going to use hall effect sensors for triggering LEDs when jackets hug. This sensor works by sensing magnetic fields around it, so it looked as a good choice for this project. Though, after we got our sensor and tested it, it didn’t work as we expected. We hoped that this sensor would trigger when the magnet comes close enough to it and when magnet is further away, it would shut down. But it wasn’t the case with this one. Shortly after that we learned of existence of variety of different hall effect sensors and in our case, it was self-latching one. We corrected our mistake by ordering non-latching one, which worked as we hoped it would. After dealing with sensors, we started prototyping the circuit, writing the code, poking holes in the jacket for LEDs and sewing them in. On paper it seemed like a quite straight forward thing, but we shortly learned that it wasn’t. The conductive thread was a nightmare to work with and lack of sewing skills didn’t help ether. Our plan was to hide electronic components inside the jacket’s inlay and then the conductive thread problem appeared. Since LEDs were placed both on the front and the back of the jacket in random places, jacket’s inlay containing all the conductive thread paths started shorting out LEDs when inlay and jacket’s outside fabric layer with LEDs touched. Till this point we were really focusing also on aesthetic part of the project, but this problem caused us to rip everything apart once again. We had to isolate all the thread with electrical tape to prevent it from shorting out. This wasn’t a perfect solution and in some places on some occasions LEDs still were flickering. Now, that we know what kind of problems could acquire, I believe we could do electronically flawless and better-looking jacket. Though throughout this project we encountered a lot of issues I am happy that we succeeded in making these jackets. Failing to order correct electronic parts led to us realizing that there are different kinds of sensors. Working with conductive thread widen our knowledge and understanding of electronics, that these parts doesn’t have to be placed inside shiny plastic shells and they can be adapted for variety of uses and situations.
Conclusion and further development
Overall this project opened my mind and let me think more conceptual. I, as a product designer, imagine, that HUGLUX jackets could be further developed into a real product. After solving aesthetic questions and rerouting electronic circuits, jackets could be even sold for fashion industries. Maybe, HUGLUX could have an app, in which the owners of the jackets could track their virtual scores for meeting new people and going out to public. I know this concept will not change the world, but at least it can spark a thought and awareness in some people’s heads, that could start a chain reaction of affection and real eye to eye conversations.
