Skip navigation

… design: final

Final Design

Finally, we realized that a leaf-shaped device was maybe too literal.

We thought about a cube. It is a very simple shape, nice to carry with you and quite abstract, not too linked with certain types of plants. In addition, it allows to control up to six plants at the same time, one for each face, without having too many things with you. It could be not invasive or cumbersome, just a little object to carry always with yourself, maybe as a pendant to put in a necklace or as a sort of keyring.

After deciding the general design for the device, we started trying some simple graphics to apply on its faces. A very important aspect is having some holes on each face for a light to come out, which is a signal for the “health” of the plant (level of water content of soil). Light has different colour on each face, according to the plant it is linked to.

Then we realized some quick and dirty models in cardboard to visualize and touch the cube shape. We decided that the real size would be 3 x 3 x 3 cm, because we believed it was good and convenient for the users, but for the very first tests we used a bigger size prototype (8 x 8 x 8 cm) to work easily. After the firs tests with sounds (using headphones), we made some holes for the audio too: they should also help the users to understand immediately where to put their ear.

To build the prototypes we used Forex: it is a white plastic material, homogeneous and flameproof, which was good for us since it is resistant but easy to work. Using it we could create rounded edges, as we would like the cube to have. 

We tried lots of different patterns to test which was better both for light, sound and the user interaction.

The chosen one, as you can see in “how it looks like” section, is a diagonal pattern that in a certain way recalls the leaf shape and its vein.
 
 
 
linfabeat | user experience | plants talk | how it looks like | how it works | first experiment | design: first concepts | design: final | prototype | code | credits | final consideration | downloads | research |