Let Timon drive you

What it does

'In 2050, 75% of the world population will live in cities'. How can we move crowds of people around big cities by foot? Could we change their perception about walking along the city?

Your inspiration

In Barcelona, 4.400.000 shifts happen daily. The energy saved, by not using a car or a motorbike for distances of less than 3km, would be reduced by 60%. Besides, according with Barcelona's City Council, the most part of daily shifts are less than 2,5 km.

How it works

The device is connected with pedestrians' smartphones via Bluetooth. Then, they introduce a destination before depart and personalize their own route by introducing three tags or momentary wishes. These three words will work as filters and route will have a close relationship with words listed before, so shifts are totally customizable in relation to their mood. Timon just shows the direction, allowing the user to decide which turns to make and being focused on what is happening along the way. This way, pedestrian's attention fall into city landscapes and allows them to enjoy by moving in a healthy and clean way. It has a magnetometer, accelerometer and gyroscope constantly recalculating the user's position, allowing the device to get updated constantly and to keep pointing to the right direction. A Bluetooth receiver is contained in the device to recieve GPS the information from the App to the device constantly.

Design process

All challenges that appeared while the process have been analyzed from a different point of view with design methodologies of user-centric that allowed to understand the real concerns and motivations of the city and their citizens. This project has been structured in six parts: problem definition, scientific background, user immersion, user immersion analysis, idea generation and finally implementation process. The design solution was created and integrated in accordance with all the insights and user needs collected before. This process consisted of Sketching, Prototyping with some volumes and keep testing over and over. Once the shape and all its components were defined as a parametric 3D model and technical drawings were created.

How it is different

This project is based on the necessity of disconnecting people from their phones to create new experiences. Timon has been designed to go unnoticed, as an 'analogical' tool to interact as little as possible with it. It separates users of technological overload provided by mobile phones and helps them with disconnection and introspection moments. Its use allows people to break out of routine and give them new experiences along their daily shifts.

Future plans

I would like to produce one fully functional product, to check it out with different users in different cities. In this way, I could be capable to redefine some of its features in case it would be necessary. At this moment, due to the expensive costs on manufacturing process I just have some too bigger prototypes. I would love to go ahead with this project and be able to integrate it over the next years as a new way of mobility.

Awards