Intel approached London College of Communication to explore the possibilities of integrating environmental sensors into daily life.

Student teams from MA Interaction Design and MA Service Design worked on a 3-week exploratory project where they experimented with sensors monitoring noise, light, proximity and air quality and developed prototypes and service scenarios for future applications.

Masato Seki, Loven Ni, Zeina Mikati and Steven Chao developed Melody Walks which was born out of the idea to use sensors to encourage pedestrians to cross the road safely. The prototype changed the pattern of the zebra crossing into a “piano crossing” which played a pleasant melody when the traffic light was green, and during the red light, it played a noisy cacophony to alarm people and stop jaywalking.

Thais Tozatto Maio, Xue Yin, Yun Qian, Kasinatha Rao, Xiaoyan Wang developed the Cool Box which was a communal box to share food among neighbours. The box sensor detected new items and sent a photo of it to the scheme participants’ mobile phones, to keep them updated on the box contents.

Caroline Ham, Simona Ciocoiu, Fy Cotton, Marcos Vazques worked on EcoFurby, technology that made calculating the carbon footprint fun and engaging for children. EcoFurby was a soft toy that had a barcode reader in it. It scanned the barcode from shopping receipts and communicated the carbon emissions of the items from the purchase in the form of a burp. The longer the burp, the greater the carbon footprint.

Melody Walks and EcoFurby were selected by Intel. The prototypes were exhibited at Intel's Tech City’s Digital Summer Trip in East London where school students were able to engage with them and learn about Intel’s products.