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  • index
  • music + sound
    • nomadaphone
    • flarinet
    • paper speakers
    • level the noise
    • primal resonance
  • furniture
    • chairigami store
    • making in miniature
    • cardboard therapy equipment
    • chairigami manufacturing
    • cardboard standing desk
    • calder lamp
  • education
    • periodic table of everyday objects
    • strawchitecture
    • cardboard building sets
    • cardboard computer
  • sketches
  • about
  • CV
Level the Noise

Level the noise is a fit-bit for sound.  The wearable paired with an accompanying app gathers real-time sound data, empowering autistic individuals sensitive to noise to tightly monitor personal sound exposure, better predict overwhelmed states, and promote self-advocacy in curating healthy sound environments. 

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The Need:

Autistic adults are often highly sensitive to
 sound. This heightened sensitivity can lead to self-isolation, anxiety in public spaces, and embarrassing meltdowns.  From leaving a job in an open-office workplace, to rejecting invitations to sporting events and musicals, to fearing travel to see loved ones, autistic adults hypersensitive to sound must constantly cope with overwhelming and painful soundscapes.

                               MEDICAL CONDITION

I WEAR THESE BECAUSE I HAVE A DISABILITY.
I AM NOT LISTENING TO MUSIC.
I WEAR THEM SO THAT THE SOUNDS I HEAR ARE THE SAME LEVEL THAT OTHER PEOPLE HEAR.
WITHOUT THEM I CANNOT BE IN PUBLIC WITHOUT EXTREME PAIN.
                                                                                       
                                                                                         -Anlor Davin's                                                                Home-Made Medical Necklace
The Community:
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​“Its like my brain freezes slowly when there’s too much noise.”
                                                                                     - Anlor
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“I was not as good at expressing my problems and discomforts when I was younger...”
                                                                                   -Marcus
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“...the goal is to bump up communication and create some sort of logic that a reasonable person could understand why an autistic needs to say “no”.
                                                                                      - John
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​“A lot of times I’m half oblivious to the signs of a meltdown, so to have something mechanical that could tell me ahead of time could be really helpful.”
                                                                                -Christian
The Insight:

Through countless stories we learned that..


The more overstimulated you are, the harder it is to predict your tipping point, communicate your overwhelmed state, and make the decision to escape to a healthier sound environment.

so we asked...

How might we empower autistic individuals hypersensitive to sound build real-time awareness of personal noise thresholds, self-advocate by communicating noise fatigue, and better plan for overwhelming noisy places?
The Solution:
​

Collect
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Track Real-Time
​Noise Data
Geo-Tag Noise Levels
Reflect
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Discover Sound Patterns and
​Personal Thresholds
Architect
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Plan a Healthy Soundscape
The Prototypes​:

We began by first helping people build sound journals.  By better understanding their daily sound journeys, tracking and recording hourly sound health, environment, and meltdowns, we could begin to build a language around sound inputs and useful information for tracking daily sound intake. 
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-John's Sound Journal 3-01-2017
In parallel, we began to build simple wearable prototypes that measured and stored real-time sound data, allowing users to tag and prioritize critical sound events.
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We explored what data was helpful for people to know about their soundscapes, learning that individuals need to measure current sound levels to consciously link loudness with environmental factors. As users discovered their own meltdown patterns, it became equally as crucial to measure nearness to sound overload. 
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Real-Time Loudness
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Nearness to Sound Overload
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Hourly Sound History
What if sound-sensitivity worked like a personal fuel tank, where quiet recovery time replenished energy and degrees of noise depleted patience at different rates?  We tested several "sound bank" algorithms and explored how we might express that data in intuitive and easily communicable ways. The emotional expressions below indicate the nearness to sound overload and help individuals better advocate for their own emotional states.
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Happy
​30% of Sound Threshold
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Annoyed
​60% of Sound Threshold
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Overwhelmed
90% of Sound Threshold 
We explored several ways of organizing sound information to make it easier for people to learn from their own sound data and better plan for future stressful sound events.  Users found it helpful to organize daily sound experiences both by geographical location and the type of sound event.  
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Sound cards help individuals reflect and compare the personal impact of sound based upon geographic location or daily tasks.
Sound tags allow individuals to log specific sound events or situations that trigger meltdowns to help them to better plan for these overwhelming environments
How it works:

Level the Noise works as a wearable and app pair. Sound data is collected through several microphones and then pushed via blue-tooth to a phone. In the first week of use, users calibrate the device to understand their typical sound environments, moments of meltdown, and stressful sound events.  
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After calibration, users can begin to organize and categorize sound experiences, tagging sound sources, GPS location, and adding notes to clarify their sound journal.  The sound data not only helps autistic individuals become more aware of noise thresholds, but also serves as a tool to help them self-advocate to friends and coworkers when they needed to recharge or change their sound environment.
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Next Steps:

Through our research and feedback, we discovered that while level the noise was useful for autistic adults, it may be even more relevant for autistic children at school.  With the accompanying app, both parents and teachers could be notified of a child's sound intake and daily noise thresholds.  The device could help autistic children better communicate their sound health and sound needs to piers and teachers.   We hope to further explore how level the noise can help children with autism create productive learn environments in neuro-typical classrooms.
Communicate
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In moments when sound is overwhelming, level the noise helps children know when to ask a teacher for help.
Learn
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Parent and child can learn together about the child's daily sound journey.
Plan Ahead
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Parent and child can better plan for safe sound environments and cope with noisy places.
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Copyright © 2018
  • index
  • music + sound
    • nomadaphone
    • flarinet
    • paper speakers
    • level the noise
    • primal resonance
  • furniture
    • chairigami store
    • making in miniature
    • cardboard therapy equipment
    • chairigami manufacturing
    • cardboard standing desk
    • calder lamp
  • education
    • periodic table of everyday objects
    • strawchitecture
    • cardboard building sets
    • cardboard computer
  • sketches
  • about
  • CV