While at New Deal Design, I worked on Sproutling, a new wearable baby monitor system.

This was an example of ID getting ahead of the technology. The design was beautiful and fulfilled many of the requirements, like removable washable straps and not being a choking hazard, but it was created before we had a working prototype in hand. It turned out that the sensor needed a narrow range of application pressure to give a useful reading. So, my job was to figure out how to make it work with as few changes to the ID intent as possible.

Without a working prototype from the client, I created my own with similar readily available equipment and used an Arduino to condition and read the signal and Processing to provide a GUI output for analysis and real-time output comparison.

Development highlights:

• Created an ad-hoc sensor rig and analysis method (Arduino and Processing)
• Sensitivity analysis for pressure and placement of sensor
• Geometry analysis for the housing to determine the greatest forgiveness for misalignment
• Tensile analysis for the strap to determine the greatest comfort, pressure, and ease of application
• Created scoring rubrics to evaluate each concept
• Site visits with the client's EE to brainstorm, test, and validate the sensor circuitry
• Provided alternate architectures that would be more robust