Taking daily medication is stigmatized and often uncomfortable. The CaterPILLer makes taking medication a positive experience by introducing an element of personality. This pillbox creates a connection between it and it's user unlike the more utilitarian pillboxes currently available. The CaterPILLer has an alarm clock system that helps users remember to take their pills. When it is time to take medication the CaterPILLer will wake up and remind the user by smiling with its screen face, having its LED antennas light up, and chirping happily. If the CaterPILLer is kept waiting it will slowly become both angry and sad, creating motivation to keep on schedule. This works by adding an element of responsibility. Humans have an evolutionary instinct to take care of cute things, stemming from their need to take care of children. Since the CaterPILLer is cute people will want to make it happy and to not hurt it, even if it simply a robot. The CaterPILLer also uses design language that is currently popular to make it seem more desirable. The clean white geometric aesthetic is current and makes the product more marketable. Making pillboxes a form of fashionable furniture can help reduce stigma. Stigma is the negative association attached to certain things. Taking medication, especially for psychiatric reasons, is stigmatized as something shameful, feeding off of feelings of weakness. It is seen abnormal even though forty-eight percent of people use prescription drugs. By making pillboxes more visible one chooses to fight against the current negative view of prescription drugs. The product has seven magnetic compartments to store daily pills. These are formed from icosahedrons with lids that have strong magnetic connections. This allows the lids to stay firmly attached but also be easily removable even without fine motor skills. The segmented shape of a caterpillar lends itself easily to being stylized as a pillbox but also has a unique flair. All the electronics are cleanly stored inside the head and run on a coin battery to eliminate any unseemly wires. This product will make kids excited, rather than scared, to take their medication.

Annika Hardy:
The Relaxation Chair: a comfortable chair that stops nervous habits by providing alternative activities that are embedded in the sides of the chair. The chair is designed for any space that could potentially be a high stress or anxiety-producing place, like hospital waiting rooms or school offices. 

Waiting rooms in hospitals, doctors' offices, and school offices, are some of the most common places to feel anxious or restless. For many people, these uncomfortable feelings lead to nervous habits that can range from fairly harmless nail-biting to potentially destructive hair-pulling or skin-picking. Whatever the habit, refraining from acting on the compulsion can sometimes seem impossible, especially in a high-stress environment. Research suggests that the best ways to break bad habits are through distraction and awareness. When a person is distracted from acting out their habit, they are less likely to do the habit and over time less likely to feel the need to do it. When someone does act out their habit, it can be helpful for it to be clearly brought to their attention, because habits can sometimes become so ingrained they are subconscious. It is for these reasons that the Relaxation Chair should be an essential part of every waiting room. The chair arms incorporate fidget toys like buttons to push, string and tabs to pull and rotate and calming activities like drawing to engage the user. The design also includes an overhead sensor that recognizes and covers the face of a user if they begin biting their nails or indulging in any other nervous habit involving the mouth. By providing a space in which the user will be distracted and gently prevented from engaging in nervous habits, the chair will allow the user to feel more relaxed in a stressful situation and will help break potentially harmful habits.

GloFlo is designed for overtaxed people to manage stress and improve focus by encouraging them to take a moment to relax their minds. The soothing white light energizes the mind and helps the user focus. The lamp consists of lights on the end of eight arms that move up and down. The mechanism is controlled by the users hands in proximity of the sensors on the device. As you move your hands closer to the sensor the lights move up and if you move them farther away the lights move down. If you remove your hand from the sensor entirely the lights move back to their original state in the upwards position. An Arduino inside the base relays information from the ultrasonic distance sensor to the servo which moves a certain number of degrees depending on the distance measured from the sensor to the moving hand. The servo spools up string that attaches to each of the arms, which then pivot on the y-axis in unison. The lights, which are always powered on while the device is plugged in, are attached to the end of each arm. The meditative motions conducted by the user in combination with the soft white lights will serve asa helpful way to reach a calm and relaxed state of mind.

This assignment will lead us off as we seek to re-imagine and expand our concept of what a robot is or can be.  We will begin by looking at robot precedents and gathering construction materials within our homes. The final goal of this project (due next week) seeks to answer the question "How can we relate to robots".  There are many examples from human-like voices and names (Siri + Alexa).  But there are also many examples of robots that take on other traits - does the robot look like a human or animal? Is it cute/scary? What are the ways that these features help us communicate and understand robots. 

