• Reactor

Feel the power

Give users a sense of scale when it comes to power consumption by embodying it in a physical object.

Reactor turns electricity into quantifyable portions, allowing users to build the intuition about their consumption patterns that they normally lack. It is an object that physically represents the available electricity in the user's home, and can be picked up and physically interacted with to check remaining charge.

  • Context

    TU Delft - Project Exploring Interactions

  • Deliverables

    Concept design
    Interaction design

  • Skills

    Electronics
    Digital interactive prototyping

Building intuition

Through repeated cycles of charging, energy consumption and depletion, users will be able to gain an intuitive understanding of how their behaviour affects energy consumption. Electricity does not have to be an infinite, immeasurable commodity.

Reactor updates you on your current consumption rate, remaining charge and the effect of actions as you take them.

Design

Components
Functions

Reactor was developed iteratively, using digital and working electronic prototypes to evaluate effectiveness and user behaviour.
Using rapid prototyping as a tool for developing interactive behaviour, I was able to nail the sense of an energized object.