Idea

Grandparents and elderly people have a lack of physical interaction and also lack the motivation to stay fit which usually leads to excess screen time usage by them.

Problem Statement

Grandparents spend most of their day being inactive and do not partake in any physical activities. This device aims at reducing their screen time usage while also keeping them physically active. To design a device which would keep grandparents busy with different activities as much as possible.

Constraints

1. It would need to be functional without an OLED screen
2. It would need to work across different Wi-Fi networks across cities
3. It must be user-friendly and easy to use
4. Rethink the feasibility of the project and if our idea was the best use for its capabilities
5. It must be aesthetically pleasing to look at
6. Solutions Brainstorming

After researching for similar products and solutions we were unable to find any device that addressed the problem like our project proposed to and most of the existing similar ideas were in the forms of apps, which neglects one of our primary concerns, limiting screen time usage. Some apps that had a similar idea of keeping elderly people more active include, ‘Map My Walk’, ‘Yoga Studio’ and ‘MedWatcher’. We were able to brainstorm an idea of a machine which promotes healthy competition, motivates elderly people to do physical activity and also reduces screen time usage.

Final Solution

We decided to begin bringing our idea to life through possible design sketches and required components for the idea. Then we made our paper prototype constructed out of soft-board, cotton, masking tape and a glue-gun. We were able to modify the design slightly and come up with a 3D representation of our project.

Design process – 4 GranActivity machines would be connected to each other through a server we had created using python and an ESP8266 board. After being connected to the same server, every day a new activity would be displayed on the LED Matrix which would indicate the activity for the day each grandparent needs to complete. After completing the activity, the grandparent simply needs to press the white button on the device and this would light up their light on all 4 devices, indicating that they have completed their daily activity task. Through this healthy competition, the grandparents would be motivated to complete their daily goal of doing a physical activity. After clicking the white button, it would send a request to the server which would then send a corresponding instruction to the other devices to switch on the particular LED.

Skills Used

Throughout the process of making our project we used various skills. We got a headstart on how to solder, 3D print and laser cut. We used laser cutter to cut out the wooden parts of device designed on CAD. Later, we used our IoT skills to create a client server model with two clients and one server and then send and receive data. The codes are available in the Source file.

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