Week #10 - Mentors meeting

This week on our mission, we met with mentors from the tech industry.

During the session, each mentor gave his opinion on our naïve prototype with respect to his field of expertise.

The main points that were brought up were as follows:

1. Force of a habit: How can we make people stand?

We discussed the Gamification term - such that one can gain points as long as he’s standing, whether as feedback (graph of improvement/ summary message at the end of each day stating your achievements). Another option for motivation is to show how from 0-standing the person can reach 4 hours daily of standing. Plus, we can perform a contest between users such that the winner gets a reward.

2. Automation/forcing: Researching whether the product should rise every 30 minutes automatically or to have an option for delaying it and modifying the time intervals.

Meaning, to enable personal adjustments via a software, for example.

Another option is to have a “snooze” and postponing the lift for a more-suitable time.

The most-advanced option is to get the software determine if now is suitable or not – by typing speed or when the user finished writing some paragraph and then suggest rising now.

3. Adding a feature to the lift that will be worth placing the computer on. It can be wireless charging for the laptop / receiving coupons for school’s cafeteria.

4. Technically, most mentors suggested using Hydraulic arms for lifting the computer. The problem is that it contradicts our goal of having a portable mechanism since it will be heavy to carry around. Another point is to make the surface of the mouse smooth while the laptop surface will be rough for preventing slips.

5. Rephrasing our vision: Humans were meant to move. In recent years, along the improvement of technology, we adopted the habit of sitting many hours. This situation harms our body, some say more than smoking. Our aspiration is to help people around the world stand up and living healthier and happier life.

6. Rephrasing the need: Make students healthier, both in short and the long run.

7. The solution: Interrupting sitting intervals, without interrupting studying.

On the coming week, we will focus on developing a prototype which is not based on air. This comes after we received a feedback stating that air is flimsy, and inflating is noisy.

Continue following us on this adventure!

miLAB team – Adi, Topaz, Nir, Sapir and Ofir 😊