BoulderBar
A visualization of bouldering progress
Anton, our group’s climber, testing our prototype.
Course: Prototyping in Interaction Design
Group project: Anna Jarebro, Anton Linder, Emmanuel Brorsson, Viktoria Enderstein, and me.
BoulderBar is an interactive climbing shoe, which tracks personal progress and visualizes this clearly. It is thought to possibly facilitate motivation and social interaction through affording a clear visual overview of one’s own as well as peers’ level of experience within a climbing gym.
This concept went through several iterations, from sketching to mock-ups and then to semi-functional prototypes of mixed fidelities.
Challenges: In the time-frame of the project, we only created a singular final iterated prototype, limiting our concept’s testability for the social aspect of the case.
The final prototype, iterated on the basis of the solution sketch to the right.
A combination of MicroBit, individually programmable LED’s, small soldered stripboards and materials for manifestation.
The final prototype was created through a series of iterations, changing in fidelity and scope over the time period. It was initially manifested in sketches and scenarios, mock-up prototypes of different formats, and a semi-functional prototype.
From feedback sessions, the team continued iterating and created the final prototype through testing and exploring the possibilities afforded by micro-controllers, until finally settling on remote-controlled micro-controllers affording the desired evaluation methods.
The final prototype was developed based on the experience prototyping approach, where the goal was to gain insights into how the participants experienced the interaction with the prototype.
