PComp | Final Project | Planning & Testing
Last week I created a housing prototype and had a play testing session with fellow ITPers.
But before I went onto listing down what I learned from the session, here's a recap of my final project:
The ❤️ Machine – A Tamagotchi but instead of a virtual animal pet, it's Taylor Swift in a box.
Box size is tentatively 3x3 inches.
The idea is to play on the culture of fandom, where usually the object of obsession (the idol) is unreachable and unattainable, but in this case, the obsessor has physical and indefinite access to them. In fact, the obsessor now owns the celebrity.
Feedback from Play Testing
//In italics will be incorporated into the final design
Form / Housing / Material:
A box is hard to carry, maybe an orb or egg.
It needs to have softness / allow squeezing.
Animal ears / tail might make it more endearing.
People like fur coating.
Bright colors would make the item more visually interesting when used long term.
Interaction
Taylor's face needs to be bigger.
Having the puppy face filters imposed on the face helps.
It's good to be able to switch characters.
Stroking different area should yield different reaction from Taylor.
Literally "feeding" a celebrity seems unnatural; other options:
Check the celebrity's instagram
Play their music
Tweet to them
If it's fuzzy people would want to naturally play with and hug it.
It's good to have the celebrity to "live" in the box, e.g. have her walk around the house, etc.
The device is very weird to use in public.
Planning
After getting some feedback, I decided on the functions I wanted to add and remove. I created this document to keep track of all my to-do's, timeline, and budget:
To keep track of the different physical and logical parts of the project:
Timeline
Budgeting
And finally, after some research on the different sensors / actuators, the schematics:
