Snoozy the Sloth: A Breathing Plush Toy
Snoozy the Sloth is a plush toy with a respiratory system. He sleeps while clinging onto a user, allowing them to feel both the contraction and expansion of his chest, as well exhaling of air from his mouth. The main concept behind snoozy is to create an intimate, yet passive, toy interaction that relaxes and comforts a user, through the tactile experience of steady breathing patterns. Creating a system that was battery powered, and used actual air flow rather than simply faking chest movemment with a motorized system, were of main importance. Snoozy’s main internals consist:
- an arduino
- a breadboard
- 2 dc motor diaphram pumps
- a latex glove (his lung)
- 1 9v battery
- 1 12v battery
- a solenoid valve.
The circuit uses 2 TIP102 transistors to seperate the 9v going to the Arduino, and 12v going to the motors and solenoid valve. The pumps, each located in one of his legs, push air into the latex glove until it’s fully contracted. The motors then shut off, and the air is released through by solenoid valve located in his head. An located in the Snoozy’s chest, fades in and out in accordance with his breathing. The pumps seemed a bit loud at first, however the majority of user testers (aged 18-30) seemed to not mind the noise. I’m still in the process of looking for a quieter alternative (an important concern for younger users), with enough pressure to fill the latex lung.
Components
Main Circuit
“Snoozy The Sloth” Video
A few of the write-ups Snoozy has received:
[...] Snoozy the Sloth is a plush toy with a respiratory system. He sleeps while clinging onto a user, allowing them to feel both the contraction and expansion of his chest, as well exhaling of air from his mouth. The main concept behind Snoozy is to create an intimate, yet passive, toy interaction that relaxes and comforts a user, through the tactile experience of steady breathing patterns. [...]
[...] in a tree and stay there for a whole day, someone would like to have it on as their pet perhaps. Justin Blinder has built a robot that the idea came from this animal. This robot will cling on the user; the user [...]
Have you thought about making these? I showed it to my husband. And he bolted down to the workshop and came back up 2 hours later. We have come to the conclusion that you need definitely have a market here. I can see how soothing these could be.
I am trying to figure out how to make some of my “Buddyz” breathe for an art project I’m working on. Would this work on a larger scale? And would you be willing to walk me through it?
[...] snoozy the sloth [...]