TEAM | Ashris Choudhury, Barrak Darweesh, Darle Shinsato, Kallirroi Retzepi

CONCEPT | Introducing, Scentiment, a product aimed to unite distant loved ones through the power of smell.  With this device, telepresence is manifested in the form of fragrance to create an environment of cohabitation.  When a person enters the room, a personalized aroma is emitted in the space of their loved one.  Scentiment transcends the boundaries of physical connection by synchronizing spatial presence between two individuals.

AFFORDANCES | Scentiment is contained in a minimal, elegant envelope with perforations specifically designed for the airflow of fragrance.  The density of openings is concentrated around the location of the internal fan.  Because the device is not meant to be handled by the human hand, the affordance of the design lends itself to its primary function of ventilation.

IMPLEMENTATION | The final product holds an accelerometer, fan, power bank and Photon in a single device.  The data from the accelerometer is produced by motion of a door swinging in the ‘x’ direction.  When acceleration is observed, the fan of the other device is triggered, producing the flow of fragrance.  The source of the aroma comes from an interchangeable cartridge which is placed in a slot directly behind the fan.

 
 
LINK TO PRESENTATION

Seong Ho Yeon / Yiji He / Ruthi Aladjem

Caroline Rozendo, Choonghyo Lee, Jaleesa Trapp, Jerry Wei-Hua Yao, Jianing Tao, Xiaojiao Chen

Video

Concept

Drink Me uses the combination of smell and color to invite a friend to have a cup of coffee. When a cup of coffee (or another hot liquid) is placed on the sending drink coaster, the receiving coaster changes colors and emits the smell of coffee, signaling that it’s time to have a drink. 
  

Affordances

There are three affordances that will allow users to interact with Drink Me without having to spend a lot of time figuring out how it works. The affordances that allow for simple interactions are scents, coffee mugs, and drink coasters.
The affordance of scent is that smell is closely linked to human memories and emotions. Emitting the smell of coffee will evoke a memory and encourage the receiver of the message to pour a cup of coffee.
The affordance of a  coffee mug is the handle. Users will know to pick up their hot mug by using the handle.
A drink coaster is an indication that a cup should not be placed on a bare table. The drink coaster will encourage the sender of the message to place their cup on their coaster to invite the receiver to have a drink with them.

Implementation

Drink Me was implemented using a combination of fabrication, sensors, code, and coffee mugs. The two drink coasters were created with a 3D printed base and a waterjet cut top made of metal, and painted with thermochromic ink.

 
The inside of the coasters contains a photon, peltier sensor, and a color (RGB) sensor. The RGB sensor detects the color of the coaster that is sending a message. If the coaster does not have a warm drink (45 degrees celsius or warmer) the paint is orange. When a coffee mug containing liquid warmer than 45 degrees celsius is placed on the coaster, the paint will turn to yellow. Once the color sensor detects the color yellow, it will trigger the peltier in the receiving drink coaster to heat up, changing the color of the thermochromic ink and heating the wax that will emit the smell of coffee. The change in color of the receiving drink coaster and the smell of coffee is an invitation to have a drink with the person on the sending end.
 
 
 

Emily Salvador, Johae Song, Xiyao Wang, Xueting Wu

Concept

We explored how to convey emotional telepresence.

We created a rough sketch of how we would embed the fan instead of our cube scaffolding.

Affordances

While in the research stage of our project, we brainstormed what the affordances and constraints were of various components of our overall device.  Those components were the photon, the sensor (accelerometer), and the actuator (fan).

The Photon with Phobot Shield

MMA8451 Accelerometer

Implementation

When brainstorming ideas, we wanted to explore something that conveyed emotional telepresence.  Additionally, we decided early on that we wanted to focus on orientation of the device over motion since that would convey telepresence over a longer period of time than discrete movements.  That led us to the idea of using a cube for the scaffolding of our interactive telepresence.

For the physical prototype we wanted to make sure we could create a mechanism that could rotate within the cube to keep the fan orientation constant.

To prototype the cube, Johae and Xiyao designed a built a working model using cardboard and metal rods.  They worked out issues like how to calibrate the inner mechanism to be weighted correctly so the fan always points forward.  On the programming side, Emily worked on defining functions that would allow the team to debug quickly and to determine if orientation was a good way to use the accelerometer.  Additionally, we added a PCB connector board to our accelerometer to make it easy to attach and detach from the photon.  Xueting designed graphics to help us determine how we would convey the emotional signaling on our device.
We attempted to use paper flaps with the fan, but during prototyping we realized the fan just wasn’t strong enough.  While trying other ideas, we discovered that we could use the fan to power a propeller on the face of the cube.  With that we switched tactics to focus on creating a mechanism for spinning the propeller super fast so the user would see a visualization of their emotion when activated.

Our final device was fabricated with black acrylic.

Group 0

Dan Levine, Groupie 1, Clique Member 2

Concept

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Affordances

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Implementation

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