My final is going to be a mini-cafeteria used to teach kids about eating right. I’ve modeled it after a traditional school lunch setup, where they have 6 elements (main course, side, dessert, salad/fruit, drink). I’ll present them with 6 choices for each course, and then if they go overboard on the calories, they won’t be able to take their lunch tray away. It’ll be supplemented with a Processing sketch of a cafeteria lady (I’m thinking Lunch Lady Doris meets Cooking Mama) who walks you through the whole thing, and a calorie meter to keep track of what you’re eating.
I was thinking of having kids pack a lunch box, but after talking to my friends, they liked the idea of the cafeteria because it’s familiar and you’re presented with choices in an organized manner. Plus, personally, the toys that I’ve enjoyed most as a kid were the ones that let me do what I normally couldn’t do, like drive or shoot ducks. The cafeteria was the one time that I could choose what I wanted to eat instead of my parents.
The tray itself will be like a puzzle. Each course will have a different shape, so you can’t put the side dish in the drink compartment, for example. I’ll put plates of masonite at the bottom of each plate, to ensure a good connection. I’m thinking of making the plates and tray out of needlepoint so it’ll be more sturdy. Everything else will be crocheted.
Talking to Chris today was very helpful! I usually get too caught up in stupid details (example: it was 4am, the stupid pet-trick was due in 5 hours, nothing worked, and I was sitting at my desk sewing sesame seeds on the hamburger bun). I kept bringing up all these other details in my project (how should the food display look, the Processing sketch, what foods should I offer, etc), but Chris emphasized that I should start small and get the tray working, before moving on to the details.
Taking Tom and Chris’ advice, I’m going to use FSRs again. I’ll try it with one big one first, because Chris says that since I have a fixed piece now (instead of a teetering burger), I might be able to get a stable reading with just one FSR. If this doesn’t work, I may put in 4 FSRs like Tom suggested. Or Chris said that a fool-proof way would be to have two contact points and make a switch. Then I would put a different resistor inside each piece, and measure the voltage, which would tell me what piece was on the plate.
I wanted a way to bind the tray to a box or some sort of platform, and release the grip when you pick the right foods. I was thinking really strong magnets, but I wasn’t sure how to break the magnetic field. So Chris suggested that I have two little servo motors that latch onto the tray, and they’ll retract and hide when the kid wins at eating.
He also suggested that I buy those Pinewood Derby weights to stuff my pieces with, because I mentioned that I thought rice was a bad choice because it kept shifting.
I wanted to use yellow LEDs as heat lamps, and have them flash if the kid needs to replace his selection (baked ziti) with something healthier (fish). Maybe I can use different colored LEDs to make the bad food look really gross.
Anyway, for now I should focus on trying to get the main course to react to my FSR, and move forward from there.