Final Project: Brainstorming

The Need:
The problem which our projects seeks to address is that the children often have trouble getting settled onto their mats during group time when they are supposed to be paying attention to the teacher. Another additional problem related to the mats is that the kids sometimes have trouble staying on the mat once they get settled because they want to squirm around. The teacher expressed a greater interest in getting the children to settle on their mats initially.

Initial Idea:

Our initial thought was to have a mat with four different sections, each with one of the 4 colors red, blue, yellow, or green. The teacher would have a switch which would control which part of the mat the children needed to sit on in case the children are getting restless.

Possible Problems:

1. Four Sections could be too large for the size of the classroom
2. If they were connected to a wire that the teacher controlled then there would be a lot of wires from 16 mats. The wires could become a hazard and a distraction to the children as well as being cumbersome to put away and get back out.
3. A switch wouldn't be visible enough to the children; they need reinforcement from many different senses

Edited Idea:
Having considered the possible flaws of our initial design we decided that the new design would only have two colored sections in order to save space. We would also like to look into a wireless approach to controlling the mats. We also decided to create a spinning mechanism that could be spun like a carnival wheel to create a fun way for the kids to choose which color they get to sit on. The teacher would also be able to more discretely adjust the spinner without making it super exciting or distracting so that she could refocus the children during group time.

Types of Sensors:

We considered many different kinds of sensors before landing on a final preference of the weight or Button touch sensor.

• Touch Sensor: The touch sensor is the same one that we used on our sciborg. If we were to use these in our design we would need several to be under the mat on a hard surface in order to pick up whether or not the child was on the mat. Our concerns with this approach is how comfortable the mats would be and  making sure that all parts of the section would set off the sensor. We could possibly have a layer of wood, then the sensor, then a layer of stiffer material, then the mats.
• Light Sensor: The light sensor would sense whether or not the child was blocking the light in order to figure out if they are on their mats or not. A problem with this is that the light sensor would have to be poking through the mat which would be uncomfortable and possible encourage the children to pick at it.
• Weight Sensor: We aren't sure if this is within our budget, but a weight sensor that is able to detect the weight of the child rather than just telling whether or not the button is pressed in or not, would be very useful. This way the child could be on any part of the mat and the child wouldn't be able to trick the sensor like the light sensor or possibly the button sensor.
• Color Sensor: The color sensor would be used on the spinner to see which color the arrow landed on.
• Light and Dark Sensor: The light and dark sensor could also be used to pick up the color differences between red and blue.

Moving Forward:

Our next step in this process is to go to the classroom to observe group time and run the idea behind the teacher to see if she has any concerns and to help us answer some lingering questions we have.