Do Me a Favour
Interaction Design (for Microsoft)
The brief for this project was an international set project, from Microsoft. Competing against Universities worldwide, we were to design ‘A New Way of Working’. In our case, how a retired person could continue working. Our group consisted of a mix between Interaction Designers, and Product Designers. The focus was on my grandmother, Muriel Hamilton, aka - Granny Hammy.
Granny Hammy is a very active person, and is often asked upon to walk the family dog as a favour by my mother Judy. This act of doing favours was to be our new way of working.
Do Me a Favour is an interactive object, placed in Granny Hammy’s living room. If the dog needs a walk, Judy email’s the dog object. The object recognizes when an email has been received, tips over, and whines. This alerts Granny Hammy that the dog needs to be taken out on a walk. Once Granny Hammy gets back from walking the dog, she stands the object back up and it barks. This in turn sends an email back to Judy, telling her that the dog has now been walked, and the favour has been done. Judy can keep a record of how many favours Granny Hammy does through the amount of emails she receives back.
The object works through an arduino that communicates with a mac. The arduino in turn also operates a weighted arm that moves the dog on it’s side. This was the first time I have worked with an arduino.
