Anacleto
Anacleto is an owl-shaped camera that levitates on the shoulder of its owner through the technologia of the magnetic field.
It was developed for the Innovation studio course of Product service system Design.
The theme of the workshop was “Home for uncertain times, 2035”, connected to the theme of environmental sustainability and disasters linked to climate change.
Each group was assigned a theme, ours was hosting and caring, the group was asked to select a city.
The outcome of the project had to be a product that was a possible solution and hope to the dramatical environmental consequences that the research trends showed, specific for the chosen city.
This product was then expected to become the touchpoint of a service.
AUTHOR
Alessia Orizio, Anna Buccarelli, Alessandro Ceccato, Naiyi Chia, Pan-Shin Wan, Mariana Romero, Emma Teli
DATE
2019
FIELD
Innovation Studio; Product Service System Design
MY ROLE IN THE TEAM
Researcher, Concept generation, visualizations, prototyping
Design Process:
Scenario Research
The preliminary research was crucial and extremely structured.
We started Selecting the city: Rome.
In-depth research has been carried out on city resilience plans regarding climate change issues along with researches on demographic trends and technological innovations.
We decided to follow the tourism topic as connected to Rome trends and “hosting and caring” themes; it has been estimated from research that the number of tourists would always increase and that many citizens of Rome will choose to earn by renting rooms in their homes to tourists.
From the research a definitive scenario was designed and afterwards it became the starting point for our project.
Design Process:
Scenario definition:
Midnight in Rome
A sultry breeze fills the air, while the sun disappears behind the tiled roofs of Rome’s ancient buildings, coloring the sky in warm shades of pink. A quite pleasant conclusion to a terribly hot day in which temperatures have reached over 45° in certain areas of this vibrant metropolis. Now that night falls, the city changes garment and the narrow streets of the historical center fill up with excited yet noisy tourists, busy making of every corner a postcard through the lenses of their cameras. It’s summer 2035 and Rome follows a quite peculiar timetable: locals continue their normal routines facing the hot daytime temperatures; tourists, instead, enjoy their sightseeing during the night to avoid heat islands that compromise liveability in the historical center.
Shifted schedules help the city organization by improving viability and reducing complications connected to overcrowding. Early in the morning, in fact, while locals get ready to start their day, tourists head back to their accommodations to enjoy some hours of sleep before another night of visits.
These changes in the roman summertime routine have implications on several services and institutions: museums and attractions need to modify their opening hours, restaurants and other food-related services need to extend their availability at nighttime, and hosting facilities obviously need to fit completely the inverted lifestyle of tourists. A simple yet complex change that involves many actors and provides interesting opportunities to design. Starting from this broad scenario we tried to imagine the life of a tourist who finds himself/herself wandering around the city center during hot summer nights and to understand his/her perception of the surroundings and eventual needs.
How could make his/her experience unforgettable?
One of the most common activities that we all carry out as tourists is to collect memories. Every visitor tries to bring with himself/herself a glimpse of the best moments of his/her experience, something that will recall those moments even after a while. Hundreds of pictures that crowd up in our devices and that were taken to secure the memory of a specific action, landscape or detail. This need to freeze time in a shot or video has been our starting point in the design process.
Design Process:
Concept generation
From our initial reflection, we moved our focus more depth into the hosting experience and the sharing that comes with it. We took into consideration the concept of home; home as a safe place where to go back, a protected nest where to feel at ease and share experiences within an inner circle of people. We imagined a host and a guest cohabitating the same house but living on opposite time frames, two people sharing a space without, in fact, sharing moments together. From these suggestions, we came out with the idea of creating something that a guest could bring with him/her at night around the city, something that could belong to the host but follow him/her during the holiday and that could be brought back home during the day, allowing him/her to share parts of his/her experience with the host.
We knew that we wanted to create something wearable and that could be carried around easily, allowing tourists to record special moments. At the same time, we aimed at designing a product that could have some empathy with the user, a real travel companion to which be emotionally related rather than a common digital device. To pursue this objective we let us get inspired by the nocturnal scenery and by the animals that live during the night.
Anacleto is a small owl-shaped camera created for tourists who will visit Rome by night in 2035. As a little guardian angel, it levitates on your shoulder and allows you to enjoy the beautiful roman views and keep memory of them through the recordings. The cameras located in the eyes allow Anacleto to film in the dark and magnetic levitation allows him to fly by your side. An object that you don’t physically wear but that is floating by your side as a little guardian angel. After a night of sightseeing, when you reach your accommodation, Anacleto recharges through wifi and gets ready for the night after.
Anacleto is provided by a host to his guest, a travel companion that is gifted for the duration of the stay and returned at checkout. This product aims at connecting past and future guests’ experiences and at creating a shared diary of holiday frames. Each of the guest contributes to adding a little piece to the story of the house by sharing his/her video frames. All the material recorded during the visits can be consulted and downloaded by the guest directly from his/her smartphone and he/she can decide whether to share it or not with future guests on a dedicated platform. A product that is able to combine together different stories, all united by the fact of having lived under the same roof, even if for a small amount of time and in different moments.
Design Process:
Prototyping Anacleto
Levitation on your shoulder
The magic behind Anacleto lies in its two disk-shaped displacement engines. These motors induce an opposite magnetic field on the surface substrate located on the branch. Inside the branch, there is a non-ferromagnetic conductive material (like a metal sheet). Place the branch on your shoulder and bring Anacleto closer to the branch: Anacleto will fly over it and will be with you to see Rome at night.
Capture and Record
Anacleto is equipped with two cameras: Ultra Wide and Wide. The Ultra-Wide camera captures four times more scene, so it’s perfect for action shots. Night mode comes on automatically when needed. So enjoy the beauties of the Eternal City and not worry about capturing and recording every moment because Anacleto will take care of it for you!
Real interaction
Anacleto listens to your voice and works with vocal commands + his eyes give you a light signal every time Anacleto understands your command.
Access your files
Anacleto data will automatically transit through a secure host’s platform. It is extremely simple to use and only one registration on the server is needed. Then you will be able to see or download your photos and videos wherever you go for all your roman experience and even after.
Self-Charging
Anacleto automatically uses Wi-Fi connection when it needs to charge. You don’t have to do anything. The new system available in 2035 will be able to convert electromagnetic wave energy into direct current.
Social Sharing Web
The platform allows you, if you want, to share your videos and photos to make your successors’ experience more complete and richer. Watching videos of previous guests can also help you to choose new places to see in Rome!
