Category: General Discussion

Jan 13-15: Antenna Design Workshop

This past week at ITP, I was one of 16 lucky students to participate in a workshop on “Intervention/Interaction – Multi-person Interface” hosted by the co-creators of the awesome design firm Antenna Design. Sigi Moeslinger (ITP Alumna ’96) and Masamichi Udagawa led the workshop over 3 days. Our task was to create an intervention of some type in a public space, keeping in mind that the focus of our interactive experience should be on people.

Along with Nien Lam and David Phillips, I created an intervention in the Bobst academic library at NYU. Our proposal was a type of “relaxation station” that transported the users to different natural environments. It was targeted towards busy students needing a short break from their studies, but could still be unobtrusive enough to still be situated within the library.

As I mentioned, each station would be based on a natural theme, which were organized by the floors of the library. So, the ocean-themed station was on the 2nd Floor, which the night sky-theme was on the top floor. Within each station, students would be able to participate in the shared experience of being transported to another natural environment, complete with enhanced oxygen and sound design that would become more complex depending on how many other students were also sitting in the station. Each station would also have some type of visual aspect, since there would be some type of overhang to each bench or seating area, that sort of resembled a bus stop. What I specifically worked on was the sound design aspect, which I found I really enjoyed from the sound editing assignment in Communications Lab. Additional credit goes to Nien for developing the 3-D software model of our station, and David for the presentation and photo-manipulations.

I really liked our project, as did many other students. The breaking point for us was spending several hours in the library and simply observing the behavior of students there, and taking careful consideration of what would really be feasible in that space. I’m really proud that we were able to come up with something really nice in just 3 days. Nice job David and Nien, especially for putting up with my paranoia and perfectionism! 🙂

Anyway, here is our project description, some photos and some links.

Photos of our final presentations, by Jonathan Ystad.
Our presentation by David Phillips.

Project Description:
Design an intervention (= installation or an automated machine) for “interactive services” in public space which will generate a new interaction amongst people.

An “interactive service” is a “mechanism” which provides some service or product for people. It is a kind of hybrid object/environment, such as an automated vending machine, information or entertainment kiosk, street furniture, etc.

The task is to go beyond an interface between a system/object and a singular user, to coming up with an interaction amongst multiple people mediated by the new system/object.

In this project, the essence of design is to “activate” people who encounter your intervention. The design should be safe and enjoyable, help people become more curious, more intellectually and/or physically active, cultivate relations with others (strangers, family, community, friends, colleagues, etc.) and grow as humans. It sounds obvious, but people must always be the focus of design.

Article: “Tangible Interaction”

The current issue of interactions magazine features a cover story called Tangible Interaction = Form + Computing, which the authors, Mark Baskinger and Mark D. Gross, describe as a combination of physical design and computing. They reference NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts (ITP) as one of the first schools in the world to have embraced tangible interaction design. In their article, they speak of the switch as the simplest of sensors, and reference Pd (a software program specifically for sound design), Arduino (for gadgetry) and Lilypad (for wearables)…all of these part of our non-core curriculum.

As an ITP student, one of the most heartening parts of this article is the section on “Where Do Tangible Interaction Designers Fit?”. They say, “The field is still wide open, but one thing is clear: We’re likely to see more, not less, programming in things, and a lot more experimentation.” It’s nice to hear that there’s still so much more development to be had, since it means I’ll eventually have a job.

In reference to ITP, well, we have a lot of artists who come through and I don’t know how many of them would really think of themselves as a “tangible interaction designer” even if that’s really what they are, if you have to call it something. And, I do think the article lacks a bit in the artistic and simply wonderment aspects of what we do; not everything is designed for more than just enjoyment of life or experimentation. Not that they need to, but as they say they’re modeling their studies at Carnegie Mellon on programs like ours. So, maybe, there’s a PhD in my future…I did after all quote Dr. Gross in my ITP admissions essay.

Article: Merging Man and Machine, The Bionic Age

Image of a mechanical arm from a National Geographic article


The cover story to the January 2010 issue of National Geographic is an article about how bionics, or “the study of mechanical systems that function like living organisms or parts of living organisms”, is being used to help people with limited abilities and handicaps, due to accident, genetics or age. In addition to a very nice slideshow, the whole article (maybe?) is available here. The following is a small clip…

Four years ago an automobile accident robbed Amanda Kitts of her arm and the ability to do things most of us take for granted, like making a sandwich. “I felt lost,” the teacher from Knoxville, Tennessee, tells writer Josh Fischman in this month’s cover story on bionics.

