Abstract
Often, due to a divorce and the following moving of a parent from what we call home, relations between children and parents tend to decrease in quality and time spent together. The physical part of a relation disappears very quickly. farAway is a system to strengthen relations between parents and adolescent children that have to face a divorce, something that can give the possibility to share simple emotions and feelings, in order to create intimacy, without using the verbal communication. A way to keep the importance of the relation between son and parent, the importance of the presence of each other in each other’s life, but at the same time, something not invasive, in order to respect what are the needs of an adolescent.
How it works
Made by two connected devices that follow the organic shape of a flower, farAway is a system that allows users to interact with the objects through simple physical gestures, in order to share simple emotional messages. The system allows to share two kind of messages: an emotive connection, or a rage and dissent feeling. Each of this messages is represented by the devices through a light code, together with the form-shifting of it. In order to evoke the mental model of physical gestures related to human feelings, farAway react to two precise physical behaviors; if the device is held between the palm of the hands as something to take care of, thanks to a temperature sensor, the system will recognize the needs of sharing an emotive connection, and will show a slow pulsing light, while opening its petals.
If instead, there’s the needs of sharing a feeling related to a sort of rage and dissent, the user will apply some pressure on the device, as to stretch and break something, and, thanks to two force resistors, the system recognize the message to share, showing a flashing red light, while closing its petals.
The devices can communicate in real time through the Wi-Fi technology, but they are not associated to an external web or mobile system, and they can’t store messages, because farAway is a system strictly designed in order to make the two parts active, as if they were in the same physical place.
Report in Italian with abstract also in English published on ISUU