Videoprototype: SEED

During our research, we realized that gamification is a powerful tool to motivate children to learn. Especially in schools for children with special needs, it is essential to get the pupils’ attention with interactive learning methods.

Our approach is to teach pupils in a playful and interactive way, so that the children stay focused on a task and get the opportunity to work together in small groups. This way, they can help each other to solve problems and improve their social skills. The main idea of our concept is that the children succeed together as a group. Besides that, the teacher can adapt the difficulty level of tasks if necessary. This should help to minimize the frustration level in case a task cannot be solved by a group.

Every task is visualized as an in game 2D boss. When all groups have solved their individual tasks, the boss is defeated, and they level up. This encourages cooperative working and reduces competitive thinking, as all groups have to succeed to defeat the boss. There is not a necessary amount of people to form a group, so the group building is up to every teacher and technically, every group could also consist of only one pupil. In this case, teachers could let every child work on their own tasks and maximize individualization, but the boss is still only defeated when all children solve their tasks. Another helpful feature is that teachers can create tasks and share them with other teachers to simplify their work process.

We think that our learning app is an innovative and helpful way to improve pupils’ and teachers’ everyday life.

Storyboard

During our research on schools for children with special needs, the most asked for feature in a digital tool was individualization. So we came up with an App which allows special individualization and also focuses on gamification. As our research showed gamification is highly motivating for children in general and simplifies the learning process of topics that are normally considered dull. The core idea is to motivate children to learn in small groups by solving special quests individually designed by the teacher. Only when all groups have successfully finished their task, the main goal is achieved, visualized as a 2D in game boss. During this process the teacher can adapt the difficulties for each individual pupil, so everyone has a chance to contribute equally to the group success. This strengthens the classes’ collaboration to solve a problem, and excludes competitive or conflict-based thinking.

With this product we hope to improve not only teachers’ everyday workflow, but also every pupils’ distinct learning experience.

User Research: E-Learning Special Education

Education for children with special needs is a field where digitalization is mostly left behind, because it is not in the primary focus of development. Nevertheless it is important that these children learn with digital tools and how to use them properly. For this reason we set our goal to find ways to improve the learning experience for children with special needs through the use of modern technologies.

To maximize the variety of our data, we contacted different facilites including schools for special education as well as inclusive institutions. The interviews with the teachers and professor were very informative, and helped us to get a better understanding of the topic. As we expected there’s still a lot to do in terms of digitalization. There was a huge difference in the skillset and the motivation between teachers, many schools were also lacking digital equipment.

The main challenges certainly will be to develop software fitting the cognitive and motor skills of every individual child.

CareWear: A Wearable for Enhancing Coordination of Caregivers

After sorting out and summarizing our information, we focused on improving the coordination between nurses, as we discovered a lack of it. Our finished result is the creation of a new and innovative wearable, which every nurse wears around his/her wrist. The simulated device is pretty simple and yet still extraordinary. In the next step, we will demonstrate how our gadget works.

To begin with, let’s pretend we have the following story line: a patient is in urgent need i.e. has a stroke, is about to faint or is in some other critical situation. Therefore, the patient pushes the emergency button. Once the emergency button is pressed, a notification is being sent to all the wearables of the nurses. On those wearables it is shown that a certain patient has pushed the emergency button. Moreover, the screen will show all the important vital parameters of the user. Furthermore, it will enable a nurse to push the “accept” button and notify the rest of the nurses that the patient is already being taken care of.

We see a lot of benefits for our device. For instance, the improvement of coordinating nurses, as we discovered that there is a lack of organization between them. In addition, the wearable is suitable to wear as well as easy to deal with. Furthermore, it gives patients a higher certainty regarding their treatment. They are being notified that their emergency call has been accepted and keeps them more calm.

Focusing on our next steps, our team should consider an evaluation of the necessity regarding patients as we weren’t able to interview them.

Smart emergency notifications for nurses

During our user research we came across many issues which had a potential for improvement. We sorted out the information and summarized it. Finally, our group came to the conclusion to improve the working process of nurses. Our solution is a new and innovative watch, which every nurse wears around his/her wrist. Let’s pretend we have the following scenario: a patient is in urgent need and pushes the emergency button. Once the emergency button is pressed, a notification is being sent to all the nurse smart watches that a certain patient has pushed the emergency button.

Moreover, the watch screen will show all the important vital parameters of the patient. Furthermore, it will enable a nurse to „accept“ the patient und notify the rest of the nurses that the patient is already being taken care of.

Summing up, our innovation is not only a benefit for nurses but also for patients. It gives them a bigger certainty regarding their treatment and for nurses to coordinate better and avoid wasting time.

