Thesis statement (focus & direction, problem to solve).

You step out of the house for some exercise, a jog, walk or maybe something more extreme. Music is an important part of this. You put on your favorite sports music playlist in your device of choice. The music starts and keeps going perfectly fine, and you realize that you’d like to hear another song so you move it to the next. Not that big a problem, until you decide to do this action say 10 times in a space of 20 minutes. And your favorite song still doesnt come on, as you reach for the door back into your house, it finally does and then you have to stop the device and go on with your day.

Music storage is currently done very well by different brands and devices. The controls still have room for improvement. The so called “universal design” principles help make it easy for most people in most situations. I’d like to address one particular situation and type of people: those who prefer to not have to change the music manually in the middle of their exercise or relaxing activity. I’m proposing a new interface to control the music player that attempts to make the music be more in synch with the body and react to what happens to it, when the situation allows for this.

I also see an application for this in relaxation techniques, yoga and anti-stress treatments, where the music player is able to detect a change in the body and through music, help bring it back to equilibrium.

Brief description of proposed methodology.

Im proposing a sports arm band, similar to the ones in the market, that integrates a hear rate sensor and changes the music played at a specific time, according to the data it gets from the body.

I will do this by designing a hardware interface for heart beat detection and also a software component that’s able to sort out music depending on the beats per minute. furthermore, i’d like to extend this interface so that it also allows for personalization of the music that’s put in that category.

Personal statement

Clean, simple interfaces are hard to come by. My work in ITP has always kept the importance of simplicity at it’s core. There are situations in which it is inconvenient to push a button, I’m working on a solution for one of those moments.

We wear out electronics, on our belts, pockets, jackets. They are close to our bodies most of the day, I’d like them to be able to react to the body and it’s changes.