Mania

Self-Imposed Control Analysis
This project started as a research on possible devices that are inspired on already existent objects used in personal procedures or rituals at home (or at the current “home”) that can be used to control electronic objects.

For this 4 weeks course, this broad theme was narrowed to “Self-Imposed Controls”, that is, objects that you control and after a delay they return a control feedback to you.
Then a short analysis on objects at home that are related with self-imposed controls, still in a generic way, was done. Some simple examples: alarm clock, timers and whistler boilers. There are also objects that people assign a personal function that helps self-control and organization, like drawers with specific functions (e.g. used just for bills or important documents), Post-it messages and wall calendar, or even objects that are associated with a function that can change the mood and the functionon of the house (for party, meditation, sex, etc.) like sound stereo, candles, light dimmer, incense, curtains, etc.

Prototyping
In the bottom part of the image above, you can see 3 different shapes for an oil candle. The Oil Candle was chosen because it can be refilled and because the easiness to add a temperature sensor in the wick. As conclusion from these models, I realized that the candle should be as simple and common as possible in way to be inserted naturally in personal rituals or procedures. For example, the candle-bulb can be an interesting object, but it has not the rich meaning that a regular candle brings from the traditional design.

Then, after giving up the oil candle idea and entering in the candle holder option (more details of this transition in the Fax page), the cardboard models in the image below were done. They have the property of fit different sizes of candles and still have the space for the electronics. Both could be developed as well, but the process continued just with the rounded option.