(1) Prenatal Public Chair: Subway Seating Solution for Expecting Mothers
Exhibited in International Design Factory WEek 2017
- Key Research Question: How can subway seats be guaranteed for expecting mothers without making the seat unusable when there is no expecting mother onboard?
- Tools Used: Postgres DB, Heroku, KakaoTalk API and barcode generation using Python
PPUCHA, or the Prenatal PUblic CHAir, was developed to help alleviate some of the struggles pregnant women face in the public sphere, particularly on subways. Many argue that the current priority seats are inefficient, as they prevent people from sitting down when there are no pregnant women on board. In order to address these concerns, the developers of PPUCHA set out to design a system that will allow non-pregnant users to sit down, while simultaneously inducing them to yield their seat when a pregnant woman boards the train. PPUCHA utilizes the KakaoTalk Chatbot/Plus Friend system and barcode scanners to ensure that expecting mothers will be able to sit. The media content that plays in the back will socially “shame” nonpregnant users to give up their seats when a pregnant user scans their codes. In addition, the development team of PPUCHA created a website which can be accessed via a QR code, to share information on healthcare, laws, and social benefits in place for expecting mothers.
(2) Superman Support Box: Reaching out to Unpaid Caregivers in Porto
Technical COnsultation to Cuidadores
- Key Research Question: How can Cuidadores reach as many unpaid caregivers as possible without the use of phones?
- Tools Used: Arduino, Force Pressure Sensor, GPS Sensor, 3D Printer
Cuidadores is a company that has an objective to help as many unpaid carers in Porto as possible. The unpaid carers in Porto are mostly the aged population and do not have access to mobile phones or the internet. Also, they do not receive government aid and are left stranded without access to support of any kind: emotional or financial. Thus, Cuidadores has presented the asynchronous distributed teams with the challenge of reaching as many unpaid caregivers as possible. The idea implemented in the final prototyping stage was giving the carers the Superman Support Button (SSB) and a pamphlet with information about what Cuidadores provides to the carers at the top and a checklist examining the health of the carers at the bottom. Caregivers would receive SSB and pamphlets at pharmacies or hospitals after Cuidadores has established partnerships with such institutions. It operates by detecting the pressure placed upon the force pressure sensor which turns on the GPS sensor. The location obtained by the GPS sensor is sent to Cuidadores via email and Cuidadores would be able to reach numerous unpaid caregivers without the use of phones or the internet.
