Concept Video

Challenge

The TEI 2015 Student Design Challenge challenged us to bring tangible feed back to control through design, making use of hands' powerful capability to manipulate and get feedback. We built a wallet prototype using Arduino technology and sensors, and presented our prototype to more than 100 TEI conference attendees at Stanford.

Design Process

First we had meetings to deeply understand the design brief. Then, we did brainstorming to decide the kind of hand control and feedback we would like to focus on.

Ideation

Concept

We narrowed it down to three ideas – Tangible Light Switch, Feel Your Music and Tactile Debit.

At the end, we decided to move forward with Tactile Debit idea because it was the most human centered concept.

System Illustrations

Prototype

hunting for components

sizing prototype

3d printed card reader

troubleshooting bluetooth connection

TEI Finals

We were selected along with 7 other teams to compete in the final student design challenge at the TEI conference in Stanford '14. Unfortunately no teams recieved official placings, but we did get great feedback.

Here is a TEI attendee testing our prototypes in various states of completion. I am controlling the held prototype using a bluetooth serial connection from my phone.

Feedback

The good: We were noted for having the most meaningful problem statement, and a project closest to going to market.

The not so good: Vibration patterns failed to be an intuitive signal for budgeting.

Our team totally agreed with the feedback. If we could continue the project, we would likely do studies over different vibration patterns and their connotations/denotations/if there is any meaning attached at all. Other forms of feedback like physical resistance, latches, etc... were considered but discarded because of our technical abilities and time constraints. If continued, I would very much like to explore these feedback methods as well!