This is a project from kobakant, a interaction design collective. The solar T-shirt is a wearable for a sunny place, it has a feather spinning by your neck. The project is interesting for this course as it uses natural materials, with the fabric and the feather. It is also interesting as they explore using a circuit that harvest energy from a solar cell and use conductive traces.
Based on the level of carbon monoxide, an Arduino microcontroller sends out electricity through the muscle wires (copper, aluminum and nickel/nickel titanium) which heat up the thermochromatic fabric that changes color to show concentration change.
Our motivation
Wearable artifact that uses natural (soft) materials.
Durr is a clock that has no hands or numbers. Instead, it vibrates every 5 minutes, like a metronome.
Made by two Norwegian designers, the idea behind it was to explore the non-linear way that we humans experience time. When you are doing something pleasurable, time flies, but other times it will crawl by very slowly. With the watch, you become aware of time passing (and thereby your own perception of it) in a very tangible way.
The watch contains a stripped-down Arduino micro controller, a simple vibrator and clock battery that lasts 5 months.
We liked the idea because of the simplicity of both the concept and the implementation. We also liked that it forces its users to reconsider the concept of “time”. Maybe feeling the passage of time is not completely pleasant, but it would nevertheless be very interesting to try it for ourselves.
Ring
It’s a ring that allows you to interact with any device just with moments of your finger.
Why we liked it
We liked that it could represent a big change on how people interact with technology. This potentially allows users to interact with simple hand gestures like pointing with the finger with any application or device. Allows you to send texts, control home appliances with just your finger. This has a lot of potential for specific situations where the use of devices like keyboards, mouses or touch screens is not suitable.
How it works
Gets the input movements from accelerometers and touch sensors. Then communicates with an app on a mobile phone trough low consumption bluetooth. The phone then communicates with other apps or devices. It also gives the user feedback trough built-in vibration.
Like-a-hug
Like-a-hug is an interactive jacket developed at MIT Media Lab’s Tangible Media Group. The jacket is connected to the wearers Facebook account and gives the wearer a hug each time that person gets a like. In turn you can respond to a like by hugging (yourself) which then triggers a hug to the responder. A hug is simulated by inflating the jacket, more or less squeezing the wearer. When a hug is sent the jacket respond to the pressure put on the wearer's jacket. The jacket is connected to Facebook via a phone.
The project is interesting because it connects social media, otherwise only available on phones and computers, to the physical world. A "like" on Facebook is easy to send without putting that much meaning into the action. However, when you know that the person receives a physical hug one may put more meaning into what a "like" actually means.
The user presses a button to open the wooden box, which then prints out a unique highly specific fortune for the user.
The materials
Wooden box, servomechanism, thermal printer.
The implementation
Fortunes are created on the base of New York Times obituaries and stored directly on an Arduino microcontroller. When a users pushes the button, the servo motor opens the box and a random (no! highly specific!) fortune is selected and printed with the thermal printer. The wooden box will be closed after users tear off the fortune automatically.
Our motivation
Based mainly on natural materials (wood). Nice way to hide technology. Also interesting with a portable printer (printers of today can be small and perhaps wearable). Simple interaction with just one button. A creepy project that stands out…
Allow a person to feel another person’s heartbeat in the pillow over distance.
The materials
A pillow, polar heart strap, polar signal receiver, vibration motor.
The implementation
The polar heart strap records the heartbeat of the person wearing it and transmits it to wirelessly to an Arduino microcontroller. The signal is being redirected to a vibration motor in the pillow which resembles the recorded heartbeat in real time.
Our motivation
Social experiment. The concept could be expanded for distance communication. Wireless and nicely hidden technology. Combining sense of natural materials with technology.
This project is interesting because it demonstrates an unusual use of soft materials. While remote controls are traditionally hard and controlled with buttons, this table uses a soft surface and more expressive movements as input. It also changes the purpose of a familiar object, making a static object more interactive. The Fluffy Table is of course less practical than a regular remote control but it inspires a user to look at boring everyday objects, and how they can be used, from a different perspective.
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