Nesuna – F15 60-223: Intro to Physical Computing

One-in-one-out: “BloomNector”

Wed, 23 Sep 2015 14:48:59 +0000

This project was motivated by the busy “work” culture that exists at CMU. Often, students are bogged down with exams and due dates and tend to forget about their relationship with their friends, siblings, or parents. The BloomNector is designed to remind two people of their care for each other by blooming when two people interact with the flower in two distinct locations. We are still currently tossing around different ideas for inputs. One idea is to use the water level to make the flower bloom. In this way, when one person “waters” their plant, the corresponding flower will bloom. Another idea is to have the flowers respond to the strength of a conversation via messaging or Twitter. Essentially, we would like to connect a blooming flower to remind to people to think about each other and let them communicate that to each other. The flower is currently constructed out of plastic and is powered by a motor which responds to voltage outputs from an Arduino. The advantage of having a mechanical flower is that it is an immortal representation of the care two people have for each other. – by Tom Eliot, George (Qiaozhi) Wang, and Ananya Rajgarhia
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“Shoogle” by Google (2013)

Thu, 10 Sep 2015 03:21:08 +0000

The Shoogle is a shoe that basically nags the wearer to work out. It is designed to provide directions (GPS Tracking), speed, and sass (if the wearer is idle for too long). The shoe is equipped with a speaker, computer, accelerometer, gyroscope, and pressure sensor. The basic idea is that it translates the pressure sensor and accelerometer data into simple audio instructions for the consumer. However, the instructions are also laced (no pun intended, honestly) with the sarcasm of an impatient personal trainer.

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“Alert Shirt” by WE:EX (2014)

Thu, 10 Sep 2015 03:01:56 +0000

Alert Shirt is a jersey made for fans that uses wearable technology to let fans feel what the players feel live. For example, if a professional player tackles another player, this jersey vibrates to translate the impact onto the fan. It uses a smartphone app to gather the real-time sports data and then transmits it to the electronics within the jersey. The goal of this product is to simulate live sports action by converting the data it finds into strong sensations.

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“Pillow Talk” by Little Riot

Thu, 10 Sep 2015 02:34:23 +0000

The aim of Pillow Talk is to connect couples in long distance relationships by wirelessly transmitting their heartbeats to one another via special pillows. How it works is each partner has a wristband they wear to bed and a small speaker that’s placed inside the pillow case. The wristband then picks up the partner’s heartbeat and transmits it via a smartphone app to the other partner’s pillow. The speaker then allows a person to hear the heartbeat of their significant other.

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