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Power Playground
An interactive exhibit to educate children about the future of energy through play
My Role:
• Conducted user interviews
• Conducted secondary research, through documentaries, articles and research papers.
• Contributed in creating physical and digital prototypes with piezoelectric sensors, and solar panels and motors
• Conducted user testing with children
* Helped in drafting the proposal
The Team:
2 UX Researchers and
Designers
Duration:
3 months
Product Type:
Physical toys
Overview
Power Playground is a space that consists of toys that help children understand the concept of renewable energy through play. It consists of 6 toys that can be placed indoors as well as outdoors, designed and prototyped for MuSo (Museum of Solutions), an up and coming children's museum in Mumbai. As required by MuSo the toy concept takes inspiration from the UN's SDGs (Sustainable developmental goals). Particularly Sustainable Production and Consumption, which is 1 of the UN's SDG's.
We decided to pick
focusing on renewable and alternative ways of producing electricity.
Because:
• The impact air pollution in India is very dire, it has deteriorated the quality of air and has started to affect the health of many Indians.
• To educate the next generation of children about the repercussions of what society will become if we carry on like this will help them envision a better future.
We mapped all the ways energy is produced in India. From our research we discovered that energy in India is primarily created through coal power plants. Although there have been efforts to provide more renewable options, coal remains the dominant source of production of electricity in the country.
SDG's
SDG's
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Who are we designing for?
We decided to pick children from between the ages of 8-and 12. Unfortunately due to the stigma around meeting new people during COVID, we had a limited number of participants.
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Who is our target audience?
Say hello to Riyan!
“I like practicals not theory. You just can't learn to click in theory you have to do it to learn ”
Name: Riyan
Age: 13
Occupation: Student
GOALS:
• To take part in practical learning for better retention
• Learn through doing
• An opportunity to explore and be curious
NEEDS:
• Modes of learning that sparks natural curiosity
• A structured way of learning by doing
• Access to such modes of learning
FRUSTRATIONS:
• Schools usually put more emphasis on theory based learning
• Enjoys the subjects but not the way that they are taught
• There is a lot of emphasis on marks and not on explorative learning
BEHAVIORS:
• Likes to code: Javascript HTML, CSS, can code websites and web apps.
• Enjoys practical learning over theory in classes such as science and computers.
• Likes to play Minecraft and board games. (online building with friends).
What problem is he facing?
Riyan is tired of theory based learning whose emphasis is primarily on scoring the highest marks
He needs a more engaging and fun way of learning that sparks his natural curiosity, that helps him apply the concepts he has just learned
How to design for children?
To gain a better understanding of Play, we pulled inspiration from Gail Ringle and Cal Holman
Insights from Cal Holman's Abstract documentary series (Design for Play) :
Start by designing the experience and then work her way from there.
They need to be given the opportunity to be creative and design their own play.
The importance of asking the right questions to inspire creative answers. Ex: what were you curious about not what did you learn.
Play needs to be exciting where children encounter situations, circumstances and unfamiliarities that present the opportunity to learn.
Insights from Gail Ringel's Designing exhibits for Kids
To create a memorable experience for children collect naive notions of the concept you are exploring, so you can provide more clarity in those areas with your exhibit.
The design varies from age ground, younger children aged 8-10, like breaking and making their own rules, older kids 10-13 like following structured rules, to achieve the end goal.
The interactions must be challenging but achievable to capture children’s curiosity and to later inspire them to learn from experts in their area of interest.
Start with ideas they have a reasonable chance of being understood. By identifying words and phrases children use to describe their world. It gives you better understanding of the way children think.
Defining Play
What did play look like before toys? Children are more than capable of creating their own play, we just needed to provide them with the right tools to do so.
In order to create open ended play where children have agency over what they create. We crafted our own definition of play and used that to guide the experience.
Play is exploration-based learning where the learner holds agency for what and how they learn.
Examples of open ended play
Examples of open ended play
Examples of open ended play
Design Principles
After exploring many approaches we set down some design principles
1. Closed Start, open-ended - Providing limited options at the start of an experience but having no constraints on how the given options are used/applied.
2. Collaborative Play - encouraging participants to interact with others to achieve a goal.
3. Self-explanatory - no instruction or outside help required.
Prototyping and Material Exploration
After conducting our research we started creating prototypes to gauge which interactions had the most amount of engagement with children and what concepts were they able to grab quicker.
A peephole camera that on rotating a handle, showed a series of images that explained the production and distribution of energy.
An experiment, where we constructed a motor with copper coils, magnets and foil, and tested it by powering it with a battery.
A game where on a given piece of land, according to the grid, one needs to place renewables in places they are best suited for, to understand the limitations and potential of renewable energy.
Prototyping for Testing
We conducted user testing by introducing 2 different modes of interaction to test what is the most engaging interaction
Experience 1
An AR-based experience that takes you through the process of energy production from the coal mine to the switch in your house.
Experience 2
A block-based puzzle, depicting the distribution of energy from the plant to your house. Each block had one right answer and 5 wrong answers. Participants need to figure out which face has the correct answer on each box and assemble it in the right order.
