Problem Space

The problem space has been narrowed down to raise children’s awareness of environmental protection especially in terms of garbage classification and recycling.

The user research is mainly focus on the current curriculum for environmental protection and sustainability education in Australia's primary school. However, the fact and suggestion given by the Education for Sustainability and the Australian Curriculum Project Final Report  (Kennelly, J., Taylor, N., & Serow, P., 2011) is more focusing on the teachers' aspect instead the pupils' stand of point. It address that teachers need to raise the comprehensive understanding of education for sustainability develops (EfS), so that they could know how to teach EfS to children. However, it didn’t mention the specific method of how to engage students in the classroom setting and new teaching practice regarding the that area. On the other hand it did give the general idea that education for sustainability develops need both internal, including students; and external, including teachers and parents positive influences.

After the exploration of the Australia's school curriculum regarding environmental protection and sustainability. I decided to change another angle to look at the parents attitude and practice for teaching their children about environmental protection and sustainability. Based on the result given by Raising children to thrive in a climate changed world (Burke et al., n.d.), many parents are concern about the impact will have to their children and trying to raise children's awareness to help the environment. One of the practice inspired me of this project is that parents want to build a connection between nature and their children. The environment might entertain the children and even engage their senses to embrace the world. This is the main reason why I decided to add three different digital sensations to the earth globe.

Kennelly, J., Taylor, N., & Serow, P. (2011). Education for sustainability and the Australian curriculum. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 27(2), 209-218.

Burke, S., Sanson, A., Emerita, & Van Hoorn, J. (n.d.). Raising children to thrive in a climate changed world. 7.

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Initial Inquiry

During the one- week long interview conduction period, our team completed one interview with a 10-year-old girl.

Before moving to the prototype building process, our team decided to conduct initial inquiry to interview the actual user - children from 6 to 12 years old. Since it’s difficult to get access to the primary students at the moment, Eddie proposed that he could conduct the user interview with his little sisters and cousins back in home. The details regarding to ethical issues with conduct interview with children under 18 years old will be confirmed with the tutor before any further action being taken. During the team discussion session, we set the primary goals and questionnaires together as a team. So that the result of user research may cover both team concept and individual project's scope, and each team member could use include the user research as part of their "user research" in the prototype document.

Unfortunately, the interview didn’t conducted smoothly as we expected. Due to some unclaimed and unclear reasons of team members who committed to conduct user interview, we only gathered one user interview. Here are the interview questions we design for the potential users (→Initial Inquiry doc). But I still received some valuable insights from the sole user response..

Key design considerations/changes for the next step:

1) It’s difficult to follow the recycle rules sometimes. For example, the plastic food container needed to be washed first so that it will be able to throw it in the recyclable bin;

2) The recycling habit at pupil's household may help them to get a better understanding of garbage classification, so that they will behaviour as the same at school;

3) My concept will aim to keep the concentration of children when they dispose the garbage each time by giving the instantly multiple digital sensations applied reaction;

4) The more complex situations are not be taught to the children, and there’s no such kind of instruction manual for the students at school neither.

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Building Process

The main materials and technology have been used for the project.

Main materials: Wire mesh waste bins, Electrical tape, Paper tape, Fold-back clips, Cable tie.

Main tools: 3D Printer, Clue gun, Soldering iron, tool kit

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After received both Basic Arduino Kit and Auxilliary Kit delivery on Monday afternoon, I started to try different sensors and components in the kits. I first gave it a go to the Neo-pixel led ring, which will be used as the main visual expression tool for my prototype. By utilising the Adafruit NeoPixel Library, it turns out pretty good. But I still nee to figure out the suitable light design for the earth. After several attempt, I decide to utilise a 100 light bulbs LED lights in my prototype. Because it has better lighting effect and more changing pattern than the 12 lights Neo-pixel led ring.

