Augmented Reality Food Incentive System for Child Nutrition
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Solution Overview
Problem
Children often fail to consume sufficient fruits and vegetables, leading to poor nutrition habits that can persist into adulthood, as they are less inclined to eat healthy foods.
Innovation Solution
An augmented reality feature system that uses mobile devices to incentivize the consumption of fruits and vegetables by revealing digitally-animated rewards as children eat their meals, with the rewards becoming fully visible upon completion of the food, encouraging continued consumption.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If traditional mealtime without incentives is used, then mealtime is simple and requires no additional technology, but children consume insufficient fruits and vegetables leading to poor nutrition habits
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a mobile device as an intermediary between the child and the food. The mobile device captures images of the food, processes them to generate augmented reality features, and displays these features to the child. This intermediary system bridges the gap between the simple act of eating and the complex incentive mechanism, allowing children to engage with digital rewards while consuming nutritious food without directly complicating the mealtime experience.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates digital copies or representations of the physical food through augmented reality features. Instead of modifying the actual food to make it more appealing, the system generates virtual overlays that copy and enhance the visual appearance of the food. These digital replicas provide the incentive mechanism while leaving the physical food unchanged, thus increasing consumption without significantly complicating the actual meal preparation and serving.
2Ease of operation
If augmented reality features are introduced to incentivize consumption, then children are more engaged and consume more fruits and vegetables, but the system complexity increases with mobile devices and image processing
Solution Approach 1:
The patent leverages the mobile device's existing multi-functionality to reduce overall system complexity. The mobile device, which children already possess and use for various purposes, is utilized for capturing food images, processing them through augmented reality applications, and displaying incentive features. By making the mobile device serve multiple functions (camera, processor, display), the patent avoids needing separate dedicated devices for each function, thereby reducing the total system complexity while maintaining high engagement levels.
Solution Approach 2:
The system enables the mobile device to perform many operations autonomously. The device automatically captures images when food is placed on the table, autonomously processes these images to generate augmented reality features, and continuously displays updated features as the child consumes food. This self-service capability reduces the need for constant adult intervention or complex manual operation, making the system easier to operate despite its technical sophistication.
3Productivity
If augmented reality features are hidden beneath food and revealed through consumption, then children are motivated to finish meals, but monitoring consumption accurately becomes more difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements continuous monitoring of the food throughout the mealtime. The mobile device continuously captures images of the food as the child eats, and the augmented reality application continuously processes these images to update the display of hidden features. This continuous action allows the system to track consumption in real-time, accurately determining when enough food has been consumed to reveal the augmented reality features, thereby solving the measurement difficulty while maintaining high motivation for meal completion.
Data Source
AI summary
Introduced here are techniques for incentivizing the consumption of foodstuffs through the use of augmented reality features. A parent may initiate an application on a mobile phone and scan a plate of one or more foodstuffs by initiating a live view captured by a camera. The parent can then select a given foodstuff that a child is unlikely to consume. When the child views the given foodstuff through the mobile phone, a portion of an augmented reality feature could be shown. For example, the child may be able to see the tail of a creature, a corner of a item, etc. As the child consumes the given foodstuff, additional portion(s) of the augmented reality feature are exposed, and the augmented reality feature becomes increasingly visible. Such a technique incentivizes the child to continue eating the given foodstuff so that the augmented reality feature can be fully seen.