Intro:
The idea I came up with for my final project analysis are bedsheets that are able to cool you off when temperatures begin to rise on a hot day. Many of us can relate to the difficulties of falling asleep at night when outside temperatures are significantly hot. With these sheets, a temperature gage senses the temperature in the room and activates a cooling mechanism in the bedsheets to keep you cool during those hot nights.
What the technology is for and who might use and benefit from it:
This technology in particular would be for anyone who has nights where they find themselves uncomfortably hot which as a result, find it hard to sleep.
How it relates to or re-imagines other computing technology:
The closest computing technology that this relates to, in my opinion, is just a normal air conditioning unit. I believe the fancier units can auto adjust the inside temperature. But, I haven’t been able to find anything substantial that shows an AC unit changing the cooling temperature based on the temperature outside.
Define the Problem:
For people who don’t have air conditioning and live in an area that experiences any kind of hot weather, a typical problem they face is trouble falling asleep at night. The hot temperature causes people to feel uncomfortable which leads to people having a tougher time falling asleep.
Background Research:
Based on the research I have done, the only remedies for this problem that currently exist are either getting a home air conditioner or getting a specialized fan that blows air underneath your bedsheets. While an air conditioner certainly would fix the problem, home AC units typically are very expensive. And while the specialized fan for your sheets would help this problem, it wouldn’t completely cool your sheets.
Specific Requirements:
In order to create these cooling sheets, the requirements needed would be a temperature gauge, sheets with special cooling gel in them, and a wifi switchboard. There should also be a electrical system attached to the sheets that can receive the notification from the temp gauge via wifi and activates the cooling system.
Solution:
Have bed sheets that have a cooling gel (similar to the gel in ice packs) inside the sheets that activate via wifi when the temperature gauge in the room begins to sense higher temperatures. The gel should adjust how cool the sheets are based on the how hot it is in the room.
Design:
Description:
The product will have two parts, the sheets and the temperature gauge. The temp gauge will be outside of the bedsheets so it can get a good reading of the temperature of the room. Once the temperature of the room begins to rise, the gauge will send a ping to the sheets to start the cooling process. Users will be able to set an initial temperature to have the sheets begin activating if the temperature get to or past the inputted degrees. The more the temperature rises, the cooler the sheets will become.
Flowchart:
Model:
User Interface:
Essentially, the user should know that the system is working if the sheets become cooled once the temperature in the room rises. The user should also see the current temperature displayed on the gauge as well as the user’s inputted temperature that will trigger the sheets to cool.
Logic:
The logic that would be used by the system would check two things. The first check would be to see if the temperature has reached the user’s inputted threshold. Once that’s has been reached and the sheets begin to activate the cooling, the system should continue to check if the heat is rising or falling. If the heat continues to rise, the sheets should continue to get even cooler and stay activated. If the temperature is falling, the sheets should continue to get less cool.
Pseudocode:
If temperature reaches user’s input
Send notification to sheets to begin cooling.
If temperature continues to rise
Cool sheets more.
Else if temperature starts to fall
Cool sheets less.
Else
Keep current coolness of sheets.
Else do nothing
Send notification to sheets to begin cooling.
If temperature continues to rise
Cool sheets more.
Else if temperature starts to fall
Cool sheets less.
Else
Keep current coolness of sheets.
Else do nothing
How it relates to the six key concepts:
Logic:
The system being used is performing a logic sequence to check if the surrounding temperature in the room will trigger an event. If the room temperature reaches a certain degree, the system will activate and cool down the sheets.
Decomposition:
There are three main components to this system. The first is the temperature gauge, the second is the wifi receiver on the sheets, and the third are the cooling sheets themselves. The temperature gauge reacts first by sensing the temperature to see if it needs to send a signal to the receiver. The receiver on the sheets is second to react as it is waiting for the signal via wifi from the temperature gauge in order to activate the sheets. Lastly, the sheets are last to react waiting for the receiver to tell the sheets when to start cooling.
Pattern Recognition:
The main pattern that the system is going to pick up is the temperature not reaching its activating point. Therefore, the pattern that the system routinely accomplishes is the act of doing nothing while sensing the room temperature. If the temperature continues to rise in the room, however, there could be a pattern present of having the sheets continually increase its cooling affects.
Abstraction:
With this system, the goal of the design is to give the user “air conditioning” for their bedsheets. The receiver on the sheets would send some sort of electrical stimulation to the sheets that would cause them to feel relatively cold compared to the temperature in the room. This will allow the user to feel cool and comfortable while sleeping in a normally hot or uncomfortable room.
Algorithmic Thinking:
To solve the problem presented using this system, the system will perform a sequence of events from the three main components listed above. First, with the temperature gauge outside the bedsheets, it will sense the current temperature in the room. If the temperature reaches a certain degree, the gauge will send a ping via wifi to the bedsheets to begin cooling the sheets. It the room temperature does not reach the initial set temperature by the user, the gauge will do nothing. Second, the wifi receiver attached the bedsheets waits to receive the ping from the temperature gauge. If the signal is received from the gauge, the receiver will activate the sheets to cool the bed. If the signal is not received from the gauge, the receiver will do nothing. Third, the sheets wait to be activated by the receiver to cool the bed. If the receiver activates the bedsheets, the sheets will begin to cool and will continue to cool even more if the temperature keeps rising. If the sheets are not activated by the receiver, then the sheets will do nothing.
Evaluation:
To test this system, the most efficient process would be to try these sheets out in a temperature controlled room. Initially, the test should see if the sheets activate after the user inputs a temperature degree that the sheets should activate at and adjust the room temperature to meet that requirement. After that test is completed, the next test should see how the sheets react to consistently rising room temperatures. This will see if the sheets continue to cool alongside the rising temperatures.
Reflection:
Through the design process, the functionality and practicality of this design should be very possible. The biggest limitations that this design faces are the cooling material inside the sheets and how well the activation process is once the signal is received from the temperature gage. The other possible limitation could be how reliable the temperature gage is for reading room temperature. A re-design for this that could solve the issue of the temperature gage failing is to give the user full control over the cooling of the sheets. The user could be given a remote that manually cools the sheets regardless of the temperature in the room.