CSC Final Project: Week 2

This week, we visited the Child Study Center again to observe the children washing their hands and introduce our plan to Becky, the director of the center. While we got some constructive comment from Becky on our rough proposal, we couldn't observe the children washing their hands due to a temporary problem with the tap water. 

The importance of customer feedback/suggestions and adapting our model to the existing setup

As a reminder, our original idea was to help 2 to 4 year olds wash their hands more effectively and for long enough by building a feedback control system that would detect the weight of a child in front of the sink and activates three outputs:

i) a voice that encourages them to wash their hands followed by a shong about washing hands

ii) a row of LEDs that resemble the "loading..." bar and signal the passage of time

iii) Small cutouts of hands attached to servos that move back and forth resembling the motion of washing hands. 

Becky told us that the idea sounds doable but added a few tips to better serve the center's needs and interests. Here are some of the features she recommended:

i) A way to either shut off or reduce volume for "quiet times" in the building

We plan to build a potentiometer into our system to give the teachers at the center this control.

ii) To incorporate pictures (like they have in front of the sinks at the center) into the "loading..." LEDs. This is important because the children tend to forget the visual cue exists after they get used to it and they need something to draw their attention. 

We plan to enlarge their visual cues (figure 1) and orient the LEDs such that each LED stands above or behind a cartoon that describes a certain procedure and lights up only when it is time for the child to be that particular stage of washing their hands.

Figure 1: Existing visual cue at the center

iii) To make the weight sensor or button we would use to sense the presence of a child in front of the sink flexible to sit on a stool or on the ground. Some kids are shorter than others and need to stand on a stool to reach the sink. By either building two buttons as sensors (one on the stool one on the floor) or by building one that can be moved to either level, we will serve children of all heights.

Figure 2: Stools for shorter children at the center

We incorporated these tips to our plan before we formally presented our idea to the client on Friday, April 8th.