Human-sized hamster wheel - booklet

Adriano Mescia

MES14437231

MA Interaction Design Communication London College of Communication University of The Arts London

Human-sized hamster wheel

October 2015

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Table of contents 4

Introduction

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Sketches and initial ideas

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Final idea, the hamster wheel

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The wheel

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Energy conversion

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The Interface

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Inside the app

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Render

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Introduction In this booklet is presented my MA final major project, in which is located my final piece which is connected to my final dissertation, where I explore how to influence people on how to have sustainable behaviour through the practise of gamification.

The paper starts with a broad introduction claiming the importance of taking action towards our environment and asserting that our role as designers is to influence people, acting on their behaviours.

Consequently, I analyse quite in depth practices and theories of current gamification theories, criticising some aspects of it, in particular with a specific focus on the use of extrinsic motivation inputs (points, badges, leaderboards, etc.), rather than intrinsic motivation inputs (desire to improve, challenge, mastery, control, etc.), which are actually the basis of games. Intrinsic motivations are the real power games, they make games incredibly engaging and therefore these features shouldn’t be dismissed especially if designing behaviour change, when user engagement is one of the most important factors.

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Sketches and inital ideas The first idea was either to make people save energy in their daily tasks or to make people replace some unsustainable tasks with new more sustainable activities.

Being that the project was destined to be exhibited in a gallery at university, where audience would interact with it, I thought about what people in the room could do, on what they would act on and what the outcome could be.

So at first I put worth the following scheme:

Action

Means

Output

Jump

Platform

Light

Clap

Hammer

Sound

Step

Ball

Energy

Cycle

Paddle

Smoothie

Blow

Wheel

Receipt

Pull

Buttons

Paper

Push

Door

Kick

Steps

Punch Crank

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First idea Washing machines powered by bicycles are already considered “DIY” technology in poor countries and eco-villages, however it remains a niche solution, seen as a “remedy for the poor”, which most of the people wouldn’t allow in their luxurious houses, therefore, I thought about adding a simple element which would make it more fun and probably accepted by more people, that is, make an app out of it.

The app would be assigned badges and classified users in leaderboards, so adding extrinsic rewards to a process which already gives some intrinsic motivations, such as the desire to do sport and get fit, the need/desire to wash the clothes, energy and money saving.

The reason why I chose a washing machine is simply because that’s one of the appliances which consumes the most energy in a household.

However, the idea could be extended to other smaller appliances, such as toaster, phone, blender, stereo, etc.

Pro: consistent with dissertation Cons: no critical aspect, too specific, not very fun

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Second idea A platform which would be produced either sounds or lights as people are stepping on it. This idea is inspired by the already existing Energy Floors (www. sustainabledanceclub.com/products/sustainable_dance_floor/), but the focus in this case would be exclusively on showing people how much energy they produce with simple movements.

This would be a participatory interaction, since lots of people would be involved in the process which would mean a huge amount of energy is produced and so the light intensity/sound volume coming from the sides of the platform would be large.

Pro: fun Cons: not original, inconsistent with dissertation

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Third idea A memory game is inspired by the popular Dittobeat to charge a phone.

It consists still of a platform, but a lot smaller than the previous one, composed of nine squares in rows of three, to which is connected a phone charging cable.

The squares will light up in a random order suggesting a pattern which must be repeated by the user, in case of success the user’s phone (obviously attached previously to the cable) will be charging.

This would be engaging for people, as everybody would play a little game to charge their phones, however it would be probably physically impossible.

Indeed, the energy produced is likely not be not enough to charge a phone, furthermore to display a pattern in the beginning some electricity has to be used.

Pro: fun, consistent with dissertation Cons: not sure about energy effieciency

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Fourth idea An app showing how much energy is released biking and what it could be used for.

The idea is to show visually what a kilowatt is. This project would focus almost exclusively on the interface which has to be engaging and clear for the user.

It could be turned into a proper game, with different levels and landscapes.

Pro: critical aspect Cons: inconsistent with thesis, not fun

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Final idea, the hamster wheel Ideas two, three and four were completely discarded, but from my first idea I came up with the final piece. The idea indeed worked for its consistency with the dissertation, however it had no critical aspects, it didn’t fulfil the three elements forming my MA course name: Interaction - Design - Communication.

It would have been an interaction design project, but poor on the level of communication (basically to understand the project people would have had to read my thesis). A gigantic hamster wheel instead would be full of meaning.

It’s an iconic artefact showing how much we are slaves to technology.

