Snackpals is an interactive table for parents and kids to co-create in the kitchen. It's an engaging space that walks you through a recipe by delegating jobs and encouraging participation through animation. Snackpals uses projection mapping to allow a fully immersive experience without locking in a single person to their own screen or device.
This project was created over a month long sprint at IDEO CoLab where we dove deep into the world of health, parent and child relationships, and kids' eating habits. We spoke to different professionals, parents, and kids before landing on this prototype. Some of our key take-aways is that kids need to feel in control and empowered in their decision making, they need a judgment free space to explore, and healthy eating just means anything in moderation. We applied these principles in a few ways. First, we gave parent and child their own designated space on the table -- each with their own jobs to encourage independence for the kid and sacrifice of control from the parent. We then introduced choice as the table first prompts you to pick an ingredient and then builds the rest of the meal around that chosen food. By including not just veggies or other strictly healthy food items, we created a balance in the meal that gives the impression that this device isn't made to force healthy eating on the kid.
Video edited by my lovely teammate, Gwen Gage.
For the character design, I wanted to go with flat simple shapes that could potentially be translated into 3D figures or procedurally generated using isolated elements. They are are inspired by a different food and have a monster edge to them.
