Air-Pillow Attire for Haphephobia

Info                  Yuxin Yang, Harshika Bisht, 03-06/2022, Academy
                         My contributions include design, electronics, and prototyping with the team
Instructor       Allen Sayegh, asayegh@gsd.harvard.edu
                         Humbi Song, hsong1@gsd.harvard.edu
Institution      Harvard GSD

Haphephobia is an intense, irrational fear of being touched. People with haphephobia feel extreme distress over the thought of being touched. This anxiety can lead to physical symptoms like nausea, vomiting, or panic attacks.

So we propose a physical attire with a collapsible mechanism made of inflatable packing filler material, aka air pillows. Using self-assembled parts and air pumps, we control the collapsing and inflating properties based on a person’s biological and physiological changes in reaction to a more crowded space.