Course project · KTH Royal Institute of Technology · 2019

The email machine

A hand-crank device that makes you generate the energy it takes to send an email.

By Sabina Nordell, Senior UX/UI Designer

A person turning a wooden hand crank on the email machine while selecting a message type on its panel

Role: Interaction design, prototyping, user testing
With: Elena González Rabal, Indira Amaris, Olivia Almgren, Jenny Norman
Tools: Arduino MKR 1010, DC motor, Laser cutting, Electronics

The problem

Email has a carbon footprint. Around 136 kg of CO2e per person per year in the developed world, roughly the same as driving 320 km. About 80% of the email people receive is never opened.

None of that is visible when you hit send. Showing someone a chart about it does not help much either.

What we built

A device that runs only on the energy you generate, used at the moment you generate it. Nothing is stored in a battery. If you stop cranking, the system stops.

You choose a sentence, a text file, an image, or an audio clip, then crank until it sends. A display shows elapsed time, estimated footprint, and calories burned. An Arduino MKR 1010 runs it, with a DC motor as the generator.

What we found

An email carrying a voice message took about 90 seconds of cranking. A plain text message took a fraction of that. Putting the two next to each other in your arms did something no chart had.

People told us they felt more concerned about their energy use afterwards. We also got the ergonomics wrong: cranking occupies your hands, which you then need for the interface. Feet would have been the better choice.

We ran too few tests to claim a significant result. What we have is a strong direction, not a finding.