Team Chapter_ v1

After having defined what a smart system is and having applied it to the lack of connection of part of the population between 19 and 30 years of age in the state of Jalisco, today and the intention of bringing it closer to its environment through a space. Several ideas arose, encompassing spaces such as parks, museums, gymnasiums, social clubs and, for the most part, establishments in which young people of that age range develop their activities or show interest in spending their day to day. Apart from being spaces that will adapt to nature, we decided to integrate technology, which has been part of the lives of users from an early age, they are individuals who live surrounded by technological tools and need them from the moment they get up until they go to sleep. So it seemed like a good idea to use that essential resource and adapt it in nature which needs a positive intervention from the human being to rescue it, preserve it, learn from it and connect people with his surroundings, since if we reflect, we do not have a safe space, outdoors, with help of technology, relaxing and with more of a 90% of nature surrounding it, where you can develop your daily life activities.

This is an issue that includes us all since, apart from the fact that immediate intervention is required on the issue of climate change there is also something very important to which attention is not being given and that is that many people and children spend too much screen time which as a consequence makes them completely disconnect from the world around them and they can only see what is on one screen. The analysis of a population sample of more than 40,000 children and adolescents in the US concluded that more than one hour of screen time a day is correlated with a deterioration in emotional well-being, especially in adolescents, in whom a higher incidence of depression is observed or anxiety. Increased screen time has been linked to damage to mental health and increased suicide rates in adolescents, while different research has associated this excessive use of devices with loneliness, depression, obesity and a worse quality of sleep. The problem is that this is already part of our daily lives and as much as we want to remove technology and mobile devices from our lives it will not be possible, even in several countries they have given the recommendation to restrict their young children and adolescents to use their phones (iPads, tablets, smartphones…) for only 2 hours a day. What we seek is to generate a balance between technology and nature, that you are no longer only 2 hours with your cell phone because your parents or someone else demanded it, but rather that you are 2 hours because now you are connected with the outside and with yourself but without leaving technology aside.

Brief:

After analyzing our data based on the knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe, we based our brief on a challenge about creating a system in a public space, specifically a park, in which people can disconnect from technology and at the same time be surrounded by it so that they could have an approach and establish a connection with nature by doing their daily life work or recreational activities with all the facilities and resources available to use.

So in order to create the system and make it sound and be desirable, feasible and viable, we started by doing some research and pointing out different key facts, by first connecting with the important subjects and the relevant problems we wanted to solve related to nature and the universe. We capture the point we wanted to address with and opportunity map divided in 4 different sections in it like, technology, society, ecosystem and infrastructure, we believed that cities have been changing a lot with technology and that has affected the development and increase of infrastructure in cities and with that, the harm of our ecosystems because of the needs of the society based on the consumerism and the population growth and thus more homes and developments.

Then to enrich our investigation we decided to make some interviews and we ended up analyzing that people do value their cultural heritage and think it’s important to conserve it, that technology it’s a big deal in their lives and that they recognize that technology could have a bigger presence in order to make their lives easier. Also, it was fascinating how more than 50% use their phones 4 to 6 hours but the 87.7% think that technology affects their lives positively and the 77.3% think that technology improves security. Also it was interesting to see how they mostly think that humans are responsible for the damage of our planet.

After analyzing the data we sorted out the insights so we could have a clearer vision of where we wanted to go and which information was valuable and could contribute to our solution. We highlighted the more valuable information which gave us more interesting subjects and ideas to improve people’s lifestyles by bringing them closer with nature; of course with help of technology, but not in a direct manner because we really wanted to focus on the connection, appreciation and conservation of a park or environment inside a smart city. In order to continue with the process of ideation and identification of the different issues, we created our key question (in the rough): How would you imagine a public place where technology integrates with the environment (nature and people)? With the help of the IDEO tools we started the process of brainstorming.

Brainstorming gave us a broader perspective of what our project could become, with no limits our minds went off to imagine all these possible answers of our question of “how might we…”. After writing down our thoughts we soon realized that we had to categorize and sort out the solutions we came up with in order to see what were the main focus of each idea. We then proceeded as a team to vote on the ideas we saw had more structure or possibility in order to somehow narrow the possible solutions. After the ideation we had to create our “how might we question”, for this we reevaluated our most helpful insights and created a different HMW question. We selected the 4 questions that sounded more interesting and created a persona map around them. After reviewing the necessities of our target users we then redesigned each of the 4 questions we used to make the persona. We chose the definitive HMW question which goes like this. How might we create a public place where technology is integrated with the environment (nature and people)?

The HMW question was established, we had to define the targeted users and create two personal maps. Having the main question, ideas of possible solutions and our users, it was time to investigate smart systems, what they consisted of and what their role was in smart cities. We then proceeded to make rough prototype sketches of our 4 best ideas, these smart systems were focused on everything we had defined before. All of our ideas were thought to be implemented in parks, but apart from the location, each idea was pretty different. In order to make a final idea of our system we decided to have a meeting and discuss the prototypes each team mate created. After a brainstorming session we came up with a rough final idea. The system was to be implemented in a park and it was a complex and ambitious idea, a little too ambitious. The team’s idea was presented to experts in the topic and we were told to modify and focus even more the functions of our system, so that is what we did.

The idea of our final system is composed of subsystems that include the following: automated irrigation, that will ultimately save gallons of water each day. Drone security assistance, so every person can feel safe, even when alone. Observatory, that will let you know what and when you can see different astronomical events. Recreational spaces for exercise and rituals. And others such as holographic attention modules, electronic money, and face recognition for access. Every part will be interconnected with each other facilitating the use of any and all spaces. Giving people a space where it is inviting to interact with nature can change the path of the losses we have in our culture. This system will not only make the park more sustainable, but it will make the space safer for all users, a space where they can enjoy the outdoors. It is not only important to adapt but to really analyze these systems so that they can contribute to the conservation of our values and rituals. The plan is that all the technology is seamlessly joined with nature and is practically unpreciable.

The investigation has led us through a really interesting path, it evolved and could probably keep evolving. We think that smart cities and systems are something of the future, but the truth is that that future is just around the corner, and if we don’t do more investigations and plan for a smarter future we will lose our culture and biodiversity to technology. Learning how users think, how they view and interact with their environment, is essential to evaluate the present and plan for the future. This system that we ideated is meant to improve the time and the quality that people invest in their time outdoors. In Mexico feeling safe is a big problem, but that is why we have to take advantage of technology so that everyone, especially women feel free and safe while interacting with nature. It is important to keep looking at the future to get ahead of the curve and when change comes, we will have this well thought out system to implement.