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Ripple
A playful platform for dynamic classroom connections.
What is it?
Ripple is a smart interactive wand designed for middle school classrooms to foster new social connections without using screens. Students answer classroom questions using their personal wand and then move around the room to discover peers who chose the same answer. When matching students meet, their wands light up and vibrate, encouraging new group formations. The system helps teachers create dynamic, inclusive classroom activities that reduce social isolation, break fixed social circles, and strengthen students' sense of belonging.
Project Info
- Students: Barbara Aberzon, Yotam Alony, Maayan Crystal, Ziv Itzhak, Yael Shabat
- Year: 2026
- Lecturer: Dr. Noa Morag
- Teaching Assistant: Dr. Ofir Sadka, Tom Hitron
- Industrial Designer: Aviad Kelner
- Development: Inbar Raz
How does it work?
Ripple is powered by an ESP-C32 microcontroller. Each wand includes four buttons (Tactile Buttons) for answer selection, an RGB LED light to display visual feedback, and a vibration motor (Vibration Motor) to create a gentle, physical feedback during interaction.
To start the activity, each student performs a long press on button number 1, which turns on the wand with a feedback of changing colorful lighting. The teacher displays a question including four possible answers, and each student selects their answer personally and discreetly by pressing the corresponding button on the wand. After the selection, the lighting on all wands changes to a blinking white light, and the wands begin to continuously scan their surroundings using BLE technology while measuring the signal strength (RSSI) between the wands. When two students who chose the same answer approach each other, and the signal strength between them crosses a pre-defined threshold, the wands detect the match, light up together in the same color, and activate a gentle vibration to create a shared and immediate feedback. The combination of visual and physical feedback turns small moments of proximity into shared experiences, encouraging natural interactions and the creation of new connections between students in the classroom.