Fillip
A camera-tracked robotic ball that draws people living with dementia into moments of playful, shared attention.
Fillip is an illuminated robotic ball designed for people living with dementia. It moves on its own, on irregular paths, and that unpredictability is the point: the ball provokes playful reactions, stimulates attention and activity, and creates moments of shared enjoyment — with very little involvement required from caregivers.
Behind the play sits a camera system that watches the table: it detects the players, the table edges, and the ball’s position. With that overview, Fillip can reinforce a bounce, steer toward a person to draw them into the game, stop itself from rolling off the tabletop, or wake up again after coming to rest.
The prototype is built on the “Sphero” robot ball, recontextualized through the camera-tracking system that recognizes player and ball and sends the control signals.
Fillip was developed with Jeremias Volker in the InterFlex project “Care Design” of the Design and Social Work departments at FH Potsdam, directed by Prof. Dr. Rainer Funke and Prof. Dr. Martin Stummbaum; the study’s results are published in »Care Design – Neue Designhorizonte für (zu) pflegende Menschen« (FH Potsdam, 2012). The prototype was tried out in day care for people living with dementia. In 2013 we showed it at the Biennale Internationale Design in Saint-Étienne and in the aveneo Innovation Area of a trade fair in Nuremberg, where it got very good feedback.
In 2013 we set up a project site to find supporters for Fillip; it is still online, in German.
