In this progress report, we present scenarios and skethes that a user can interact with the "interative potted plant" to pass our care and love to the remote beloved.

Background

Originally, the project was called an "Affective Bear", which is an interactive stuffed bear that provides a tangible interface for communication and medical care. This stuffed bear is used to represent the mental and physiological status of a remote friend, family member, or beloved. For example, when the bear is lowering its head, it represents the other is feeling low. To show care for the remote others, you can interact with the stuffed bear and the system would trigger feedbacks in the remote site to cheer her up. For example, by touching the bear's head, relaxing music would be played remotely.

However, we have changed our project direction; we changed the interactive bear to a interactive potted plant. Because we were concerned that some people like grown-up men may be reluctant to interact with a stuffed bear and they may feel embarassed to let others know they have a bear in their rooms, a potted plant, instead, is a relatively neutral and acceptable object. Nonetheless, a neutral object doesn't mean people cannot show care with it: the interaction of watering plant can be used as a metaphor of care; dried-up and yellow leaves can represent unattended and bad mood; green leaves can represent vitality and good mood. There are lots of possiblities with the potted plant; it can be more than a home decoration.

Interaction scenarios

There is a pair of potted plants: one plant is placed in the remote and the other is placed locally. We incorporate EEG sensors to automatically detect whether a local user is in bad mood. If the user is feeling low, the leaves of the remote plant would turn into yellow, which reminds the remote user. Then, the remote user can do something to give care to the local other: he/she can either water the plant or send a message by talking directly to the plant. After watering the plant, the local plant would play music to make the local user feel better. If the remote user talk directly to the plant, the system transcribes the message and show it in the LCD attached around the pot.