maria chiara toncich
visual & interaction design

• interaction design
• famfizzys
• liaison
• cinomadic

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• untitled
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famfizzys
Interactive toys to produce electricity using the human body. This is my thesis project.

The human body is rich source of expendable energy. The Famfizzys express the produced energy while walking through their moods and behaviours. They are designed for children.

goals
A child has to take care of his creature in order to keep it alive and healthy. While looking after he keeps tracking his body activity day by day. He becomes counscius of the entity of the energy and its costs. The aim is to give a visualization to the electricity.

functions
A divice embedded in the shoes turns the mechanical stress into electricity. The shoes communicate with the puppet, which express how and how much energy has been saved.

interactions
The Famfizzys communicate with the humans and between each other through the eyes, the feet and the antennas.

eyes
the eyes expresses the quantity of energy left in the battery. They can assume six moods: almost died, tired, calm, happy, excited, irritated. The first communicates that the battery is expiring very soon, the second tells that there is a bit of energy into the battery and so on. When the puppet is excited or irritated means tha the battery is full, but the last one wants a new empty battery, because the current one is too long full and energy is dissipating.

feet
they are the immidiate feedback of the movement. As the child walks the lowest part of the body start flashing. As the child increases the speed, the light flashes faster.

antennas
they are the medium used between Famfizzys to interact with each other.

report
The project came out reflecting the role of the interaction designer regarding our historical situation. We are in the middle of a global economic and overall environmental crisis, which is very grave. In this context, the job of the designer, who develops services or objects for the future, must consider this reality.
The introduction is a briefly description of the crisis and the climate changing. Especially the third chapter is divided in different main researches: into human-powered generation of electricity, into visual systems for communicating emotions, and the possible development of the electronics and software needed to bring the Famfizzys to life. The second half of the book describes the whole design process from the early investigations to the final Famfizzys.