Emotional Box
Create a box to specified dimensions that, through the way a person interacts with it, conveys a specified emotion.
CHALLENGE:
Build a box that, using materials, sounds, smells, and movements conveys a particular emotion to the user.
ACTION:
Tasked with conveying apprehension to our users, we naturally made our box look and act spooky to make users apprehensive about approaching it. We even went so far as to add dry ice and lights to get eerie steam to pour from it in the final demo. Fun stuff!
OUTCOME:
The box made everyone in the room apprehensive, including members of our own team. For once, having a professor be uncomfortable with our project meant it was successful!
The Design Process
The brainstorming session we had as a team to come up with ways to make our users uncomfortable was one of the most fun brainstorming sessions I've ever been a part of. We had so many wild ideas that we very quickly realized we would have to dial back our ambition to be able to build the box in the two week time frame that we were given. With the need for some constraints, we chose to focus on three senses as our primary sources of direction: sight, sound, and touch.
Visually, we wanted the box to look intimidating. We also thought it should move around on the table as the user approached it to make the user extra apprehensive. The tactile response from the user touching the box should also cause apprehension, so we decided on vibrations and an unexpected temperature change as our methods of attack. For the last bit of smoky, we decided that the box should make creepy sounds too.
Fabrication and Testing
The box was constructed from aluminum sheet metal because aluminum conducts heat well. This was important because we wanted to startle our users by making the box uncomfortably and unexpectedly cold to the touch. The temperature change was accomplished by filling a small inner section of the box with dry ice, which had the added benefit of giving off eerie steam. We added an array of LED lights in an effort to give the steam spooky colors.
The box contained three servo motors: one for popping the lid open and two for moving the box back and forth on the table. The box also contained two vibration motors attached to the lid that made the lid tingle in the users hands. The side of the box not shown in the image to the right also contained a small speaker. The speaker was programmed to play insect noises via a Teensyduino PCB. A small range finder was used to sense when a user was approaching and trigger the movements from the box.
The Finished Product
The finished apprehension box might look a little rough around the edges, but it more than did its job. In fact, it worked so well that half of the people that approached the box didn't have the courage to open it on their own. The unpredictable movements, creepy sounds, and vibrating lid worked as planned and made sure that everyone in the room was a little bit nervous to approach the box.
In addition to being an incredibly fun project, the apprehension box was also a proving ground for our team's product interaction skills. We were able to use our understanding of the human body's sensory perception and basic cognitive function to trigger a specific emotional response in users.
Project Photo Gallery