First Steps into Medicine and Its Devices

We dedicated the recent three days to the user research phase of our studies within the area of e-health. We managed to carry out interviews with different people in the medical field. In these interviews we focused mainly on the daily workflow, the technical equipment used in this field and the problems which medical staff encounter using these devices in their work.

We had the opportunity to speak to two nurses, a dentist, an emergency worker and a psychiatrist/psychotherapist. Most of them were rather satisfied with the technologies used, for them they not only ease the work but also save time and energy. However, our interview partners face some issues such as technical complexity, data security, high prices and great care needed when handling these devices.

With all the information we have gathered, we would like to isolate one of the encountered problems and provide ideas for its possible solution.

FireStrap Pro® – Videoprototype

As a lot of fire brigades in Germany operate on a voluntary basis a common problem is, that in case of an emergency the members have to get from their current location to the fire brigade station as fast as possible. As private persons are not allowed to use any devices such as a blue flashing light, obstacles like traffic jams and other restrictions of the public traffic cause massive delays.

We developed a concept in cooperation with the “Freiwillige Feuerwehr” that enables the firefighter to get faster to the mission and at the time it prevents the misuse of our system. And that’s how it works:

Every firefighter is equipped with a wristband – FireStrap Pro. This bracelet includes the following functions: if the centre of operations receives an emergency call, every firefighter is notified via the bracelet. It vibrates and the firefighter has the choice to accept or decline to participate in the operation. When he chooses to participate he presses the green button (otherwise the red one). This action unlocks the flashing blue light which is inside his or her car. If the firefighter gets inside the bluetooth range the flashing blue light and the FireStrap Pro connect automatically. The firefighter now is able to rush through the traffic as other participants let him pass. The benefits of this concept are obvious: reduction of time needed to get to the fire brigade station and the prevention of misuse as it is not possible to use the flashing blue light without the unlocking message of the centre of operations.

In the future further extensions or features are possible. Functions which are included in the jawbone for example measuring vital signs or other measures could be incorporated in the device. Furthermore it could be connected to the CO2-Warner and vibrate if critical measured values are exceeded.

 Fast and without unnecessary risks to the operation despite of traffic jams and other restraints using a flashing blue light that can be unlocked individually. No opportunity for misuse and more time to save lives. – The new FireStrap Pro.

Concept: Fire Strap Pro

During the last couple of days we started analyzing our data which we collected during the previous, User Research phase. Using tools like affinity diagramming and HMWs (how might we…?) which were introduced by Kalle and Alex, we came up with various ideas to improve the processes at “Freiwillige Feuerwehr Gauting”.

The final outcome was the concept to reduce the time needed for an individual member of the “freiwillige Feuerwehr” to get from his current location to the fire brigade station. We want to reduce the effects of traffic jams and other restraints
of public road traffic with a blue flashing light. As we also worked out that such a device would endorse opportunities for misuse we came up with an idea to prevent this kind of misbehaviour. With an unlock-mechanism which is controlled by the operations centre we guarantee that the blue flash light can only be turned on in case of emergency.

As a device we chose a bracelet which we named Fire Strap Pro. Technologies in use are GSM and Bluetooth.

Our ultimate goal: getting fast and without unnecessary risk to the operation despite of traffic jams and other restraints using a flashing blue light that can be unlocked individually. No opportunity for misuse and more time to save lives.

User Research: Feuerwehr Gauting

On Tuesday we went to the fire brigade station in Gauting, to do our ‘User Research’.
When we arrived at the brigade station we surprisingly recognized more than five people waiting in front of the station. They just returned from a mission, coincidentally there was a field about 150 square metre burning this afternoon.
So we fortunately had more than five people to interview.
At first we got a intruduction to the technical devices inside the fire brigades and a explanation of their purpose by a member of the professional fire brigade.

Through our interviews we found out how the professional and the voluntary fire bridage work together and what they are doing.
In total we got a lot informations for our next step in our design process.

In addition to our interviews there was a practice later, so we had the chance to see all six fire engins leaving the brigade station.

KYRA – Paramedic Feedback System

Munich. KYRA is our new developed feedback system for the BRK. It provides an app to evaluate emergency calls and offers a way for paramedics to cope with psychological pressure.

 

Each paramedic gets an account for the KYRA app and can comment on emergency calls, evaluate other members of the team or ask for appointments with them or a psychologist.
Headquarters can see the feedback data, sign it off and analyse it to adapt processes and team structures.

Future work will be to include other external action forces such as fire fighters or policemen to the system to gain an overall feedback for each emergency call.