As for the main body part of the prototype, I tried to find the existing product form the shops. However, I didn’t find out the suitable one to work as the stand/support base for the globe. Therefore, I decided to seek the help from my friend who own the 3D printer to build my own stand. The bottom of the stand will be able to hide all the wires and Arduino and breadboard parts. The top of curve part will be able to hang the paper globe. It took almost one day to finish these two components by the 3D printer. It was quite fun to design a 3D design by using the software.

After gathering all the materials and electrical components, I started the actual prototype building process. With the help of my friend, the diagram of both system and circuit have been done. It really helps me to have a general idea of how should those sensors and wires should be link together and how I should organise everything tidying on the breadboard. The aesthetic of the globe is simply draw the rough outline of the continental plate on the paper lantern. So that the continent on the globe to give the user the basic idea that this globe is the representation of earth.

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Prototype Evaluation

Both team-based appraisal and individual evaluations have been conducted for the Prototype Demo.

Based on the feedback form two other teams for Team Appraisals (check full information here →Miro board), both team brought up the major problem that the input might cause confusing for the user. Since it became a good/bad choice question, that throw garbage into the recycling bin is good, and throw garbage in to the general waste bin is bad. And they suggested me to add garbage distinguish or classify function to my prototype by using camera and machine learning skills. For the function of garbage distinguish/classify, suggestions from Ben is to utilise the colour tracking and detection feature. However, I believe it is kind of challenging and difficult for me to implement this feature from technical aspect. Also I need to consider my budget spending on this project, I don’t have much left to complete this as part of the final delivery to be honest. Hope some of my teammates will have the chance to implement this interesting function ion their work. And I'm really looking forward to see the final results of their final product as well.

I have also conducted inidividual online evaluation. The complete evaluation document could be find here(→Prototype Evaluation doc), four participants have been involved in this process.

For the general experience, all of the participants could understand the intended experience the concept is trying to deliver. Some of them showed strong empathy through the changes especially when the “tragedy” happening on the globe. And they are" looking forward to see the enhanced version of The Earth Globe on the future. Here are the valuable constructive suggestions from the individual participants.

For the visual aspect, the user hope the globe could show the environmental changes be more vivid, more like an immersive experience. They would like to see if the best result and the worst result that happens to the globe become more dramatic. This will need to include extra LED screen or projector to show the more visual changing. Although this is a good suggestion, it will not be consider to be added in the next stage since the initial concept is not to use digital screen in the physical installation. But the issue that user is having bit of a hard time telling which was supposed to be the bad bin and which is good has been solved. The big signs for the rubbish bins have been made and added to to them to show the user clearer distinguish between them. In terms of hearing, the melody be chosen for the prototype meet the base line that understandable for the users. However, they are a bit ambiguous, not clearer enough for some user to distinguish the positive and negative notice by the globe. The exploration and improvement for the sounds used in the final product will be carrying on in the next developing process. Finally for the touch, according to one of the user, the buzz and shaking function will be reconsider and make adjustment in the next step. One serious issue is that it did not noticeable enough compare to the dropping down and lifting up feature. It is cannot be fixed, then this feature will be emerged with the other one together.

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Sight Function

The deign process and the core code has been shown below.

Success criteria for the sense of Sight function:

• the user could notice the colour changing of the LED lights in the globe;
• the user could understand the meaning of colour changing pattern of the LED lights;
• the user could notice the up and down movement of the globe;
• the user could understand the meaning of the up and down movement of the globe, respectively. The lift up movement represent that something good/beneficial/helpful is happening to the globe; and the drop-down movement means something bad/wrong/devastating is happening to the globe.

The visual effect of LED lights colour changing and shifting received all positive response from the testers. The dropping down and lifting up function of the globe also draws enough attention from the user. They did feel emotional connection with the globe and be reminded that every action counts when it comes to environmental protection.

