Possible names: Head Cheerleader, Thinking Cap, Drinking Cap, Salary Cap, Peopoll, Peopel

A question arose whether the to make the hats automatically (remotely activated via radio), or self-activated (the user hits a button to activate their own hat).

Nancy suggested starting with high-school students, rather than going directly to football stadiums.

Different designs depending on target market. This is basically a marketing project. Re-designing a simple product for different markets.

Thinking Cap: for High School students
-teaching device
-take fact memorization and make it fun
-students answer questions through hats (multiple buttons, create multiple sound/light responses from hat)
-sell to LeapFrog

Thinking Cap: for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire type game shows
-audience participation device
-audience asked to help game show participant answer question
-light up hats or make honking sounds to indicate suggested answer

Thinking Cap: Nascar version
-seperate sounds & announcements for different emotions
-stadium can light up all red with specs of blue, etc.

Other questions:
Does the message spread like an epidemic? For example, one person lights their hat red, another person sees the crowd all becoming red, and tries to spread his own blue virus. the individuals in the crowd compete for control of the color or sound of the whole.

How to indicate intensity of emotion or response? When people are yelling or booing in a crowd, they generally do it longer to indicate the severity of their excitement or disapproval. Longevity indicates intensity.

Colors must be correct. In other words a yeah for a team with a blue logo must result in the cap turning blue.

Hat must not fall off. Must be weight stabilized.

Inspiration from “Log” in Ren & Stimpy – using a simple product, and recontextualizing it over and over.

Talk to Yousef Birnboim mailto:yousef@birnboim.com about his research into making products for stadium entertainment and the barriers to entry therein.