UIUX | INTERACTIVE DESIGNER | TECHNOLOGIST
CHILD'S BEST FRIEND: MORRIE
Substitute Pet for Adolescence Education
Child's Best Friend: MORRIE (2020)
I love animals, and have always been the kid running off to pet a stray dog/cat/hamster/rabbit whenever my parents yell at me not to. Unfortunately, I have not been able to convince my parents to let me own a pet ever since my last hammy died and I cried and refused to eat/drink much for a week. (I was 12)
Without the luxury of having a pet, I substituted by having plenty of plush animals. I would shamelessly hint to my friends about "oh how I wished I owned a big plushie that I could hug to sleep" and they would give me a giant plushie with every celebration or event that happened.
With that said, for this Interactive Devices module, I decided that I really wanted to work with something I loved, and it had to be something which allowed me to enjoy the enduring process.
I decided to work with a plush toy. And to make my plush toy come alive- so that it would be as though my beloved plushie was like my pet. This gave life to my beloved lovely golden retriever, Morrie!
Child’s Best Friend: MORRIE is a handheld interactive substitute pet which aims to teach children how to treat their pets with proper care. It encourages children to learn how to care for them before getting a real pet. When I volunteered at SPCA, I've seen so many cases of reckless pet abandonment, which always made me really angry. Pets shouldn't be adopted on a whim and teaching people about this responsibility needs to begin with education from childhood.
Morrie, named after the inspirational and warm teacher from "Tuesdays with Morrie", aimed to educate children on what is the right way to treat a pet. Morrie was surgically modified to be embedded with Arduino components and Processing code. The components I used included Stroke Sensor (made with Conductive thread), Ultrasonic Sensor, Servo Motors, Force Sensitive Resistor, Arduino UNO, MP3 Module and Speakers.
When Morrie is gently stroked on the head, it will whine with longing and happiness. When Morrie is hit (or is pressed on hard), it will whine in pain. If Morrie is left alone for too long, it will start to whimper in loneliness. When someone approaches Morrie, it will nod its head and wag its tail as it is no longer lonely and has company.
Morrie's functions are as follows:
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By stroking Morrie's head, the conductive thread acts as a stroke sensor to tell Arduino that contact has been made, which will trigger an audio recording from the Arduino MP3 Module.
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By hitting Morrie, the FSR (Force Sensitive Resistor) will detect a force that exceeds a Newton limit set. Upon exceeding the threshold, it will trigger the Arduino MP3 Module to play a different track.
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By having someone approach Morrie, it will trigger an Ultrasonic Sensor (embedded in its collar) which can detect movement within a distance threshold set in the Arduino code. Upon detecting movement, it will trigger the servo motors to move Morrie's head and tail.
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When the ultrasonic sensor does not detect any movement within a set duration, it will trigger the Arduino MP3 Module to play a third track (loneliness). Upon detection of movement again, the audio will stop and trigger the other condition (servo motor movement) instead.
Morrie's head and tummy was cut open to fit all the Arduino components, backbone and portable charger inside its body. The head was subsequently sewn back up with conductive thread for the stroke sensor.
Making this project was really fun! We had a semester showcase to present our final projects for the module, and I was very happy to see that everyone loved Morrie and treated Morrie kindly. Morrie was loved, and it became a very endearing memory for me.