Part 1: Sketching + Materials

• Gather junk from around the house - recycled cardboard boxes, craft supplies, old toys, fabric scraps, and anything else that might useful.
• Use sketches to convey different ways in which the material might be used to create a robot. For each material draw a few ways it can transformed as a building supply (for example you might cut a paper towel tube in half, or fold cardboard to create a box, you can cut paper cups to make eyes, or a mouth, etc). 

Annika Hardy:
The Relaxation Chair: a comfortable chair that stops nervous habits by providing alternative activities that are embedded in the sides of the chair. The chair is designed for any space that could potentially be a high stress or anxiety-producing place, like hospital waiting rooms or school offices. 

Waiting rooms in hospitals, doctors' offices, and school offices, are some of the most common places to feel anxious or restless. For many people, these uncomfortable feelings lead to nervous habits that can range from fairly harmless nail-biting to potentially destructive hair-pulling or skin-picking. Whatever the habit, refraining from acting on the compulsion can sometimes seem impossible, especially in a high-stress environment. Research suggests that the best ways to break bad habits are through distraction and awareness. When a person is distracted from acting out their habit, they are less likely to do the habit and over time less likely to feel the need to do it. When someone does act out their habit, it can be helpful for it to be clearly brought to their attention, because habits can sometimes become so ingrained they are subconscious. It is for these reasons that the Relaxation Chair should be an essential part of every waiting room. The chair arms incorporate fidget toys like buttons to push, string and tabs to pull and rotate and calming activities like drawing to engage the user. The design also includes an overhead sensor that recognizes and covers the face of a user if they begin biting their nails or indulging in any other nervous habit involving the mouth. By providing a space in which the user will be distracted and gently prevented from engaging in nervous habits, the chair will allow the user to feel more relaxed in a stressful situation and will help break potentially harmful habits.

Taking daily medication is stigmatized and often uncomfortable. The CaterPILLer makes taking medication a positive experience by introducing an element of personality. This pillbox creates a connection between it and it's user unlike the more utilitarian pillboxes currently available. The CaterPILLer has an alarm clock system that helps users remember to take their pills. When it is time to take medication the CaterPILLer will wake up and remind the user by smiling with its screen face, having its LED antennas light up, and chirping happily. If the CaterPILLer is kept waiting it will slowly become both angry and sad, creating motivation to keep on schedule. This works by adding an element of responsibility. Humans have an evolutionary instinct to take care of cute things, stemming from their need to take care of children. Since the CaterPILLer is cute people will want to make it happy and to not hurt it, even if it simply a robot. The CaterPILLer also uses design language that is currently popular to make it seem more desirable. The clean white geometric aesthetic is current and makes the product more marketable. Making pillboxes a form of fashionable furniture can help reduce stigma. Stigma is the negative association attached to certain things. Taking medication, especially for psychiatric reasons, is stigmatized as something shameful, feeding off of feelings of weakness. It is seen abnormal even though forty-eight percent of people use prescription drugs. By making pillboxes more visible one chooses to fight against the current negative view of prescription drugs. The product has seven magnetic compartments to store daily pills. These are formed from icosahedrons with lids that have strong magnetic connections. This allows the lids to stay firmly attached but also be easily removable even without fine motor skills. The segmented shape of a caterpillar lends itself easily to being stylized as a pillbox but also has a unique flair. All the electronics are cleanly stored inside the head and run on a coin battery to eliminate any unseemly wires. This product will make kids excited, rather than scared, to take their medication.

GloFlo is designed for overtaxed people to manage stress and improve focus by encouraging them to take a moment to relax their minds. The soothing white light energizes the mind and helps the user focus. The lamp consists of lights on the end of eight arms that move up and down. The mechanism is controlled by the users hands in proximity of the sensors on the device. As you move your hands closer to the sensor the lights move up and if you move them farther away the lights move down. If you remove your hand from the sensor entirely the lights move back to their original state in the upwards position. An Arduino inside the base relays information from the ultrasonic distance sensor to the servo which moves a certain number of degrees depending on the distance measured from the sensor to the moving hand. The servo spools up string that attaches to each of the arms, which then pivot on the y-axis in unison. The lights, which are always powered on while the device is plugged in, are attached to the end of each arm. The meditative motions conducted by the user in combination with the soft white lights will serve asa helpful way to reach a calm and relaxed state of mind.