This week, we made a lot of progress towards user testing. We began by conducting preliminary testing with a few of the other SEED and RICE360 Interns and leadership team using our low fidelity prototype. From those tests, we learned a lot of useful information including that the actuators should be at least 2.8 centimeters apart on someone’s head in order for them to be distinguishable when vibrating. We also learned more about how different frequencies of vibrations are perceived. We now have a better idea of the frequencies that are more comfortable and effective. We also conducted a location test to ensure that people could feel each actuator vibrate at different locations along the head.

Additionally, we are starting to move away from building a device from scratch and instead purchasing a similar device and creating a way for it to house the actuators with cases. We are doing this so that we have time to conduct user testing that will help us understand how the vibrations work and how people perceive them.

Lastly, we have also been spending a lot of time preparing for a project pitch. We created slides to properly convey our project to the leadership team. We also practiced multiple times to ensure we were able to accurately explain our project. The pitch ended up going smoothly, and our feedback was mainly on a few visual opportunities for improvement that we will take into consideration.