Gather Ring Dec 2013

  1. Home
  2. Gather Ring

Project Description

The Gather Ring bracelet was the final project for Tangible User Interface course (Fall 2013). The Gather Ring was designed to monitor and enhance adolescent social development through capturing play activity during the recess of elementary schools. During recess, the Gather Ring bracelet tracks gestures and interactions among children. To do this, the Gather Ring bracelet utilizes several sensors and output devices. The Gather Ring bracelet encourages positive social interaction among children and enables teachers to have the ability to be more aware of the social dynamics and development by monitoring childrens’ play activity.

Read the Project Report: word(.doc) or pdf

Technical Description

The Gather Ring was prototyped using the Arduino hardware platform and programmed using C++. The Gather Ring has four key technical capabilities described.

Github Code: https://github.com/christopherfan/GatherRing

Key Capabilities

  • Identity Aware : Each bracelet will have a unique identifier. Every student will be given a device that is unique to them so that it can be measured over time. This was implemented using the Arduino non-volatile memory.
  • Wireless Data Transfer: Each Gather Ring uses a 315mhz radio receiver and transmitter to interact with other nearby Gather Rings. I wrote a basic wireless protocol enabling simple handshake capabilities between two Gather Rings: publicize presence, receive data and acknowledgement.
  • Gesture Activation: Using gesture activation, the bracelet can capture explicit positive intent that a child wants to play with another child. Children can activate the device through a physical gesture with their hands, arms and wrists. Gesture input captured using an accelerometer (ADXL345).
  • Input/Output Coincidence: The bracelet communicates to the world with visible LED lights that are visible to the wearer and nearby children during daylight. The Adafruit NeoPixel Ring was used to create RGB light states across 16 controllable LEDs.
  • Data Capture: When two bracelets are both in an “active” state triggered by the gesture, the bracelets will communicate with each other and store information about the interaction. The information recorded with be very basic consisting of: [Bracelet # ][Bracelet Interacted] [Date/Time].

Related Projects