Mon Dodopote
A kid sleep companion. “Mon Dodopote” is a “monster catcher”, a reliable buddy when terrifying creatures step out from the cupboard. Interactive, it reacts once kid needs help (cry, movements). He reassures with his presence and is always ready to catch and eat any intruder who would try to escape. His face comes to life on screen and make it real for kids. Bit, by bit, coloured dots, symbolizing catch of the day, appear to reassure kid and send him back to sleep. To empower kid, on interactive touch screen, before going to sleep, he can choose funny face to scary monsters. With his lighting ears "Mon Dodopote" also escorts kid in the night.
At first I wanted to work on a simple night light project. To begin my work I decided to make some researches on kids and night fear to understand their need. Reading psychologist report I realized that night and monster fear means more being afraid of solitude than being scared by obscurity. And that's how I came up with this idea to give kids a sleep companion. I wanted him to look real and alive that's why I integrated a screen to illustrate his face. Then I chose to make him look like a little monster, but a sweet one, able to catch bad monsters. "Mon dodopote' is a glutton monster, full of roundness. His ears are long and thin to for easy handling. I also wanted him to be a complete tool for parents and make him help establishing a bedtime routine, be a bed or wake up time indicator, and lower stress kid level. A "Dodopote" app offer to control him at distance and be informed about his activities. It's also an access to various night stories about "Dodopote" adventures (linked with kids fears as : insect fear, dogs, thunderstorm, school, ...) to allow parents and child bonding.
The first step was to sketch small monsters which would look sweet enough. Then, I developed the shape by 3D modeling with Rhinoceros.
The next step is to finalize the technical and software aspects and user test the product with kids and parents.
Most of people who have seen the concept say it's so cute! So making a monster look cute is done!
I think you always learn something by doing a project. For this one, what I learned is that to innovate you have to try to identify the problem, and answer to "why" before going ahead with your first pre-establish idea.
