industrial design engineering, royal college of art david sweeney ...

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industrial design engineering, royal college of art david sweeney 2007 How does it know when the user is stressed or relaxed? By observing our behaviour and its deviation from the norms of routine, the device can make some decisions based on this. However, the fact that people have found a pleasant tactile quality to the form that has been chosen for this device, I have decided to integrate a strain sensor (QTC) within the body of the product. The action of rough handling and squeezing is telling of stressful times but those of petting and of a soft touch speaks of a relaxed temperament. Other web based information such as timetable and email inbox capacity can be clues to these stress levels too. So, the product’s form articulates both its dispersion and tactile interactive aspects, but what about its sensing? I have integrated a camera at the top of the device and made no effort to disguise the fact that it is watching us. The grille with which the device emits the smell and listens to us through surrounds this eye. I have based this on the Fibonacci spiral array pattern found on sunflowers and other natural entities called parastichies, this I feel increases a subtle resemblance to flowers and organic forms but still being related to the idea of a speaker grille. The device can roll about on its base to both observe its environment but also to dispense the smell across the whole space. This is achieved by the rotation of an asymmetric weight within the device. I felt that this action also increases the feeling that the device is an intelligent one. 28
industrial design engineering, royal college of art david sweeney 2007 a whorl pattern of parastichies I have decided to make the device powered through mains rather than battery operated due to the fact that it isn’t necessary for the product to be very mobile and having to plug it in to recharge every day or so takes away from its autonomy. There is a replaceable cartridge of smells in the device that holds 32 fragrances. These all pipe into a piezoelectric device like an inkjet head. This effectively pumps an accurate supply of each of the odours onto a piezoelectric plate that vibrates at about 2MHz, atomizing them immediately. A small fan blows the smell gently out the horn at the top. 29
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