<aside> 💡 Prompt: You’ve been shrunk to the size of a gummy bear. Solve a challenge you face at this new size.

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General overview of my thinking process: Creating general key questions to guide my thinking — some are a little silly goofy, some are more serious — and then brainstorming solutions!

Here, my questions surround what advantages and disadvantages being gummy bear-sized could bring. Most of these answers are based on the “physiological” tier of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to prioritize items that would help with survival, such as food, clothing, shelter, and water.

I also pursued this prompt with the following assumptions:

1. Only I am the one shrinking, everything around me (aka my environment) is the same size
2. Nothing about my bodily functions change (i.e. I don’t require more or less oxygen to function, etc)

Quick brainstorm of solutions for each category I had listed! I circled the top 3 most important challenges for me — access to medicine and healthcare, clothing, and transportation.

Why food and water are not in my top 3:

thought shredding food / using smaller portions would be a good and simple solution, and same with water.

Finally, I listed the pros and cons of pursuing a solution for the top 3 challenges, and ultimately decided to tackle medicine and healthcare.

Introducing SHAM+ : Small Healthcare Assistant & Medicine 💊🩺🏥💉

<aside> ⚠️ The Challenges: At the size of a gummy bear, it may be hard for me to interact with doctors, access the proper size and dosage of medication, and use medical devices that were meant for normal-sized beings.

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<aside> 😁 The Solution: SHAM+ is small-sized machine that would help with connecting to virtual health assistants, accessing common bite-sized medical devices, and re-size pills to a smaller size.

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Model:

There are definitely some design flaws and inefficiencies here, but this is a general idea of how I can solve accessing healthcare and medications as a gummy-bear-sized human!

Illustrator prototype:

SHAM+ Features:

SHAM+ will be a 0.8-inch tall box-like machine that can be powered by a small solar cell. It is meant to be the same height as the user (me, a gummy bear whose average size should be 0.8 inches), and can be placed on flat surfaces.

🧑‍⚕️ Challenge #1: Communicating with a healthcare provider/doctor

• Built-in speaker that connects with a 24-hour doctor
• Press the button to speak to a doctor on the other side

🌡️ Challenge #2: Access to medical devices

• VPN-enabled stethoscope, in the shape of a flat disc that can be placed on the chest (I’m not super familiar with VPN, but I figured Bluetooth may only work with short distances)
  • This stethoscope will connect with a doctor on the server
  • They will be able to hear the heartbeat through this wireless stethoscope!
• Vaccine injections will be controlled by a machine, where it detects the precise site of injection and will inject the correct vaccine there
• Forehead thermometer with adjustable height

💊 Challenge #3: Small-sized pills

• After I would have received the pills prescribed by the doctor, I am able to select the capsule size, the # of pills, and the mg/pill using the screen on the machine
• I can then insert an individual pill into the machine, which will grind up the capsule, filter the powder, and re-pack the powder into smaller capsules based on the indicated size
• The pills will be outputted in the bottom right pocket