Sarah Walker Portfolio

OWLECTO


CPSC 581 - Human Computer Interaction, Project 3

Design a system that connects two distance separated intimates.

Initial Design Sketches
Send Coffee to a Friend: a coffee machine that is connected to an app. Drinks made are determined by someone far away who has the app.

Bear Hug Pendant: when the bear gets hugged, the pendant worn by someone else warms.

Family Garden: a group of people share the same garden on the app. Each individual is tasked with a number of daily activities.

Hanging Postcard: send a message through the app and it will appear on a photo frame elsewhere in the world..

The Boss is Coming!: when the boss connects to your webcam an alarm is triggered and a screen comes down to hide what's behind you.

Live Concert: tiny animal records audio and plays it back in another home.

Zoom Alarm: electronic sign blinks and makes sound to inform user that they have a zoom meeting scheduled now.

Party From Afar: party attendees use the app to control environmental aspects on the space. Each attendee controls one aspect and cannot change others.

Thinking of You Hat: whenever user touches their hat, a paired hat lights up.

Remote Race: users control a small RC car using an app. They can race against others while staying inside.

Refined Sketches

For our refined sketches we iterated on the idea of haunting someone, and the tamagotchi idea.

Sound Filter: app controls audio filter. We decided not to go with this idea because the implementation seemed too difficult.

Tamagotchi Snack: app dispenses a snack. We decided not to go with this idea because our classmates seemed to like the haunting ideas more.

Door Knocker: app controls a door knock so that you can play ding-dong-ditch from afar. This idea was considered for final implementation, however we ultimately wanted to go with something that was spookier.

Toy Control: app controls toy actions from afar. Aspects of this idea were included in the final design.

Skeleton Desk Buddy: app controls a skeleton head to make it spin, make the teeth chatter, and make it talk. This idea is the base for the final design.

Candy Hand: app controls the opening and closing of a hand so that the user can control when another person gets a treat. This idea was abandoned because we wanted to do something spookier.

Moods: shared mood board with others. We did not go with this idea because we decided to make something spookier.

Reverse Tamagotchi: app controls actions on another persons tamagotchi. We abandonded this idea because we wanted to do something spooky.

Tiny Things Controls: app controls tiny things in another persons room to freak them out. An element of this idea was used in the final design.

Summer Camp Mailbox: app controls controls a mailbox that dispenses a treat. We did not go with this idea because we wanted to make something spooky.

Two Way Haunting: app is connected to items in both user's houses so that they can haunt each other. This idea was considered for the final design. However, time was limited so we did not pursue this.

Treat-O-Clock: app schedules a treat to be dispensed at a certain time. We decided not to go with this idea because we wanted to do something spooky.

Hogwarts Portrait: app controlled portrait flashes eyes and speaks to passing people. This idea was considered but abandoned because we thought that something on a wall would be too easy to ignore.

Spooky Owl: app controls an owl whose head follows any passerby. App can be used to send messages. An element of this idea was included in the final design.

Final Design

After receiving feedback from our peers, we decided to go ahead with the idea of a haunting between friends. After discussing different ways of achieving this, we decided on using sounds, lights, and movement to spook the scaree. The owl embodiment was chosen for its creepyness and for its natural mapping of sounds and movement.

From further discussion, we decided on going hands-free for the controls. While an app would be interesting to build, we wanted to create something that was so easy to use, that the user wouldn't even have to lift a finger. To achieve this, we built OWLECTO's controls as an action for the Google Home
Personas
Chicago Kardashian East

Chicago Kardashian East is a student at the University of Calgary. She was very sad when COVID-19 forced her to stay home because she loves planning social activities and hanging out with her friends (but she understands her responsibility to help flatten the curve). Chicago is a big fan of horror movies and goes to ScreamFest with her friends every year. She is often inspired by these experiences to play spooky pranks on her friends. She is very computer literate and likes to share her newest tech finds with anyone that will listen. She finds it difficult to focus on school work for long periods of time and constantly messages friends as a reprieve. Chicago has no problem initiating communications and likes to check in on people in fun and inventive ways, even if they don’t always reciprocate. However, sometimes when her friends don’t see her messages, she wishes there was a more obnoxious and immediate way she could get their attention. Chicago just wants her friends to know she’s thinking of them, and she won’t be thwarted by people who don’t regularly check their phones.

Characteristics:
  • Age 21
  • In university, stuck at home because of COVID-19
  • Sad that she cannot socialize with friends
  • Starts conversations with people to procrastinate doing work
  • Takes great pleasure in bothering and (lovingly) harassing her friends
  • Enjoys horror movies and executing a good scare
Goals:
  • Perform small and annoying gestures for her friends, without the need for reciprocation
  • Not to distract her friends too much from their activities and studies
Blue Navy Carter

Blue Navy Carter is a student at the University of Calgary. When the government ordered people to social distance due to COVID-19, she could no longer hang out with her friends in person. Blue and her friends share a love of horror movies and haunted houses and they constantly try to spook each other with small pranks. Though she may not admit it, Blue prefers to be the victim, because it’s a lot of work to plan and execute a good scare. She is fairly tech-savvy and is open to trying out new gadgets. Unfortunately, she is notorious for having her phone on silent and not reading messages at the time she receives them. Thus, Blue often misses her friends’ attempts to check in and start conversations when they are socially isolated. However, their small gestures bring a big smile to her face when she eventually sees them. Blue also spends most of her time at her desk, busy doing school work as the semester wraps up. As such, she rarely finds time to initiate online hangouts of her own, prefering to put the onus of communication on her more thoughtful friends.

Characteristics:
  • Age 21
  • In university, studying at home because of COVID-19
  • Cannot socialize with friends in person
  • Consistently working at her desk
  • Doesn’t respond to messages in a timely fashion
  • Always has phone on silent
  • Enjoys horror movies and the adrenaline rush of getting scared
  • Appreciates small gestures from her friends
Goals:
  • Maintain friendships with minimal effort
  • Focus on school work without getting sidetracked by actively participating in online conversations
Design process
Embodiment

OWLECTO was made to sit near a user on a desk or table. The owl itself is made of paper mache so that it is lightweight, but strong enough to survive constant movement.

Hardware

OWLECTO is controlled by an ESP8266 and powered by a 5V external power supply. Two servos attached to one another (to get approximately 360 degrees) control the head movements, and another servo is used to control the beak. Two LEDs are used in the eyes and an 8 Ohm speaker attached to an amp is fixed inside of the head.

ESP8266

Servo (x3)

LEDs

Speaker and Amp

Software - Google Assistant

The ESP8266 reads data from Adafruit IO, so to get it working with Google Assistant we had to create an action. Using Zapier, Erika created a script that takes the command said to Google Assistant and puts it in Google Sheets. Then, three other scripts are used to recognize when someone says "Scare", "Spook", and "Traumatize for Life", and then send a number corresponding to which command was given to Adafruit IO.

Challenges and Future Improvements

The largest challenge we faced when creating OWLECTO was determining what kind of embodiment would be most interesting for the user. If we weren't participating in physical distancing, we would have liked to get feedback from potential users to improve on our design.

To improve OWLECTO, we would find and play better sound clips so that OWLECTO's hoot sound like and owl's hoot.


OWLECTO DEMO






Source code here!

My Contributions:

Initial 10 sketches
Refined sketches
Owl design and assembly
Hardware design and assembly
Arduino code development for running the hardware and receiving input from Adafruit IO