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Penelope The Pain-O-Monster

Penelope the Pain-O-Monster is a plush toy that uses integrated pressure sensors to allow children to express their source and level of pain through play. An additional “Fun” mode provides distraction from pain and anxiety.

The Problem

It is challenging for doctors to collect accurate self reported information from children about their level of pain due to lack of communication skills, fear, anxiety, and discomfort. Traditional 1-10 pain scales do not fully address these issues, often leading to uncomfortable children and inaccurate symptom information. 

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With this stuffed animal, kids can squeeze a corresponding body part as hard as it hurts them to indicate their pain. 

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Process

Building on a previous project EmOwl, we were set on creating a stuffed animal that not only helped children express themselves but also provide comfort, we spent a lot of time designing the look of the stuffed animal and thinking of extra features to bring children joy. The goal was to keep the form abstract and fun but maintaining the key human body parts so children could point out where their pain was. Our main two prototypes were in the form of an alien and monster.

 

Red felt like the right color to show one is in the most pain, and since pain is a scale, we mapped the force on the pressure sensors to an RGB value between red and blue, with pure blue being the smallest touch. Once deciding on using force sensors and LED lights to fulfill the key functionality for children to indicate their pain levels, we wanted to incorporate some more soothing features.

 

There is a fun mode for children to distract themselves. We designed a game where different colors light up in a pattern and you have to press the force sensors in the same pattern, each round the pattern got more complicated. This was hard to generate randomly because there was no simple way to repeat the past exact two colors again in the same place and then add another random color. We decided it was still fun to have limited amount of time to press the force sensor corresponding to the light that lit up, there is no pattern in this game but there is a random aspect because the lights lite up in a random order after you press the right force sensor.

Mechanics

We have a switch that turns the stuffed animal off, puts it on the pain-o-meter mode or the game mode. It is connected to an exterior power to be able to power six LED light strips and six force sensors. Everything is connected to an Arduino that holds our code. The lights and force sensors are matched up to different body parts. The child would press where it hurts with as much pressure as it hurts and the light in that body part will turn on. The color goes from blue, not that much pain to red, the most pain. The game mode has a random strip light up and the child has to press the corresponding force sensor in that body part as fast as they can before they restart. 

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The outside of the toy is felt, sewn together with cotton balls as stuffing. 

In Collaboration with Mackenzie O'Gara

This was a fully collaborative project, the two of us worked on every aspect together. When necessary we were supported by NuVu coaches.

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