Party Machine Glove Controller
Conceptualizing and programming a remote glove controller
ROLE
DURATION
TEAM MEMBERS
Product Designer
3 weeks (May - Jun 2018)
Melody Xu
Chue Yang
Project Overview
For a class project, my team designed an entertainment system called the Party Machine. The Party Machine consists of three main components: the bubble maker, the controller glove, and the command center. My teammate Chue and I designed the controller, which is built into a glove.
Project Website: https://aansari0.wixsite.com/partymachine/glove
What Can It Do?
The Controller Glove is used to manipulate the output of bubbles made by the bubble maker built by my teammates. By flexing the fingers of the glove, the glove can regulate the amount of bubbles being produced. It can also control the movement of the Bubble Machine through hand gestures, and send data to the Command Center.
Ideation
I came up with the controller glove idea with the goals of improving accessibility. I wanted to design a remote controller that is different than a typical TV remote. My grandparents sometimes have trouble pressing the buttons on the TV remote, and I wanted to design a remote controller that is intuitive and easy to use. I imagined other ways to send commands using the hand.
How It Works
The controller glove is composed of a 6V battery, buttons, LED lights, flex sensors, an XBee, and an accelerometer. The flex sensor controls the amount of bubbles produced by the bubble maker and the accelerometer detects gestures that control the bubble maker's movements. The LED lights act as actuators to show change in sensor values. Buttons are used to turn on/off LED lights and stop the bubble maker's movements. The glove sends data through the XBee to both the command center and the bubble maker.
Here is a simple block diagram of my project that illustrates the major hardware components of the system and how they are connecting to the Arduino.
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When flexing fingers, the the flex sensor sends a flex value (0 = no bubbles, 1 = one bubble gun, 2 = two bubble guns) via XBee to command the amount of bubbles to be produced. The more the finger flexes, the more bubbles would be generated by the bubble maker.
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The accelerometer attached to the glove detects change in hand movement (such as moving the hand up and down). If there is enough change in one direction, it would send a message to the Bubble Maker, causing the bubble maker to rotate (or jitter).
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There is a button on the thumb that sends commands to stop the jitter motion of the bubble maker.
Here is a visual diagram of the electronic circuits for all major hardware components.
