Related designs: Bedtime Stories

There are some parallels between current designs and the 'Teddy Share' concept developed last week. They allow a child will to have a sense of connection to a parent, and it can form part of a positive experience that the child would miss out on. This is done through recordings of bedtime stories.

http://www.astorybeforebed.com/military

This is a service for parents in the U.S. military. It provides storybooks for parents to read, and they can record them through the website and send both the books and recording to their children. It is usually paid for, but they are giving away 250,000 free books. It has had a massive positive response, and made it easy for parents to feel connected to their children and vice versa.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/3833723/Prisoners-to-record-bedtime-stories-for-children.html

There is an initiative for scottish prisoners to record videos of themselves reading bedtime stories for their children to watch on DVD.

Analysis

What i like about these products is the idea of 'connecting' remotely to a loved one specifically, instead of to many people. Also there is a specific context of use and user base: there is a valid 'need' to use the system and it enriches peoples lives. It has been tailored for the use of a specific audience.

There products are all still 'mementos'; although there is an element of intimacy, there is no sense of real-time involvement from both parties. This is where my product steps in. A presence-sensing device could be given to someone abroad, and they could trigger these stories in real time. It activates the memento. It could be compared to being able to turn on someone's TV from across the world so they are watching the same tv programme as you (explored via the 'share chair'). This device would fill a space that is currently being attempted to breach.

Sound is an option for this project, but there are many difficulties integrating sound into arduino projects due to its limited processing power. One option explored previous is the use of the Adafruit Wave Shield. However, this is expensive and uses up pins that may be needed for the xbee. Price is an important consideration when designing anything, and using these shields would add £70 plus. Another option is to hack an mp3 player, and there are lots of tutorials available online. Transistors could be use to remotely open and close switches as per the advice in this forum http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1217077559

There is a mp3 hacking tutorial here: http://halloweenjared.blogspot.com/2010/10/arduino-pir-and-mp3-oh-my.html

Having a look at some of the mp3 player on the market with push buttons that could be easily hacked, i've noticed that many also have the recording function. This could be useful within the 'teddy share' context as a parent could buy said device, record their stories without any extra equipment, and then ship that device and the storybooks to their child.

Note: Instructions have to be considered!