Furthermore, I thought of connecting the wheel not to a washing machine, but to a phone charger. This would make things even more paradoxical and will also be more functional to the exhibition, indeed everyone will have a phone there (and everyone needs to charge their phone).

wheel 2m high

kids bike 12” bicycle dynamo 6V 3W bycicle us charger, connectet to dynamo phone charged

wheel support

support for the wheel

support for phone

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The wheel The wheel is built following the open-sourse instructions of Robb Godshaw (www.instructables.com/id/Hamster-Wheel-Standing-Desk/), an artist/designer who built a human-size hamster wheel integrated with a standing desk.

The purpose of his project was different, but the wheel structure fit perfectly for my project.

The wheel, 200cm in diameter, is supported by a 60cm wide base that contained a set of four skateboard wheels on which the wheel would rest. This design allows fluid rotation without requiring an axle for the wheel.

List of components: - 4 Plywood sheets 244 x 122 x 1.8cm - longboard wheels - 2 steel pipes 61cm long - 1 pint of glue for wood - 240 wood screws - 2 tie rods - 2 threaded rods 8cm diameter Construction: 1 - Plywood sheets are cut with a water-jet machine as the rounded lines need to be perfectly precise, otherwise they wouldn’t rotate properly.

2 - Other wooden parts and stabs are instead cut manually.

3 - Rings are layed out, each ring is composed by two layers of plywood and each layer is made of 3 arcs (120° each). Each arc had 4 radially spaced ¼” holes to aid in line-up and fastening of the layers.

4 - The layers of plywood are glued together.

5, 6, 7 - The base consists of two large, hot-dog shaped pieces of wood, each of which hold two skateboard wheels. The two plates are held together with tie-rods and steel pipes. 8cm threaded rods inside the pipe pull the plywood sides together, while the pipes themselves keep them apart.

8 - The slats are screwed onto the rings of the wheel

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Pictures from: www.instructables.com/id/Hamster-Wheel-Standing-Desk/

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Energy conversion In order to convert kinetic energy to electric energy I connected a small bicycle wheel to the big hamster wheel. The smaller the bike, the more energy would have been generated, so I opted for a 12� kids bike wheel, to which I connected a dynamo, which was in turn attached to a phone charger.

List of components: 1 - 6V 3W bycicle dynamo 2 - bicycle usb charger 3 - 12� kids bike

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The interface The user is guided by an interface consisting essentially of four screens.

In the first screen the wheel is still and the bars indicating calories are burned and energy produced is zero.

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As soon as users start to run/ walk on the wheel, the wheel starts moving, rotating and the values bar rise in real time.

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As each single performance ends, users are asked to fill a simple form which will allow them to see their position in a leaderboard.

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The leaderboard is displayed in the end and shows all the users results.

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Inside the app At the very bottom of the app are three hall effect sensors and a magnet stuck on the wheel. From this connection it’s possible to establish when and how often a rotation happens, and so the speed of the user running/walking on the wheel.

The mechanism is very simple: a magnet gives an input each time that passes by a hall effect sensor. However, a single sensor wouldn’t be enough, a certain point of the wheel might pass in front of it without it being necessary to do a complete rotation, the wheel might oscillate for example. Therefore, I posed three sensors (A, B, C) next to each other at the base of the wheel, as illustrated below.

In this way I will count a rotation only when the magnet passes A-B clockwise.

C, posed between A and B will simply stop the timer.

A-B count A-C don’t count B-C don’t count

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The values to take in consideration are reported by two timers:

TA

TB

TA = takes time of each rotation.

TB = takes the overall time.

It counts A-B clockwise

It counts the time from the beginning of the interaction = 0 + the first time value imported by TA, till the end of the interaction = 10 seconds after the last input received by TA. It will be assumed that if there have been no rotations for 10 seconds the user has concluded its performance.

Process: 1 - Time is taken for each wheel rotation and multiplying that by the wheel circumference, speed is obtained.

2 - As soon as the performance finishes the times of each rotation are added up, giving the total performance time.

3 - Users are asked to enter their name and weight.

4 - Weight entered replaces the default weight of 60kg (see on the right) and calories are recalculated.

5 - New data are placed in the leaderboard.

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Arduino - will basically feed only the time taken each rotation.

Node.js - creates the connection between the Arduino and the web browser.

- exports rotation speed value and does the calculations to obtain Energy Produced and Calories Burned values.

Socket.IO - allows a two way communication between user inputs on the website and the Javascript code.

HTML5 - canvas are used for the animations (bars rising and wheel turning) on the webpages illustrated on page 16.

Form and leaderboard are built in HTML and data is fed through Javascript.

VALUE CALCULATIONS: People need to enter their weight to calculate the right amount of calories.

Calories burned = (speed * time) * (1,05 * time) * 60 [average person weight] Energy produced = time [in seconds] * 0.0008 [3W energy produced by the dynamo, divided in seconds]

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The human-sized hamster wheel The finished product.

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