R2D2

Farzad is 10. He and his dad are huge Star Wars fans. Farzad’s dad collects Star Wars action figures and toys and today he has bought the new R2-D2 toy. He put it on the corner of his office desk to be amused every once in a while. Farzad sneaks into his dad’s office to check out this new R2 toy. He is pleased to see that its head and legs move and he isn’t looking at a solid statue; his dad has a lot of those and they are no fun. After playing around with the moving head and legs he flips the switch in the middle and is thrilled to see R2 come to life as his head starts to spin! He quickly flips the other switch and watches R2’s lights go on. After all the spinning noise Farzad’s dad walks in his office and tells Farzad to get his own.

This R2 model can’t do everything that a real R2 does, such as opening doors in life and death situations and hacking computers and spaceships. But some of the things he can do include: spinning his head 360 degrees, moving legs, and lights! And since this is a very complicated robot I had to design it so that it is easier to operate. Visibility: To indicate what state the robot is in, other than the wildly spinning head, I made sure there is enough light shining through him to be seen even in daylight. Affordance: Since R2 has a lot of buttons and none of them do anything, I made sure the two that actually do something are different. They are flip switches as opposed to buttons and also the way they are shaped will help the user know that it is a flip switch. Feedback: When the user flips a switch the lights go on instantly also I made sure for the spinning head, that the engine is noisy. Mapping: Since there are two switches on this R2, they look different. Since its main function is the spinning head, the switch for the head is bigger than the switch for the lights.