One of the user says:

“With the music, color and the lifting and dropping of the globe, it is a very straightforward way of showing whether the earth is doing well. When the globe is “dropping his head”, it feels heartbroken for me.” - Participant 02

The other user also state that:

“The colour change on the globe reminds me of global warming. Since it was triggered by an action, I would associate the action done to the outcome displayed on the globe. I felt like I was curious as to how much “worse” the globe could get and also how much “better” it could get depending on what I do. I think it’s good that eventually the whole thing turns red indicating an irreversible kind of damage.” - Participant 04

Go to check→Weekly Journal for more details.

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Hearing Function

The deign process and the core code has been shown below.

Success criteria for the sense of Hearing:

• the users could notice the sound plays every time they put some thing into the garbage bin;
• the user could understand the two different music sounds stand for either positive or negative results to the globe.

The melody be chosen for the prototype meet the base line that understandable for the users. However, they are a bit ambiguous, not clearer enough for some user to distinguish the positive and negative notice by the globe. The exploration and improvement for the sounds used in the final product will be carrying on in the next developing process.

One said:

“Accompanying music would be better if it’s a sigh voice from an older man gradually… you might do some research about how music prompt behaviours change.”- Participant 01

The other user also mentioned:

“I want it to be more fancy! Like a magic ball can see the future or it can talk to me or it can sing a song to me not just music… but with lyrics and easy for me to remember and sing to other kids.” - Participant 03

Go to check→Weekly Journal for more details.

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Touch Function

The deign process and the core code has been shown below.

Success criteria for the sense of Touch/Feel:

• the user will notice the buzzer(caused by the servo motor) happens in the globe;
• the user could understand the meaning of shaking effect stands for a kind of negative feeling to the globe.

The buzz and shaking function will be reconsider and make adjustment in the next step. One serious issue is that it did not noticeable enough compare to the dropping down and lifting up feature. It is cannot be fixed, then this feature will be emerged with the other one together.

One of the user express her concern that:

“…Can make it more smooth, it shakes so horrible…”- Participant 03

Go to check→Weekly Journal for more details.

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Project Name

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Use this area to describe your project. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Est blanditiis dolorem culpa incidunt minus dignissimos deserunt repellat aperiam quasi sunt officia expedita beatae cupiditate, maiores repudiandae, nostrum, reiciendis facere nemo!

• Date: January 2020
• Client: Window
• Category: Photography

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Reflection

My thoughts throughout the whole project & takwaway.

The COVID-19 virus has completely changed everything in this course. We were originally designed and planed for a four members team-based project. However, it has shifted to an individual product. The limited resources and technical issues are the main constraints for this project. I need to figure out how to utilise the limited materials and tools to build the prototype could address the core idea of my concept. The scope has been narrowed down to educate children to distinguish between General Waste Bin and Recycling Bin. Which may not educational and engaging enough for young children to develop general idea of environmental protection and sustainability. Whereas, it is enough for now to state the using scenario of The Earth Globe based on the user evaluation result. After all, the main focus of this project is to explore a more playful and open-ended solution to create sustainable future generation.

The objective conditions are: 1) team-based project switched into an individual project; 2) the workload to accomplish a whole project increased significantly without a functional team; 3) the difficulty of conduct user research especially with the user group of children (although the other team member made the commitment to conduct the interview with their family members, for some unknown reasons it didn’t happen); 4) the limitation of materials and tools since we cannot get to the workshop on campus.

On the other hand, my personal issues are: 1) bad time management when work at home, especially procrastinate the documentation and demo video making works to the last three days of the deadline; 2) suffering demotivation during the prototype making progress, and being passive about the final product result; 3) feel helpless without working with peers in the same physical space sometimes, because peer pressure is one of my energy sources.

The theme for the project is "Designing for playful and open ended interactions in everyday life: human values in physical computing”. Overall, The Earth Globe meets the project objectives by providing a perceptible, multiple senses-based learning experience for children at school. Their different decisions and behaviours will give them various response from the earth. The ultimate goal is to help future citizens to cultivate an environmental protection notion during their growing up progress. Indeed, there are still many improvement and reinforcement could be done in the future.

Also check the team's Final Delivery Report (→Team Report) for more detailed insighs and outcomes.

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