Process and notes
Updated on December 11, 2008
This page goes through a process I went through to develop “chickabiddy”. The chickabiddy project, which is still work in progress with phrase one completed this December, has started as a final project for classes in Fall 2008 semester at Interactive Telecommunications Program, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University.
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Duration: November through December 2008
4. Prototype I - chickabiddy model 01
7. Presentation at ITP Winter Show 2008
1. Motivation
My initial motivation was that I wanted to create something fun that people could use in everyday life. I also wanted to make something that I could feel familiar with.
One of my ideas I had in the beginning was to develop a remote food tracker that informs users the status of selected food in refrigerators. But as I thought about its purpose and characteristics, which I defined as "practical" rather than "fun", my interest waned off.
After getting inspired by colorful toy/gadget stores, beautiful architectures, graffiti and public art installation on streets of New York, as well as eye-dropping works by Juan Miro and Van Gogh at MoMA, I was able to narrow down my concept to four focus elements. I wanted to make something that dealt with (1) portability, (2) specific user experience (something I can put on my desk and play), (3) toy or a device designed to "play" and (4) serial communications using sensors. I wanted to experiment with sensors, because I did not get a chance to play with them throughout the semester.
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2. Research
With some key elements in mind, I researched about toys, and was inspired by the simplicity of Japanese traditional doll called Okiagari-Kobushi, or a tumble doll.
Image source: http://en.wikipedia.org
Here are more reference images of toys that have similar structure to tumble dolls.
Source: http://www.hikaworks.com
Source: http://www.therapytoyshop.com
Source: http://www.petstore.com
Source: http://www.vagavalley.co.uk
I had a tumble doll, I imagined, I would definitely start poking the doll and play with it when I lost concentration during studies or needed a break at the midst of working. The structure of tumble dolls with a weight inside of an oval and organic shape stirred my imagination, and I could not help thinking about an animated chick jumping inside of an egg.
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3. Conceptualization
My goal was to create a toy that responds to the way users move it. And I wanted to keep the idea of chicks inside of an egg (please refer to the motivation section for details).
Here is my original concept sketch of an egg structure, possibly with small LCD screen embedded into the surface. My idea was to have the screen display animated chicks, who will roll, rotate, fall, bounce,(and perhaps yell at users when you roll the structure too hard) when users move the egg. And the mechanism of tumble doll will allow the structure to automatically roll back to the original position regardless of how users move it.
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4. Prototype I – chickabiddy model 01
My first prototype "chickabiddy model 01" comes with an external egg structure connected to a laptop(Mac) through USB to process data and display the animated chick.
Materials:
- Triple axis accelerometer breakout
- Wires/ solder/ electric tape
- Materials for the structure: thin plastic sheets, plexi, styrofoam
- USB cable
- Software: Arduino 012 and Processing 1.0
Development notes:
I started off with experimenting with an accelerometer to see what kind of values I could get from it. This is a photo of a basic wiring I have for the accelerometer. I have X, Y and Z values for the accelerometer, and for the first testing I only used X to see if a circle I made in Processing will move horizontally.
Because I borrowed this accelerometer from a classmate for time being, I could not solder it to the wires, so I ended up getting extremely jumpy and crazy values from the accelerometer. Please see below video for details. But I at least got the idea of how the sensor worked.
After obtaining my own accelerometer that I could solder, I made a second basic tumble doll-like structure with flexible thin plastic sheet with the accelerometer inside. This photo shows myself testing the new structure with a circle in Processing.
With the second structure shown in picture above, I could not do anything but to move it horizontally. In order for the users to do other interactions such as rotating or throwing, the platform needed to be sturdy. So I made another structure with plexi glass as in the following picture.
And following video shows myself testing the second the third structures.
After some user testing, I found that the plexi would not absorb pressure if users "throw" the structure. I therefore made a new platform with styrofoam, which I carved and embedded the accelormter and Arduino board inside as in the following picture. Following pictures shows inside of the latest model, chickabiddy model 01. Eventually, the structure is covered with a soft fabric.
Here is a screen shot of what users will see on the screen.
Please see following video of myself testing the chickabiddy model 01. It is the same video posted on "demo video" section.
For reference, here are links to the latest source codes for Processing and Arduino.
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5. Challenges
One of challenges I had for the model 01 was to have the right material and structure that meet the basic intended user interaction. I went through four different materials and built sample structures to get the basic result I wanted, and I think a frequent user testing was critical in determining the right materials and structural mechanism.
Another huge challenge was to deal with a programming which heavily relied on trigonometry and careful calculations to simulate chicks moving inside of a circle. I also had to average the values of accelerometer, which tended to give jumpy numbers.
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6. Attempt failed
My next step was to make the chickabiddy model 01 wireless with Bluetooth, and make a model 02 which has "egg" structure rather than a simple sphere.
Troubles with Arduino BT
After presenting the chickabiddy model 01 during a class on December 4, I got a Bluetooth-enabled Arduino BT.
The first step was to hook up the Arduino BT to my laptop, and upload a test sketch to BT.
The sketch I had would make LED turn on/off by clicking buttons in Processing, which are available on a tutorial page on Arduino Website. In the sample Arduino code, I simply changed the serial communication speed at 115200 baud.
Next two photos show the basic wiring I did for Arduino BT. It accepts DC power with a minimum of 1.2 V, but with a maximum of 5.5 V. Higher voltages or reversed polarity in the power supply will kill the board. Because I had 10 V DC power, I used 5 V regulator to control the voltage and keep it to around 5 V as shown in the multimeter.
Despite of great support from John (second year who tried BT last summer), Seth (second year whose thesis project uses BT) and Hyeki (Resident), I was unable to connect BT to my laptop. No matter what we did, including resetting BT, rewiring every wires, changing the Bluetooth configuration and setup in my Mac, nothing worked. Hyeki and I found through online Q&A postings and help forums that so many people actually had similar problems uploading their sketches to BT through Bluetooth connection, and that some people said newer versions of Mac OS X were not easy on BT.
With BT not working, I am currently considering exploring other options to make the chickabiddy model wireless, such as the use of Xbee or having a separate Bluetooth chip connected to Arduino Diecimila.
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7. User testing at ITP Winter Show 2008
On December 17 and 18, 2008, I presented my Chickabiddy model 01 to visitors of ITP Winter Show 2008, which is my department's bi-annual exhibition of works and projects by students.
I set up a small booth with a kiosk, and allowed users to play with chickabiddy.
I was happy to receive great feedback from so many people who tested my chickabiddy.
What users liked in general:
- Concept
- Fluffy, soft fabric I used to coat the egg structure.
- Character design (chick)
- Emotions of chick(happy & mad)
What users thought could be improved:
- It was hard for users to tell what the toy was for: "Is this a game?" "How do I win?"
- More functions?: "Will a chick hatch or grow? You can make the chick hatch if you drop an egg structure." "Can I sqweeze the egg?" "Does a chick do anything else besides jumping and chirping?" "Can you feed him/her?" "Can I warm up the egg so the chick can hatch?"
- More emotions?: "What happens if the chick get really really mad?" "What is his/her happiest state?" "Can you make a chick prr or get confused?"
- Shape of the egg structure: "It may be nice if the structure is actually shaped like an egg." "Which is top and bottom?"
Considerations:
- Expanding to a different platform: "Can it be a mobile phone application?" "How would you like to bring this idea to the next step?"
- Target audience: "This is good for kids and young people, but not for CEOs. How can you make a toy that makes CEOs crave for?"
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