Observation and Insights
Criteria To Test :
1. Map “naive notions”.
2. What sort of response do different mediums provide?
3. How interesting is an interaction in this format?
4. What information is retained and returned?
Takeaway from user Testing
The interactions were measured on their rote learning effectiveness.
Technology-based interactions are exciting and memorable and her retaining information she learned with that experience.
The common fault across our exercises was the requirement for external assistance to navigate the exercise.
Linear exercises require success at each stag, which will be time consuming and make her lose interest in the progress.
Decided to move away from current methods of production entirely as it is already covered in the standard curriculum
Ideation
1. How might we use tangible mediums to explain energy.
2. How might we use energy to explain energy.
3. How might we explain energy through digital interfaces.
4. What existing interactions could be made more fun if scaled up?
5. How might we combine tactile and digital interfaces.
After considering many Ideas for the Exhibit we concluded on one
Define
Power playground
A playground is a familiar space where unwritten rules are already understood by all. It's a space where collaboration is often required to play. A play-based space allows energy to be presented in a familiar environment and when integrated seamlessly allows the process of understanding and learning to be made engaging and fun rather than focus showcase current methods, their benefits and fallout. The playground setting allows learners to actively participate in the production process and immediately see/interact with the product of their actions.
On deciding the direction, we started to prototype different ways we can incorporate energy into the classic playground, and how can it seamlessly be integrated into the experience. Here are some of our iterations for the implementation of these devices.
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Trial and Errors in Making
Exploring solar Technology
We looked at an existing solar power toy, that could transform into different appliances with limited parts. We further used the solar panel to test our own prototype for our solar exhibit.
First, we tried to replace the sun, so the exhibit is functional even on cloudy days and evenings. We used a halogen light as it's the only light the solar panel responds to. So we decided to bounce that light off of mirrors, so the children can decide where on the solar panel board they want to point, and for that, the light needs to hit the mirror at a certain angle, achievable through a concave mirror. To replicate the concave shape we used a TV Dish and placed mirrors on top to reflect the light onto the solar panel.
We had difficulties with the halogen lamp as it was heating up too much, and was releasing fumes which became a safety hazard for us and the light bounced by the mirror could potentially hurt someone.
We tried bouncing the light through actual sunlight with a panel that was foldable and rectangular. That seemed to work much better. We decided to work with natural light instead.
Stepper
For the stepper, we used piezoelectric sensors to create power by applying pressure. Through our tests, we noticed that slight pressure(standing on it) worked better than sudden and extreme pressure (jumping on it). To derive more current and still make the stepper fun to play with we decided to add a spring to the bottom, so when pressure is applied the mounted sensors will vibrate, and create energy when it is vibrating after the pressure has been applied and released.
Generator/ Ball /Slide
We picked up a lot of small pieces from a plumber, and a mechanic to see how the rotation of the pendulum would go and how it would produce energy, we tried to fit random nuts and parts together to see if we could get something that resembles this technology.
When we did we used the blending machine, to check whether the motor will produce energy or not, and then tried with the pendulum. It was definitely slow but if we used it for longer durations of time it did produce small amounts of charge that could light an LED for a couple of seconds.
Solar Wall
The solar wall is an interactive solar panel array which recharges from sunlight coming through windows. When a solar panel begins receiving lesser light it visualizes this information through corresponding LED's placed around, creating an array of reactive light blocks.
Final Renders
Solar Wall
The solar wall is an interactive solar panel array which recharges from sunlight coming through windows. When a solar panel begins receiving lesser light it visualizes this information through corresponding LED's placed around, creating an array of reactive light blocks.
Stepper
The power tiles allows the space designer to incentives users to take a specific path through their space while using the added traffic to produce electricity. Incentives can present themselves in multiple forms using each title as a light, sound, haptic or even an input device.
Each individual tile passes the ability to convert the energy from walking into electricity. Relying upon piezoelectric sensors or a gear system each tile would get pushed down and then spring up allowing the energy to be captured, stored and released through a variety of mediums.(light, sound, button input)
Ball
This ball is a simple toy made of plastic. When the ball is in motion it produces energy. The mechanism inside consists of a pendulum attached to a motor, as the pendulum spins the motor produces energy and stores it within a battery.
To use this energy, the ball has a removable lid, under which there is a USB cord that can be put into any input. The ball provides children to learn new things with the familiarity of a ball and learning through play itself.
Ropes
Multiple ropes which hanging from the ceiling, when jumped/hung upon the rope will slowly descend. The aim being to climb as high as possible before being pulled back to the ground.(the floor is lava)
The rope is wrapped around a geared motor which produces energy as the rope unfurls when a weight is placed on one end, the rope retract through timed spring allowing it to reach resting position safely.
Slide
The slide is made from a rigid barrel wrapped in cushioning material. As the children slide, LED's along the side of the slide activate, mirroring their movement.
Rotating barrels placed along the slide enable the user to move down the slide with ease while also capturing their kinetic energy through motors which are attached at the end of the barrels to produce electricity.
Due to the pandemic we couldn't execute all our final ideas other than the solar exhibit but through our prototyping we found the proof of concept for all the products and if executed how would they work. It was an extremely challenging and fun project to work on.
Storyboards
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