5.1 Introduction

The introduction is meant to set the context for the entire prototyping chapter arguing that a playful domestic environment is not achieved through a single designed artifact but through an iterative research process that moves between physical making and critical observation. Establishes how the two prototypes were developed and used as critical tools to answer the research question.

5.1.1 Overview of the Phases

One para definition of each phase and its contributions to the overall research question

This is should be my definition of how the sections tie into research overall and how it establishes each prototype iteration as purposeful and driven by a consistent question about domestic presence, physical agency, and ambient interaction.

5.1.2 Shared Infrastructure

Breakdown of the portable local Wi-Fi network created, of how it was created to micic an infrastructure similar to a home network. //with diagram

5.2 Phase One: The Box

Intro to the box Phase → The box was the initial test to see if a domestic object be designed to communicate a sense of interiority and social presence? It explores whether voice, time-awareness, and material quality are sufficient to create meaningful engagement.

Box section's most important contribution is not what it proved but that it revealed what was missing, a way for the person to participate. That finding is what makes the Wobbles necessary.

5.2.1 Conceptual Premise

What was the Box trying to do? Giving an overlooked domestic object the capacity to express its own awareness and emotional state. Distinguish this from home automation…this is about social presence, not efficiency.

The idea base this directly on how it contests the dominant paradigm of the smart home, in which objects are optimized for function. By asking what an object might 'feel' about its own ignored status, the Box introduces the project's core, that domestic technology might have a social life/be able to express…

5.2.2 Iteration 1: Binary Presence Detection

What was built, how it worked, what was observed (one-two paras at the most).

The key finding: binary trigger logic cannot distinguish engagement from accidental proximity. End with the questions it raised for the next iteration.

context/finding → The binary prototype establishes the baseline against which all subsequent complexity is justified. It demonstrates that reactive presence detection alone produces a transactional, not social, interaction — a distinction central to the Playful Home thesis.