January-August, 2105

While working at Wild Blue Technologies I was part of a creative team responsible for designing and developing novel hands-on advertisement experiences.

We wanted to find a self-guided way to allow a customer to try a new product without utilizing store staff to watch over the display. The result was the Smile Sampler. When a guest approaches the kiosk, they are prompted to smile. Upon doing so, the kiosk dispenses a predetermined confection.

The smile detection serves a two-fold purpose. First, in the mind of the customer smiling becomes associated with the received candy. Second, it provides a primary reason to have a video feed because when a product is dispensed, a snapshot of the users face is processed into biometric information. Storing this information allows the system to lock that person out, preventing them from getting another sample for a limited amount of time.

In this version of the Smile Sampler, I developed the backend hardware and software that allowed a Bluetooth enabled device to dispense products with a simple API call.