Lauren McCarthy’s Happiness Hat 2009, It Spikes Your Skull If You Don’t Smile Enough!
Lauren McCarthy has designed a Happiness Hat.
The rather unflattering naff looking Happiness Hat was created by Lauren McCarthy to help train people in ‘Improved Social Interacting’!
The Happiness Hat, sounds like a sweet name doesn’t it? In reality it’s anything but sweet. 
The Happiness Hat uses a bend sensor which is attached to the cheek to measure the size of the wearers smile, it then sends the information to an Arduino micro-controller. If the Arduino controller detects that the hat wearer is not wearing a large enough smile, it sends a signal to a servo motor on the back of the hat which drives a metal spike into your head!
Is the Happiness Hat a good idea? Or is it seriously barmy? Do we really want people smiling at us all the time just because they are wearing the Happiness Hat? Their smiles won’t be genuine, they will be false, based on the fear of receiving a sharp pain to their skull!
When I first read about Lauren McCarthy’s Happiness Hat, I thought it was a joke - actually I’m still not sure it’s real!
I am not the smiliest person, I have a naturally miserable face, but I don’t think I’ll be wearing the Happiness Hat, I think the mere thought of not having a spike driven in to my head is more than enough to put a smile on my face. 
Posted on ZEITGEIST
