FunFund: DIY Cardboard Coin Bank

•

With the increasing use of e-payment and digital banking, how can we prepare children for the cashless society using inexpensive and readily-accessible materials paired with computer vision?

FunFund is a DIY coin bank designed to expose children to the idea that money is a medium of exchange of value in different forms and for them to grasp the concept of tangible and virtual money. Tapping on the potential of Fiducial Markers and DIY AR Beholder App, the money-saving journey is extended with added interactions.

In 2020

With Siti Sahrah and Rain Tay

For DIY Augmented Reality Interfaces (NUS DID Design Platform AY20/21)

Understanding The Scene

—

Singapore is transitioning to become a cashless society. With the introduction of POSB Smart Buddy watch in some primary schools, responses varied. While it may be well-received by some parents, some have arguably expressed that it does not feel right for the child to be exposed to cashless payment even before they can count physical cash.

It is clear that there is a need for kids to understand the concept of tangible and virtual money. As a team, we saw an opportunity in this area where the fiducial markers could potentially come into play while we step in as designers to help kids better grasp the concept of both.

Our Criteria

—

We set out to create a system that enables the kids to deposit, withdraw as well as to check their account balance by adding the amount they have saved every session.

Explorations and Tryouts

—

As the DIY Beholder site is unable to save any past data, we are unable to execute the addition of coins. Therefore, we have designed an assigned holder for each coin when it comes to a rest. Unfortunately, we were faced with a lot more issues to resolve, leading us to ultimately remove the system conveying the continual balance update.

Limitations = Opportunities

—

Through turning our limitations into opportunities for more interactions, we implemented the trigger button for kids to confirm the amount they have saved as well as the flap for them to keep track of their balance.

Fine-tuning The Code

—

The sensitivity of detection is another major issue that we have to work with. As we are trying to capture the detection when the marker is covered by the sliding coin, there is a need for us to reduce the flicker so as to not have false positive or false negative detection. As such, we have implemented a torch activation and set the perimeters on the code alongside adjusting the slope to reduce distortion of marker detection. These iterations provide a more accurate calculation of the total amount saved per session.

Final Outcome

—

FunFund is designed to be constructed by children with the help of their parents or guardian. By downloading the template and following our instructions on Instructables, anyone can recreate this DIY coin bank with the stipulated materials.

Behind The Design

—

As the money saving journey with conventional coin banks typically ends after a child has carried out the repeated action of dropping in a coin, FunFund is designed to push the level of interaction with a coin bank to be more than that.

A series of events for interaction through the phone and the physical prototype is lined up after activation. The changing of screen display is either triggered by clicking the digital button on the phone screen or through physical interaction with the coin bank to reveal or block the markers.

Customisable For Other Currencies

—

The coin sorting template can be easily adapted for different countries by altering the size of the coin filter. User may also increase or reduce the number of coin slots in the coin filter depending on their currency, thus expanding of use beyond Singapore.

Platform Exhibition and Open Try-outs

—

On the day of submission, we had an in-person Demo Day to present our final prototypes to guest critics and allow play testers to interact with our prototypes to gather any feedback on room for improvement.