Week 12: Inputs and Outputs

We started refining our inputs and outputs so Will could figure out the Arduino side.


We decided on a toilet dock near the bathrooms in the classroom so it made sense to the children that that was the toilet.  We decided on the input of a downwards shaking motion as if you're forcing it to pee, but in a cute way?
The toilet we decided to make a grass pot as these were now sort of artificial pets and pets go to the toilet outside on the grass.
The outputs and feedback to the child are a vibration (like a little shudder) to show that it is happening and a 'Ahhh!' noise to show that the action had been completed. When this happened, the data would be simultaneously sent to the computer/app.

The eating we abandoned the food stuck on the front of the tummy idea as arduino wise we were finding this a little complicated and form wise we couldnt quite make it right. We decided the eating should be a placement of a slot inside the mouth but with a big fruit on the end that visually shows that they have eaten. We did it this way because after discussing what we could do with Arduino we saw that we could make the slot an automotive fuse that sonected the circuit up that would send the information to the computer/app.

The sleeping we decided that the input was to fold the animal in half (like making it curl up on itself) and placing back on dock home so it's like it's curling up and going to sleep.
We did this because we were able to have a flex sensor running up through the toy.
The outputs would be a little 'Weweweweweeeeew' cute snoring noise to indicate sleeping and the completion of the action.
We also decided that this would only activate the outputs and data sending when on the home dock.

We worked on our design trying to work out a cute form, while keeping all these elements working together.

At this stage we did storyboarding to work out the flow and make sure this worked. Throughout the storyboarding the design began to finalise and manipulate and resolve.

some physical design:

We went with induction charging (like the simple kind on a toothbrush) because obviously an excess of wires and children do not mix.