Week Nine: Device Prototyping
Experience
This week in studio, we had to chose from a multitude of scenarios to generate three potential concepts and prototypes using Little Bits. I had never used Little Bits before, but after watching a quick introductory video, I anticipated the prototyping process to be reasonably simple. After playing around with the different pieces of the Little Bits, my partner and I chose to design a prototype that focused on when your roommate played music too loud. We knew that all of our prototypes would need the sound detector piece from our Little Bits, so our first step was to think about how we could bring attention to the roommate.
Figuring out how to use Little Bits for our chosen design challenges and brainstorming concept and prototyping ideas
Our first prototype set the sound sensor so that when a certain sound level was reached, the device would ring an even louder buzzer to notify the roommate.Ā Another concept was a counter that kept track of how many times the roommateās music volume met the level of sensitivity of the attached sound detector, as more of a form of documentation.
Top: The scenario drawing for our first prototype concept with a sound detector and buzzer
Bottom: A closer look at the individual pieces to the mentioned prototype (left to right): battery (power source), sensitivity adjuster, sound detector, and buzzer.
Our last concept was a little more mischievous because we decided to have some fun with the speaker attachment and MP3 player. If the roommateās music met the sound detectorās level of sensitivity, the other roommate could blast their own music right back!Ā
Our Prototype Video!
My partner and I drawing out our scenarios for each concept of our design challenge
Reflection
This was my first time using Little Bits and it was definitely a pleasant experience. It exercised my creativity and imagination and was especially fun to play around with! I have never liked working with physical technology, favoring software in comparison, but this sprint was eye-opening for the fact that I witnessed my mind and hands create and recreate original things out of these Little Bits that I didnāt know I could. A problem my partner and I had with this sprint was thinking outside of each concept and not coming up with convergent ideas, like different forms of notification for the roommate. I think the next time I use Little Bits Iād like to have a bigger box set with more pieces to work with since the oneās in studio were limited to a set number.
What did I like most about this experience?
I think the simplicity and creative liberty that comes with using Little Bits is what made this experience so enjoyable for me. In the fifteen minutes that we had to experiment and explore the possible sequences and devices we could make out of these magnetic parts was so much fun, even humorous when different groups discovered how to make the little high-pitched buzzer work. I especially liked how the lack of complexity, creating little devices for a multitude of uses, managed to shed light on the bigger concept of low-fidelity prototyping and little ideas can grow in advancement and design to become something remarkable.
The set of Little Bits pieces and materials we used in studio








