How to attract attention
Our challenge was to come up with a great idea that gets doctors and nurses to stop at SÊMEIA's stand when there are hundreds of other things competing for their attention.
Our answer was to give them something to play with. What looked like a very simple game actually brought together concept, physical design, fabrication, electronics, programming and character animation. All of this complexity disappears when someone walks up, grabs a ball and immediately knows what to do.
Our idea & proposal
After coming up with 5 ideas to tackle this challenge, we opted for an interactive experience where stress balls represented a patient's data.
Doctors and Nurses visiting the trade show would be invited to throw these stress balls towards a funnel (basket) by a friendly animated character on an LED screen.
When the ball goes through, the character reacts to them succeeding then starts thinking while the actual phyiscal ball goes through a journey.
Once the ball hits the last part of the journey, the patient's data is shown on screen, sometimes it's an alert.
A fun way to show that Semeia collects and analyses data and alerts doctors and nurses when needed.
1. build
Building the objects was quite complex, as we needed to make sure that the stress balls hit the physical switches properly while hiding them.
We had to plan for the right size for the experience to be transportable while having enough space for all the tech to fit inside.
A drawer had to be accessible from both sides, as this was going to be used in different trade shows, it being placed in different positions.
2. Tech
The main app was created in Unity, and it received information from the Arduino when the switches were activated. It then played the right animation in Rive.
Rive animations also controlled the physical LED animations based on what was being played so that everything worked well together.
We also factored in the possibility of having multiple balls within the system, which meant that we had reaction animations for each situation, and made sure that every ball had a data animation linked to it.
3. Character & Animation
The character dimensions started from the client's logo which was based on a hexagon shape.
We tried different types of characters but opted for a simple 2-coloured face to keep it in line with the brand and simple enough for a low-resolution 286-pixel LED screen.
Everything was animated in Rive; character & data animations lived together on one file, with events for the LED animations being fired when needed.
Producer & Creative direction: Bernard Magri
Concept: Bernard Magri & Aurelien Bernard
Physical fabrication: Popek (Tank&Popek)
Development & Tech: Kevin Sillam
Character Design: Ivan Mesaroš
Animation: Gabriele Montinaro
3D funnel design & print: Julien Benayoun
Sound Design: François Cauderlier
