More projects seen at the RCA Interaction Design show this Summer. These three are by Daniel Goddemeyer.
The Smoke doll has been designed to help decrease the amount of cigarette smoke that children are being exposed to.
The physical breathing behaviour of the toy depends on the amount of passive smoke it is exposed to. When it gets to the child, it reacts to the child’s touch and breathes very calm, regular and normal. When exposed to smoke, the doll starts breathing by itself and gets more and more excited about inhaling the cigarette smoke. Over time, the inhaled smoke destroys the doll’s breathing until it becomes irregularily, coughing and finally ceases simultaniously with the appearence of nicotine stains on its outside. The doll can be cured, but only by the breath of a non-smoker (sensors recognise the presence of carbon monoxide in breath.)
The parents’ realization that they are about to destroy the child’s toy and that their smoking habits might be revealed to their social surroundings by an either healthy or sick doll will help to make them think about their smoking behaviour around children. (video)
The Fear Buddies are Barbapapa-like objects that collect the number of anonymous local encounters with people having the same fear, insecurity or phobia as you without revealing your or their identity.
The project is not about meeting people but about having the feeling that you are not the only one feeling a certain way in your local surroundings. Each Fear Buddy is purchased depending on a certain fear, phobia or insecurity. It can detect other Fear Buddy beacons in your proximity. The upper scale shows how many people around you are currently suffering from the same phobia. The lower scale counts how many accidental anonymous encounter you’ve made so far with other people dealing with the same issues as you.
Last project is very clever too: The Sprochs are a family of characters that each can record one special message. The project looks at how curiosity can be used to change behaviours or motivate.
After recording, you can determine the level of effort and care that the Sproch needs in order to be able to speak and play back the recorded message. Each character reacts to one sensory type of input such as light, time, water, fresh air, smoke, movement… So you can decide whether your friend will have to get a long walk in the park or wait one week before being able/allowed to hear your message.
Unfortunately, the Sprochs have beared some rather unwanted children in the past who, once in a while, wake up by themselves, demand attention and the exposure to a certain sensory input within a certain timeframe. If they don’t get what they ask for, they will delete the message and it will be forever lost…
Pictures from the show.
Daniel has designed another doll – unfortunately it wasn’t part of the show: called Talk, the doll’s size and speaking volume is depending on the amount of parents – child communication and provides social visibility outside of parental home.
Whenever the child tickles Talks ear, its head pops out and the child can whisper something into the ear. When touching Talk, the head pops out and plays back the recording. It always plays the latest recording unless you shake it. Then the recordings get mixed around and it plays a random recording from its collection.
In case of a communication breakdown between the parents and children, the head pops out less and less and its voice gets more quiet until it finally falls silent.