NUTRISTICKS
2017
The project explores food qualities and nutrition balanced problems in people’s life. Nutristicks is a pair of IoT chopsticks which scan food using spectroscopic technology and supplies consumers with nutritional information through an App on personal mobile devices. Nutristicks can help a variety of age groups, from children and parents, through to elderly, in balancing nutritional intake and diet. Other specialise groups, including athletes and models and people maintain general fitness and other health issues such as diabetes, can be supported to help control and form a healthy life style. The product is designed to help people check food quality and to maintain a healthy diet.
CONTEXT
The project engaged with the television presenter Jason Bradbury, to develop an insight into technological and materials advances and then to produce ideas and concepts, which demonstrate innovation and ingenuity in approaches, when considering associated real world and societal design-led issues and scenarios.
The purpose of this project is to consider how materials and technological developments can impact and possibly support populations of people within construct social scenarios. The project reflects research into materials, interfaces, technology meanings, target market, demographics, identity, user profiling, scenario details, existing product ranges, conventional and unconventional applications, in order to fully understand project parameters and identified need.
THE PRODUCT
The Nutristicks are embedded with a pressure sensor switch, a wide-band NIR light source, a spectrometer, and a Bluetooth module. The pressure sensor switch is positioned where most people hold the chopsticks. The device switches on after the sensor detects pressure and switches off when disconnected by users through the app. The wide-band NIR light source and spectrometer are separated at the top of the two Nutristicks to shine on food and collect the reflected light from the food samples. The information collected by the spectrometer is sent to the app and analyzed. An LED indicator light at the bottom of the Nutristicks indicates the status of the device (on/off, battery power). The Nutristicks connect to users' mobile devices via Bluetooth. The app connects to the cloud database via a network. The food information is compared with data in the database, and the result of the assessment is sent back to the app on the mobile device.
LED INDICATE LIGHT
at the bottom of the Nutristicks to indicate the status of the device (on/ off, battery power) .
PRESSURE SENSOR SWITCH
at the position which most people hold the chopsticks. The device switches on after the sensor detecting the pressure. The device switches off when it is disconnected by users in the App.
WIDE-BAND NIR LIGHT SOURCE AND SPECTROMETER
are separated in top of two Nutristicks to shine on food and collect the light reflected from the food samples. The information collected by the spectrometer would be sent to the App and analysed.
HOW DO NUTRISTICKS WORK?
1. SCAN
Users take the Nutristicks anywhere they eat and scan their food by them.
2. CONNECTION
The Nutristicks connect to users’mobile devices by Bluetooth.
3. NETWORK
The app conncets to the cloud database by network.
4. DATABASE
The food information would be compared with data in the database. The result of the assessment of the food would be send back to the App on mobile device
