Windborne

Caring Design

From “Fixing” to “Caring”

We ground Windborne in a caring design perspective, which shifts the design paradigm in healthcare settings from “fixing” the human body to “caring” for patients’ subjective and relational experiences. Drawing on Joan Tronto’s feminist ethics of care, we see the installation not as an intervention to cure medical conditions, but as a poetic medium that attends to fragile relationships and emotional well-being.

• Nature Connection: Brings the feeling of a gentle breeze into clinical spaces cut off from the outdoors.
• Open-ended Play: Balances ambiguity and feedback to invite light-hearted moments rather than goal-driven tasks.
• Inclusive Interaction: Where prior works like Witaya Junma’s Into the Wind pair breath with bubble blowing, Windborne uses gentle hand gestures and passive presence, so people with physical limitations or attached medical equipment can take part.

System Implementation

Four Modules, One Dandelion

Windborne is a free-standing, human-scale installation: an edge-lit acrylic “seed head” on a hollow PVC stem, divided into four modules.

• Sensing: A Grove PAJ7620U2 gesture sensor at the center of the top panel registers active hand motions, while two Grove ultrasonic rangers in the base track the presence and walking direction of passersby.
• Visualization: A transparent acrylic disk is edge-lit by a 144 LEDs/m WS2812B strip, with semi-transparent laser engravings acting as light-guide pixels. We extended Sonya Vasquez’s open-source light guide plate algorithm with a polar mapper that turns square spline density matrices into circular patterns, producing three panel designs: Dot, Dash, and Patch.
• Ephemeral Medium: A Bambu Lab electric bubble blaster sits in a 3D-printed housing, panned by an MG90 servo. A non-toxic homemade solution of dish soap, xanthan gum, corn syrup, and water produces slow-drifting bubbles that outlast store-bought ones.
• Control & Structure: An Arduino UNO with a Grove shield coordinates the sensors, servo, and a MOSFET that drives the bubble blaster. A dedicated 5V 15A supply powers the LEDs and blaster, kept separate from the logic power to isolate noise. The hollow PVC stem carries all cabling and is just compliant enough that the servo’s torque makes the top panel sway.

Multimodal Interaction

Three Ways to Play with the Wind

To accommodate varying energy levels, physical abilities (e.g., children in wheelchairs or with attached IV lines), and comfort levels, Windborne offers three interaction scenarios with minimal physical requirements:

• Lateral Hand Waves: A slow left-to-right or right-to-left wave triggers a matching light pattern while the servo pans the bubble blaster, releasing bubbles along the path of the hand like dandelion seeds carried off by a breeze. The blaster’s torque sets the stem gently swaying.
• Vertical Hand Waves: An upward sweep summons a sudden gust. Blinking “starlight” pixels ignite at the base of the disk, sweep up both sides, converge at the top, and shrink away, while the blaster releases an extended vertical stream of bubbles.
• Passive Engagement: For people too tired or shy to interact, the installation senses passersby and leaves a soft starlight trail that follows their direction, with a brief swirl of bubbles drifting into their wake.

Preliminary Feedback

Online Survey & In-person Sessions

We gathered feedback in two stages: an online survey (n = 30) after participants watched a video of the installation, and three in-person feedback sessions.

• Ratings: Visual appeal 4.1/5, curiosity provocation 3.6/5, and potential as a conversation starter 3.8/5.
• Preference: Over 50% of participants preferred Windborne to traditional passive nature videos.
• Perceived Benefits: 21 participants highlighted potential mood improvement, and 14 identified distraction as a key benefit.
• In Person: Participants described feeling “happy,” “peaceful,” “calm,” and “relaxed,” and said the interaction evoked “playful childhood” memories.

On an adapted RoSAS scale, participants rated Windborne highest as interactive, responsive, immersive, and nature-inspired, and low on negative traits such as scary, dangerous, and aggressive.