Project Proposal + Sample Book

Intention

Many people want to limit their time spent on social media, but much like the beginning of any diet you need to know how much you're actually consuming before you can figure out how what you can cut back. Since many of us don't have accurate estimates of many minutes (or hours) we spend on facebook, instagram, snapchat, etc. - I decided to create a humorous embodiment of our consumption: a chipmunk whose cheeks inflate and glow in proportion to how long you're spending on your social apps. 

Process and/or Research

First I wanted to see if there were already apps or APIs that would aggregate the time spent in each app, versus individually pulling down data from all of them. There are a number of productivity type apps available freely, like AntiSocial and Moment which I would try to grab data from.

Next, I would need to create a program which converts the app data into an input range to control the LED in the chipmunk cheeks, as well as turn on a fan or motor to fill the air chambers in the cheek pockets. I think I would need to experiment with timing, motor power, and chamber design in order to have different "stages" of fullness. See concept sketch below, similar to the inflatable air packets you get from an Amazon package: 

Fabricating the cheeks and the rest of the chipmunk body would be the biggest challenge since I have very little experience in this area. I would want a stretchy material to accommodate the inflatable portion, while being transparent enough to allow the LED to glow. An opaque mesh would likely be best. 

Product

Ideal state of the object below: both the size of the cheeks and the brightness of the light would be triggered by the amount of time spent on social media apps. 

The LED coding seems straightforward using a Gemma and a NeoPixel ring (such as https://learn.adafruit.com/gemma-hoop-earrings/arduino-code)

The air pump for the inflatable chambers can be controlled via Arduino, coding help exists in various forums (http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=253897.0 )

Reflection

I had to think carefully about how to "stage" the cheek inflation - I couldn't find any mechanisms (valves, stoppers, etc.) that could keep a bag or balloon partially inflated so the chambered approach seemed reasonable, even though I haven't experimented with it. I realize that if I did prototype this, I would need to make the chipmunk fairly large in order to demonstrate fullness (I imagine that it would be hard to get enough air pressure through smaller air chambers for a person to discern a size difference). 

Sample Book 

Below are different techniques explored in this micro.

Gemma microcontroller + LED on reactive copper fabric

Hard lessons in soldering. As you can see, the input wire (yellow) is not connected to the Gemma so the LED is not responding to contact with the copper fabric. I assure you this works when two hands are applied to ensure contact but not when the free hand is taking a picture. 

Electro-luminescent wire

Hard lessons in stripping wires. Ensuring that the tiny fibers which conduct the electricity are not shaved off when removing the plastic coating meant getting very comfortable with the x-acto blade. At least the soldering improved. 

Muscle wire + fake fur + paper

The muscle wire did not move as distinctly as I would have hoped when sewn into the fur (my goal was to make a sort of animal-like thing). I unfastened the wire and loosely attached to a paper wing to test if the motion was more pronounced on a lighter object but it still wasn't sufficient to me. Moving forward, I think I should adjust the fastening points and consider prepping the wire differently.