Moody Juicer · Tejas Patel

A UNSW Master of Design project from 2023. The question was how to design a juicing experience that is engaging and fun for children, so that they drink more healthy juice.

The juicer has a mood, shown on a small red LED-matrix face, and you deal with it before the juice comes. A lazy juicer wants a shake, which a tilt sensor reads. A sad one wants a pat, read by a touch sensor. A hungry one wants feeding. A happy one needs nothing from you. Then a progress indicator, then juice.

I tested the prototype at home with children, between the deck’s first milestone, the form, and its second, the interactions. In the third version of the conceptual model, “surprised”, which was in my starting set of moods, has become “hungry”, and a progress indicator sits ahead of the juice. The first rig was a retail box with a button on it and a note: want juice? press here.

It stayed a prototype: the last slides of the deck are headed Future works.

The face, prototyped: a red LED matrix showing a face, wired to a microcontroller board beside a breadboard. — The face on a red LED matrix, wired to a board and a button on a breadboard.

Render of the Moody Juicer in an x-ray view: a see-through white body with red end caps, a central tube and wooden dowel legs. — The juicer in CAD, seen through its body: a screw between two red end caps, on legs.