PinPotatoHead
The idea behind this concept is to provide the users with a potato-shaped piece of fabric on which several components shaped as hears, mouth and so forth can be attached in order to emulate the classical game “Mr potato-head”.
Each of the several components would have a single ID which would be transmitted to the computer which will then draw a replica of the potato head on the screen. Users would then be able to send their potato head configuration to peers through email.
A declination of this concept would be to have components without any indication, which would be put on the potato head. Their ID would identify them as feet, mouth or hears, and then would be represented on the screen accordingly. Users would then have to choose the right ones to create a coherent potato head picture. Thus, additional components would be available for download, and we can even think of “sponsored” components, to make for example a Homer Simpson potato head for example.
PACT Analysis
People: PinPotatoHead is aimed at relatively young children, a suggested range from 4 to 9, depending on safety modifications to the pins. Children of primary/junior school age could be entertained by this.
Activities: The activities involved in the use of PinPotatoHead are mostly about building a face using the pins, or, in puzzle mode, trying to create a coherent character. Other related activities would be to share the character you’ve created through the internet with friends, browsing for new parts, and printing your character to draw on it, for example.
Contexts: Due to the educational potential of this system, children would use it while being supervised by adults, in the framework of a kindergarten, or school for example.
Technology: The system would rely on the potato-shaped piece of fabric, as well as on a GUI to display the result of the children interaction with the system. The pins would be actually shaped as generic hears, mouths, and so forth, as their digital representation could be customised. For the case of a puzzle potatohead, simple pins without any visual indication would be used.