Great assignment!
For example, if your bed was hooked up to your floor and clock, you could have an entire system when you wake up. The floor would have a touch sensor in it that needs to be stepped on to turn off your alarm- the action of doing that prepares your bathroom, by heating up the shower, and setting up whatever else you do in the morning. Since most people have a morning ritual, this “smart house” concept could work… who knows.
I guess were it comes down to is to invent some kind of automation which makes sense in the first place. Full futuristic smart house automation doesn’t makes sense to me, there are just too many possible scenarios in which it gets annoying and above all undesirable. Even if that happens in 1% of all cases. It’s like a chain of events which get triggered by one action. I more believe in a logical relationship between two objects which are related in a daily ritual.
When I read the assigment I immediately had to think of this solution, gosh I wished I’d invented that one:
http://www.sonyericsson.com/putyourearsincontrol/
The idea is that when you’re listening to music and you take out one or both headphones, the music pauses. GREAT idea! Philips also did similar conceptual work by the way.
One questions though on the assignment, are multiple submissions allowed?
Cheers,
T