In the last few days I’ve been dedicating most of my time on research for this project. A few worries that I have addressed in the past few days are:
Will it be meaningful for people that are going through depression or loneliness?
To answer to these questions I met with Ilya Razykov, student in clinical psychology at McGill. We went through a few issues concerning confinement and communication with individuals facing hard times.
Our conversation made clear that the piece should:
- not be used as a replacement for communication, but as an “aid” that can help ease physical confinement.
- have functions that are triggered randomly, like smiling and inflating, so that if no one sends commands the owner would not feel abandoned.
- have a more direct physical bonding attribute.
To answer to the last issue I thought about making the piece double as a pillow. The creature could have a “sleep” mode where it keeps inflated and a soft blue light could follow the breathing of the owner of it’s sister creature.
Physical attributes and design
Now that things were a bit more clear as to what the creature should do, I started thinking of the design aspects. Since the creature would double as a pillow, a simple round design is preferable, but I would still like the creature to have some design detail to it. I have been fascinated for the past few weeks with deployable structures, and how they move in an organic and seamless way (like mimosas), it would also make an appealing design choice for an inflatable structure. The issue with this design is that the edges are a tad hard, and would make it less of a pillow. Some tests are needed.
I also researched inflatable structures. It is crazy how many project use this technology, but how little documentation is available on the internet about it. Most projects say they use air pumps which is very interesting because it can create pressure (good for hugging and sleeping) but is a very costly alternative to a computer fan. I found very useful information from the Rabbit Field creator on his personal blog. He explains in detail his technique used for his project which resembles mine in a few aspects. The only issue I have is that I am not crazy for the sound plastic makes when inflating and deflating. Non-rip nylon would be a fantastic alternative, but it will probably not keep air in when used as a pillow. Therefore I will have to run some tests tomorrow with different types of fabric and plastics to see what is the best possibility.