The Evil Cookie Box

Create a prototype to help with limiting the overconsumption of cookies.

Role
Product designer

Skills used
Raspberry Pi, Python, Material exploration

Project
School

Year
2020

Time frame
3 weeks

TL;DR

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Watch the video

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TL;DR / Watch the video /

The background

Prototype a design concept using the Raspberry Pi.

  • Embodied iteraction. Embodiment not only through the physical manifestation of the spirit of an evil cookie box, but also through the use of the human body and tangibility when interacting with the cookie box.
    (Dourish, 2001)

  • Affective computing. Through affective computing and the development of empathy for its human users, digital artifacts might become more user-friendly and personal.

    Not the case here, however.

    Picard (1995)

  • Shaming. Inspired by “The Face of Litter” campaign that aims to stop littering in Hong Kong using shame.

    (“The face of litter”, 2015)

  • Continuous consumption. Mindless eating is a common problem. We should eat when hungry, not when bored.

    (Hatfield, 2008)

The problem

Even when on a diet, we end up eating too many cookies. How can we train ourselves to stop?

The goal

Design and create an interactive cookie box that conditions people from overeating.

The concept

We aligned on 3 concepts we wanted to incorporate in our design before starting our process:

  • Chindougu/珍道具. The rules of chindougu specify that the artifact must be almost completely useless, forming an interesting user experience to explore.

    Chindougu often actually excel at one specific task, but remain rather useless otherwise, like the selfie stick or ramen fan.

    (The Ten Tenets of Chindogu, n.d)

  • Conditioning. Through conscious and playful design, maybe we can train ourselves to be wary of mindless consumption. Not the case here, however.

  • Fun. Inherent in chindougu is artifact playfulness, bringing in a bit of personality into the artifact.

The process

We followed the double diamond design process in this case to allow for ample exploration of a concept and its potential solutions.

Discover

Sketches

Ideation started with a variety of Buxton (2007) sketches*, which afforded playfulness and creativity in the concepts.

We toyed with the concept of a box that throws cookies and says mean things after a period of teasing, a “useless box” with a cat, and a light-based container with a secret poison-cookie compartment.

*Buxton (2007) states that sketches are an important part of the design process. The roughness is key, not only allowing such sketches to be easily discarded, but also bringing forth space for curiosity, discussion, different interpretations, and further concepts that build upon the sketch through its ambiguity.

Define

Material exploration

Material exploration helped determine which sketches would be feasible within our time frame, material availability, and Raspberry Pi and Python capabilities.

The final design of the evil cookie box prototype is guided by this step.

We omitted the ejection and cat designs because a catapult with audio recordings and an elevator, respectively, would be too complex to complete within the time frame. The poison-cookie design was not only too complex, but the light sensor needed also proved to be inaccurate.

Develop

Ideate

We started ideating on different concepts based on our material exploration - with a few concepts impossible due to time or finicky based on the sensors we had, we explored a few different options to achieve our goal of limiting people from reaching the cookie.

Deliver

Prototype

Once 1 design concept was chosen, the interactions and artifact behaviors were discussed, and we started building and coding.

Artifact journey

The Evil Cookie Box was born a normal cookie box. But after years, decades even, of intrusive penetration by cookie-consumers, The Evil Cookie Jar decided to limit the number of cookies cookie-chompers could take from within its bowels. Now it teases approaching cookie-consumers with the promise of a sweet treat, but one has to figure out how to best please The Evil Cookie Box to obtain the treasure within.

The design

“The Evil Cookie Box” is a rough cardboard cookie box holding one cookie in its adjustable mouth-roof clamps. The distance and speed of movement measured by the distance sensor on its belly is correlated to the angle of the servo motor arm which operates the mouth in order to withhold cookies.

Single red, yellow, and green LED lights are plugged into the Raspberry Pi breadboard along with a mini speaker. Half of a clothes pin is glued onto the servo motor arm, and wired to the distance sensor; holes were cut out in the body of the box to snuggly fit and hold the distance sensor. 2 bread ties were cut in half to create 4 smaller ties, which were wired around 2 rubber bands and secured to the lid to hold the cookie.

“The message is serious: a computer that can express itself emotionally will some day act emotionally, and the consequences will be tragic.”
— Picard, 1995

Artifact behavior

Resting state - At a safe distance

“A cookie for you.”

Cookie on display. No sound. LED light is green.

Active state - Approaching

“I see you.”

One beep. LED light is yellow. Mouth closes a little.

Mouth gradually closes based on distance and speed.

Speed is calculated based on the time between the previous and the new distance.

Active state - Approaching

“Too fast! Not for you!”

Furious beeps. LED light is red. Mouth snaps shut.

If the speed is too fast, the mouth snaps shut immediately rather than gradually closing.

Active state - Approaching

“Here it is.”

Mouth re-opens once user is at a “safe” distance.

Issues

Jitters

Unable to figure out why the servo motor jittered.

After the initial discovery of the servo motor jittering, code was added that would stabilize the jittering. While the motor was stabilized afterwards for 2 team members working from home, the other team member on campus still had a jittery motor. 1 of the 2 stabilized members went onto campus to try to figure out the issue, which resulted in yet another jittery motor. Returning home solved the issue of the jittery motor, and it was concluded that perhaps something on campus (e.g., electrical currents when plugging in the Rasbperry Pi to outlets) might have something to do with the jittering.

Coupling

Direct coupling between the distance sensor and servo motor was off.

Along with the jittering, the angle of the servo motor seemed to be random and didn’t correspond to any distance.

Limitations

  • May take several tries before you finally obtain the cookie.

  • Beeping sounds can get annoying.

  • Still unclear what caused the jittering.

  • The Raspberry Pi hasn’t been fitted into the box.

Results & takeaways

We took the cookie box home to prove its effectiveness - it seems like it’s good at doing its job!

However, whether or not it’s helped people stop with overconsumption is another question (because the cookies have to be placed in the cookie box and the cookie box isn’t big enough to hold all the cookies, so some cookies were left openly available in a cupboard).

Some key takeaways I’ve gained from this project are:

  • A lot of small obstacles need to be overcome. What seemed simple at first, it took several days to finally be able to control the “mouth” using the servo motor because of the jittering.

  • Mysterious factors are at play sometimes. Once the jittering was solved via code, the servo motor operated as expected at home, but jittered unexpectedly on campus. This only happened on campus and no one, could figure out why.

How’s it alive?!

Show me the code!

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