AROMA-TICK
PROJECT OVERVIEW
My team and I wanted to design a new utilization of the senses for enhanced interaction between human and product. Therefore, we came up with a clock that a human can tell time with scent. Our professor gave us the goal to create at least a simulation rather than a final high-fidelity product.
Personal Takeaways: Smells can help regulate a person’s energy, so people had great ideas to put energizing smells in the morning and soothing smells in the evening. While this product might never take off, the Aroma-tick clock was a great way to learn that experience might benefit to involve all senses rather than just one.
PROCESS
INNOVATION OF APPLYING SENSES
We wanted product to be personalized where the user has the control of choosing at what specific time a particular scent will be emitted. Because scent is a strong yet sometimes overlooked sense, we wanted to magnify the importance of time through this subliminal reminder with scent. Some scents can evoke various feelings such as urgency, calming, and productivity, so this indicates that the user can utilize the feelings associated with particular scents to remind them of the day rather than looking at the clock.
EXECUTION
We knew that with the time constraints and limitation of sources, the only way to make this clock work is to fake it. We cut out a clock face with white acrylic and filled vials with colored water which we chose would correspond with specific essential oils we bought. Then, we had a motor rotate a mechanism that held the different scents (cotton balls) and a fan will blow air through the mesh and cotton ball and consequently blow a scent out of the hole of the face. The rotating platform also holds a color sensor that senses the color of the vials and emits a color through an LED.
