Serra Umut

Breastfeeding has health benefits for babies and mothers, however missing out on this experience can have emotional consequences with mothers reporting feelings of inadequacy and sadness. Due to low breastmilk supply, mothers switch to bottle feeding even if they don’t want to. This interrupts the intimate breastfeeding connection between the baby’s mouth and the mother’s breast. The mentioned connection signals the brain for milk production, absence of it can lower milk supply further. This is frustrating for mothers who want to breastfeed and increase breastmilk supply.

Existing products either fail to offer physical connection, are unaesthetic, or time consuming to set up. This stresses and demoralises mothers even more. 

BOND allows formula milk to supplement a breastfeeding session without the need to switch to a bottle, helping mothers continue breastfeeding when they have low breastmilk supply. 

BOND supports and complements the natural breastfeeding experience, whilst creating conditions for milk production. It can also benefit other genders, adoptive parents, women with c-section births or breast surgeries etc.

Limited information is shared due to IP Protection reasons. Please do get in touch if you would like to learn more or collaborate, or if you have experienced this problem.

Stakeholders have been involved at every stage of the project. Engineers and Soft Robotics experts were consulted for guidance about prototyping, flow rate testing, and internal mechanisms etc. 

Interviews with mothers helped to understand deeply about their feelings and their feedback guided emotional design. 

Conversations with lactation consultants, doulas, and paediatricians played an important role in technical and practical sides of the design. User testing with women was key in building the right fit and look, and these usability testings shaped the product design elements.

BOND has several side products and additional functions, please get in touch if you would like to learn more about these.

CALMO is a set of two wearable pads that send vibrations to calm the nervous system down during instant anxiety attacks. It is a wireless anxiety relief tool for tough moments, a discreet helper always there for you.

Anxiety disorder consists of feelings of worry, anxiety, or fear that can interfere with one's daily activities. People suffer from irregular breathing, rapid heartbeat, nervousness, hot flashes, sweating or chills, similar to fever and etc. Regulation of anxiety is helpful, because anxiety appears suddenly, can last a few minutes, then symptoms can build up and become worse.

Many people find it tough to overcome instant anxiety attacks outside of their comfort zones. Products in the market are bulky products and make it obvious when they are being used.

CALMO is a completely different solution; it is a small product to calm the nervous system down, in a fast and discreet way in social settings. It is designed for instant anxiety moments, where there is no time to think. It acts as a pleasant distraction and shifts the users attention away from the event that triggered anxiety.

CALMO combines scientific approach and psychological approach in one device by using vibrations and breathing exercises to calm the nervous system down instantly.

Graphia is an essay writing aid tool for children that encourages visual thinking and improves visual and auditory processing, whilst simultaneously democratising the diagnosis process for Dysgraphia in middle school aged kids. It is encouraging a creative world that celebrates neurodiversity through its universal design.

In collaboration with Wacom, Graphia offers an AI (Artificial Intelligence) driven graphic tablet based diagnostic tool at a fraction of the price of traditional diagnostic methods. 

Dysgraphia is estimated to affect up to 20% of children, and is a neurological disorder that is considered a symptom of Autism Spectrum Disorders, Dyspraxia, Attention Deficit Disorders, and other Specific Learning Disabilities. It manifests in illegible handwriting, poor visual, auditory, and phonological processing, pain throughout the nervous system, poor thought organisation, and an inability to use writing as a communication tool. Children with Dysgraphia tend to perform poorly in school, and have a higher rate of depression and anxiety than children with no learning disabilities.

Currently, diagnosis must be done by a child behavioural psychologist with tests such as the TOWL, which is costly, time consuming, and often does not occur until children have already begun to fall behind in school.

Graphia is currently at the concept stage of development, and is moving into a collaboration with Wacom - a Japanese company specialising in graphic tablets - for user testing. Next steps include research into how similar technologies could be used in diagnosing other neurological conditions and mental illnesses.

In Collaboration with:

Marco Da Re

Luisa Charles

Dhruv Mishra

Wacom

Graphia aims to solve both the issues of under diagnosis, and to provide coping strategies for those experiencing Dysgraphia. It is split into three tools:

• Coping tools that provide strategies for children with or without Dysgraphia to learn how to write essays more easily and effectively.
• Diagnostic tools that use a Machine Learning algorithm to provide a pre-diagnosis of Dysgraphia. Pre-diagnosis is made by analysing handwriting, and looking into pen pressure, pen angle and altitude, punctuation, grammar, and spelling data. 
• Post-Diagnostic physical tools that enable children to continue utilising the essay writing skills they have learnt even after they might lose access to a Wacom tablet.

The coping tools focus on the core symptoms of Dysgraphia - poor visual, auditory, and phonological processing. They include visual and voice recorded mind mapping, spelling and grammar prompts, and progress reviews to help children understand their improvements.

A circular micro mobility device powered by young adults, and used by older adults to ease transportation and promote exercising for ageing.

For older adults who feel limited with the current transportation systems, Tandem becomes a safe and a balanced means of transportation and a way to stay physically active for longevity.

In Collaboration with:

Ilayda Kal

Orion Dai

Tandem vehicles are rented from docking stations spread out in the city, just like today’s existing systems. With Tandem, as young users ride, they generate electrical power through kinetic movement and return to dock once they are done. When older users ride with Tandem, they benefit from this stored energy to power 70% of their ride and power the remaining 30% of their ride through walking on the motor powered treadmill.

A Speculative Design project into the future of music that makes songs adaptable, expressive and better integrated in our lives.

Living Music is a concept of real-time remixing. Here, artists construct not only songs, but the rules through which they are modulated, using generative algorithms, tracks that adapt based on the listeners’ environment, ambience, weather, and activities or schedule. Living Music platform lets us share with our friends, as one song can be influenced by two listeners and their environments. Living Music enables these experiences and archives them, helping us remember and share the events of our past.

In collaboration with Imperial/RCA students, California College of the Arts (CCA) students, and Lawrence Azerrad. Project displayed at San Francisco Design Week, 2020. For more information visit; SF Design Week - Designing the Future of Music. Check out the live exhibit through here.