Hug Machine
What you’ll need:
Alligator clips, felt scraps, gaffe tape LED light and a cell battery.
What’s the story?
Yuxin and I thought of a wearable that will either track or enable users to hug or add a feedback/response when 2 users are hugging. This exercise opened my mind about how social wearables work, because of the human body’s numerous capabilities and the endless possibilities to add sensors and inspire movement and gestures. In this case, when human bodies become utilized as life-size switches.
This is how our circuit looks on people
This is what it looks like on me and Yuxin:
Refinement: Hug Machine Wrist Band
While thinking about the user, I decided a smaller and more compact refinement for this wearable. Thinking of a tshirt patch and wristband as the social switch.
Finished product:
Reflection:
I think it’s really awesome that prototyping wearables can be fast and easy. I tend to overthink component design, and also find it challenging to build devices/physical computing. Adding a social layer also presents many solutions to specific design problems but what has helped speed up the process is when I prototype with constraint – having only a few components, and limited supplies inspire creativity and resourcefulness.
I also appreciate the idea of refining a project. Going from our first idea with many wires, and finishing with a smaller and compact product was easy to execute after giving social switches much though and flexing soft sensor ideas through the workshop. Also, having a good criteria for me like leaning towards a small and useful product has helped in deciding how this hug machine would look like and should work.
Happy Path Journeys 