Campsite Fire Kiosk

A kiosk design and interactive alarm prototype developed for the context of a campsite, this alarm uses the fundamental semantics of shape matching and draws inspiration from keyholes. Through this project I developed my skills in wiring and electrical circuits while refining my design prototyping abilities.

what it is and how it works

The campsite kiosk is an alarm system designed to aid campers and hikers in emergency situations. Stationed across official campsites, the kiosk would assist users in fire or health related accidents and dangers.

The alarm system has three modes: neutral (off), fire emergency, and health emergency.

Neutral mode

In neutral mode, the system is set to a solid red glow. The kiosk must be visible at all hours of the day for campers in need, however, due to it’s forest location, consideration must also be taken for local wildlife. Red, while often being a color we relate to emergency aid, is also the least likely light color to disrupt bat migration, insect life, and other animal activity. The “key” is stored above the dial.

Fire emergency

Working off of product semantics and the familiar, often second nature, action of turning a key, the systems activates. When activated for a fire emergency the surrounding ring and kiosk top blink red, letting the user know the emergency signal has been sent to the nearest ranger station. The fire emergency service would likely be used in the event of an out of control campfire or accidental combustion.

Health emergency

In the case of a health emergency, the kiosk user turns the dial to the left. The system turns from solid red (neutral) to solid deep blue. In a health emergency state the nearest ranger station is signaled and EMTs are immediately contacted + given the needed coordinates.

In order to develop this prototype I had to figure out a way of smoothly transitioning from one light type to the next using a circular dial turning motion in a limited amount of space (with only basic knowledge of LED wiring and circuitry). After testing many different unsatisfactory switch types I began experimenting with magnet connections. Below are two videos of my wiring process, the second shows my final prototype. Ultimately, I embedded small magnets into two laser cut clear acrylic discs, thus, spinning the dial opens or closes the circuit of the different LED strands. Challenges in this process included making sure the LED strands were properly insulated as well as establishing a firm pressure to close the circuits yet keep the interaction smooth and low-friction.