The Mat (Food Security)
Challenge: How can we contribute to food security by decreasing the loss and waste of food?
An adaptable platform designed to create a connection between people and food, using real-time sensing technology to remove any uncertainties regarding freshness and taste. We can’t make one product that covers each and every one of your needs, but we can create a protocol, a common language, which connects different products and services. Combined, it has an unlimited potential to change the world. We can pinpoint where waste is happening and which areas are over producing food, and consequently avoid billions of tons of waste.
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INDE (Enhancing movement)
Challenge: How can we design a viable system, that allows people to restore or enhance their ability to move?
INDE: How to prevent hip fractures among elderly women? INDE is the concept of outcome from the second Challenge-Based Innovation (CBI) course organised in collaboration with CERN and multiple universities worldwide. The multi-disciplinary student team from Aalto University schools of Art & Design, Business and Engineering, ESADE Business School, IED and UPC Catalunya.
The team was given the assignment to enhance mobility. By looking to various forms of immobility, the team soon found out that a major issue in our society is the growing amount of problems related to old age. With this information, the team started looking into the significance of issues related to the falls and hip fractures caused by these falls among elderly people. The team also found out that 80% of hip fractures happen to the elderly women due to higher risk of osteoporosis and therefore the team found it reasonable to put emphasis on the women’s protective clothing.
The final working prototype presented at the CERN CBI gala by the team was a skirt attached with a reusable auto-inflator device and machine-learning algorithm to detect the fall patterns. With use of gyroscopes, accelerometers and charged carbon dioxide, auto inflation takes place before the person wearing the device hits the ground.
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EMMA (Human sensory experience)
Challenge: How can we create a system for replicating human sensory experience over distance?
We all experience minor incidents of forgetfulness, but can you imagine the difficulties faced by those with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease… most can’t.Team Maxwell has developed EMMA; External Memory, Monitoring and Assist to improve the lives of sufferers.
By using advanced artificial intelligence to learn about the user, detect episodes of disorientation, confusion and panic and use this information to present appropriate information via an intuitive interface. EMMA is invaluable as an aid in maintaining independence and confidence in during the difficult early stages of Alzheimer’s or for anyone with MCI.
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Blinx (3D sensing for the visually impaired)
Challenge: How can we provide a visually impaired person an improved way to experience the world and function satisfactorily in complex environments?
The world is built for people with sight and mostly the information of the environment is delivered visually. Learning your environment becomes very difficult if you cannot see properly. For the visually impaired, team Heisenberg created the ‘BLINX’. It’s an image processor worn on the wrist which gives a tactile stimulus through vibrations when the direction of the desired item is found. It is based on image processing technology and we vision it to scale up to finding objects from just giving reference points. We believe better information leads to better decisions and giving better life. Blinx is a step into that direction.
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Sensing Interactions
Challenge: How can we design a wearable system that allows the wearers to access information about their effect on others around them by deepening the understanding of these interactions?
RIIPPL is a personal social skills training system. It is designed to assist people with social skills challenges such as Asperger’s Syndrome. These skill are essential for navigating the complexities of the world — for managing conflict, emotional resilience, developing fulfilling relationships and success at school and work. Just as fitness bands track physical exercise, RIIPPL will use wearables devices to collect data about how we interact with others. Using pattern recognition software, will identify social situations which make a user anxious and skills that are causing problems, like making conversational. It can suggest training exercises and challenges, track progress and provide real-time feedback and encouragement.
The goal is to empower users to develop the skills they need to confidently engage with others and realise their full potential.
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Sensing Spaces
Challenge: How can we empower the individuals to affect their surroundings by using a combination of environmental data and interpretations of human behaviors? And how could we enhance this with context‐aware, personalized and anticipatory services on e.g. well being, security and safety?
While systems already exist for making the home and industrial workplaces more comfortable and productive, everyday work spaces like offices, small shops, and hotels do not have good access to these solutions. Unfortunately, this means that for most Facility Managers, knowledge of what is happening inside the buildings they manage is almost non-existent. Our solution, therefore, focused on getting information from the building to the Facility Manager.
We decided to use sound to capture the sonic biorhythm of the entire space which allows an intelligent software application to detect when things go wrong, many times even before the failures become expensive problems. We also created an easy way for the people within the buildings to tell the Facility Manager what is happening from a human perspective. By combining these two information gathering methods, our solution gives the Facility Manager a holistic view of the buildings they manage in order to prevent, maintain, and improve the quality of everyday spaces.
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