Physical interaction design DH2400

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Ryan McLeod sa...

While Makey Makey looks to be something of a toy, I think it stands for much more. While all fields have experts and they should be respected for their work and contributions, more often that not, true innovation comes from those outside of the field. Often experts of the field have tunnel-vision and know “what they can and cannot do,” which can be inhibitory to outside-the-box thinking and it often takes an ignorance of what’s already been done, to invent the future. Additionally having more people contributing ideas and looking at hard problems is always better. Ardunio was such a success because it made micro-controller programming and electronic hardware accessible to everyone. With new insights, and ideas people created wonderful things.

Currently for people to use any interface other than the keyboard and mouse, either requires people to buy expensive new consumer electronics made by experts, or to wait for experimental input methods to come to market. They always have the choice of building their own, but even if one is fairly good at electronics, it’s typically a complicated process to connect a circuit to a computer. Makey Makey makes adding new inputs a breeze. It’s also fun and intuitive to use. The most basic user can use alligator clips to add silly new input methods (ex. a simple piano stair-case, banana controlled video games, etc), a somewhat programming/electronics savvy user can solder to the board and hack things like a household motion sensor to wake their computer from sleep when they approach, and an expert user can use it as a cheap input method for say wiring an interesting museum display or enhancing a physical interaction project for a university class. So while MaKey MaKey may not be a breakthrough science discovery, I think it’s a powerful tool that enables anyone to make new inventive interfaces, and it may just show us something we never thought of before.

14 september 2012 kl. 13:55  

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