Then Amanda met Todd Kuiken, a physician and biomedical engineer who knew that the nerves in an amputee’s stump can still telegraph brain signals. He fitted her with a bionic arm. Bionics is technology at its most ingenious and humane. Most of us first encountered the word in science fiction books or television shows like The Six Million Dollar Man. In that 1970s series, pilot Steve Austin is injured in a crash. His rebuilt body, which includes a bionic arm, eye, and legs, is nothing short of superhuman.

But the bionics of modern medical engineering has little to do with enabling someone to run at 60 miles an hour or use an eye like a zoom lens. It is more about the quiet miracle of holding a fork or seeing the silhouette of a tree. It’s about allowing people like Amanda to reclaim what they’ve lost.

A year ago Ray Edwards, a quadruple amputee, was one of the first people in the United Kingdom to be fitted with a bionic hand. When he flexed his new hand for the first time, he cried. “It made me feel I was just Ray again,” he said. The restoration of one’s normal self is a powerful gift.

There’s also an interactive section about bionics and current advances in prothetics relative to specific body parts.


Just an added note: In the slideshow, there’s a picture of Kitts laughing as her prosthetic arm squeezes a bottle of mustard. Frankly, it’s a pretty awesome photo – and, I definitely find much more joy this photo than I do of that other photo of Jenny McCarthy squeezing a bottle of mustard in a bikini. (Not added, but easily found if you search.) Anyway, if Kitts ever sees this post, I hope she’ll appreciate my comparison between her and her bionic arm, and McCarthy.

Article: Bacteria is put to work turning gears

I came across this interesting article about biological and “micromechanical machines” this morning while eating oatmeal and toast.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University have discovered that common bacteria can turn microgears when suspended in a solution, providing insights for designs of bio-inspired dynamically adaptive materials for energy.

More on RDmag.com….

Liveable Interactive Music Player

Introduction

My final project for Physical Computing eventually ended up to be an MP3 player that encourages you to take care of your houseplant. This evolved from a previous idea of making a plant that is more like a pet than a plant. I changed my mind after getting some good feedback from my class when I presented my idea. One of their suggestions was to focus on the emotional aspect of how the plant makes you feel. They also advised that care of the plant needs to be an important aspect of the project.

This is how it works: Press the moisture test button. If the soil is dry, the plant will cry; otherwise, it will laugh. If the soil isn’t dry, you can use the MP3 player. You can advance forward and back through an array of music files. You can also pause the music.

Test Button
Test Button


Not only do you care for your plant, it seems like your plant cares for you, too. Although the interface for this project ended up being dainty and pretty, I do admit that 90% of my time on this project seemed to really be spent on code and trying to get things to work. I’ve written about this project in previous posts, so I won’t recap what I’ve discussed in those. But, they’re here if you are interested in reading through them and understanding more about how the project was generated.

Process Description

Because I wanted to embed the interactive mechanics inside the plant, I spent about 1 week on the wave shield and, while I did get it to work, in the end still couldn’t get it to work so well. Some of the issues I had with it were that I didn’t understand the documentation clearly, the code is in some C-language, and my SD card wasn’t formatted correctly. Eventually, I did get it to work, but by that time Minim was looking pretty good. So, sound was now going to be handled by Processing. I also tested out different motion detection sensors to see what types of results I could get that would fit my needs best. Some of the issues I had were that the sensors were too bulky to elegantly embed inside the plant or the serial data I got from the Arduino was too sensitive.

Meanwhile, I was also thinking about my ICM final and how I wanted to create something separate from my Phys Comp final. Originally, I wanted to make a radio that streamed internet radio stations. However, when I discussed this idea with more knowledgeable people and looked it up online, I got the impression that it would be very difficult to implement. So, I left that idea behind and went to my next idea, which was simply an MP3 player. Wanting to make something more interactive and pretty, I started looking up options for Processing and Minim, and what type of visual display I could make. I looked around for an “audio visualizer” on OpenProcessing.org and found this sketch to work with. After that, I spent a little bit of time everyday trying to figure out how the code worked and augmenting it bit by bit to create something new.

By now, it became obvious that I should just put the two projects together. