Further study shows that informal cognitively stimulating activities, such as reading or playing games, may lower risk of Alzheimer’s-related cognitive impairment and dementia. In addition, social activity and physical activities also have positive impact for prevention.<\/p>\n
Solution<\/h1>\n
I was trying to come up with a device that can encourage the person to engage in social activity, cognitively stimulating activity, and physical activity. Then I thought about the Pokemon Go which you get rewarded by going to different places; I also thought about video games where items can be shared across different devices\/accounts when they are connected, which encourages players to play together.<\/p>\n
The device I made is basically a karaoke device that can display lyrics to the screen. An optional microphone is connected with the device through Bluetooth.<\/p>\n Learning the song and memorizing lyrics is also an informal cognitively stimulating activity. When the reader has learnt the song and does not need the lyrics anymore, the lyrics can be switched off by the top button.<\/p>\n However, there is no song to play initially. The user can select a music genre and time period once per day to obtain a random song that is in the selected category; to earn more songs, the user has to do some physical exercise such as walking and running for a period . The physical activity is detected by an accelerometer placed in the users’ shoes.<\/p>\n To encourage social activity, songs can be “shared” between two users. For example, if I find out that my friend has a song that I would like to have on my device, he can share the song with me. However, it is limited to one shared song per day. There is also a PK feature that allows the user to challenge each other; the two users will sing the same song, and whoever look at the lyrics for the least amount of time wins. The purpose of these mechanism is to make users meet more with their families and friends.<\/p>\n For this prototype, two Arduinos are used; The one on the left in the photo above is the prototype of the device, and the one on the right is a “dummy device” that only sends information through the transceiver. The “dummy device” is needed to show the interaction between two device; it is not made into another full prototype because of the lack of materials.<\/p>\n The Arduino of the full prototype connects to a accelerometer, a potentiometer, a mini-mp3 player, 4 buttons, a LCD screen, and a transceiver. The accelerometer detects motion for physical exercise. The potentiometer is for volume control. The mini-mp3 player works with the transducer speaker to play song. The buttons are for the user interface. The LCD screen is to show the user interface and display lyrics when songs are playing. The Transceiver allows communication between the prototype and the “dummy” Arduino.<\/p>\n The “dummy” Arduino is connected to a button and a transceiver; pressing the button triggers the Arduino to send information through the transceiver. The “dummy” Arduino can be powered by an external\u00a0 of a 9V battery. However, it is plugged into PC during testing for convenience of uploading codes.<\/p>\n The user interface of the prototype includes a LCD screen and four buttons. The first button from the top represents rolling the rotary encoder up, and the second button represents rolling the rotary encoder down. The rotary encoder was labeled “rotator” in the sketch of the layout of the device. The third button is the “Confirm” button of the rotary encoder, and the fourth button is the “Back\/Lyrics” button.<\/p>\n In the following video, the functions of the four buttons are shown by going through the menu. In menu, there are 3 modules to choose: “Unlocked Songs”, “Be Connected”, and “Jackpot”.\u00a0 The first and second button switches the current option.\u00a0 The “Confirm” button select the selects option. And the “Back” button goes back to the previous stage. Notice that when option “Unlocked Songs” was selected in the video, it said empty. It was because there was no unlocked songs yet.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/48-339\/f2020\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/IMG_3640-1024x651.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/48-339\/f2020\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/microphone.png\")
Proof of Logic<\/h1>\n
Layout<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/48-339\/f2020\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/IMG_3642-768x1024.jpg\")
Interaction<\/h2>\n
Interface<\/h3>\n