Stimo is a concentration set that stimulates blood circulation and helps school-aged children to stay focused during class. What makes Stimo even better, is the energy it creates to charge small devices, which is very helpful in developing countries. Moreover, it can show how the process of making energy works. It was important for us to show that movement in class could also be something positive, not something to be suppressed.
Our idea was inspired by growing problem of ADHD among children and bad approach of teachers and classmates to deal with it. Those children are forced to sit still for a long time which is not natural for anybody. Moving excessively is seen as something negative. By using universal design approach we wanted to change this way of thinking and also help every child to stay focused in class.
by Julia Chibowska, Luisa Röck and Stine Asbjørnsen
The process of creating energy is done by a dynamo. The circular movement is started by the turning of the gears and a copper cable in between magnets creates a magnet field that is either saved as energy for later or used directly to light a lamp. It could be used for portable phone charger as well as for the lamp and other small devices.
For the textures, we opted for constructing three main ones: "fish scales" (rough in one direction and soft in the other), half spheres (like in a traditional, comfortable foot massager) and the tree roots (to follow the different paths with the toe). Those would be used individually in the two pedal set, so that the students could change between themselves according to preference and to make the process more dynamic.
