Do you remember “Graham”, the human from the future who went viral this week? Graham was designed by a bunch of scientist and VFX artists as a human evolved to survive car crashes. He looked absolutely grotesque, needless to say (do look him up, though!). Now imagine humans evolved to adapt to desk jobs. Faces, for one, would be significantly lower, with the neck being curved forwards rather than straight upwards. Sounds weird, doesn’t it? Well, Turtle Alert is a smart device designed to prevent us from reaching that freakish eventuality. It sits around your neck while you work at your desk, sensing the neck posture you maintain. The minute you start hunching forwards, the smart-device sends a signal to the mouse-pad you’re working on, making it vibrate, notifying you to correct your posture.
The Turtle alert has an aesthetic that makes it look halfway between ornamental and therapeutic (a strangely appropriate balance!). It houses a tilt sensor, and an Arduino kit. The mousepad too, is a smart device, and houses a vibrating component under the hand-rest. To be honest, these devices may become a necessity in the future, and that’s a little scary. The Apple watch was heavily criticized for making its wearers stand up and walk around periodically so as to give them exercise, but it seems like the kind of thing that may be an integral part of our desk-job future! I’m just glad Pokemon Go is making me walk around the city enough to keep me fit!
Designer: Seungeun Marina Lee
