Final Project Week 1

This week we needed to brainstorm some project ideas for the CSC and narrow it down to two. We came up with a heart timer and an interactive hand washing program. 

Our first idea, and the idea we were initially most excited about, was the heart timer. One problem the CSC has it that since the kids don't yet understand the concept of time, they're always asking how long is left in an activity or until they get to go home. Becky wanted a way to help the kids answer these questions on their own. The heart would be made out of rows of LEDs and either have buttons representing set times (such as 5 minutes, 15 minutes, half an hour, a half day and a whole day) or a knob such as a potentiometer that could be adjusted to any time. After the time was set by an adult, the rows of LEDs would light up after certain time increments. An example can be seen here. Once the entire heart was lit, the kids would know that the time was up. In order to fulfill the mechanism component of the project, the timer would also have hands or wings that would wave when the time was up. Ultimately, we decided against this project because, although the concept of a child's yearning for their parents as the day progresses being represented by a growing heart made sense to us, it was much too subtle for a child. Instead of coming up with a more concrete way to represent time, we chose to work on the next project.  

Another problem the CSC has is that the children either don't wash their hands at all, don't wash them for long enough, or skip some steps. This project aims to provide a solution to all of those problems. When a child stands on a mat next tot he sink, a force sensor in the mat registers less than 50 lbs of weight and starts the program. A voice will walk the child through the steps of washing their hands, in addition to playing a cute song, such as the one found here. We would also 3D print some hands that would mimic a hand-washing motion to remind the kids to wash. We decided to go with this project because we thought it would be more challenging for us and more useful to the CSC.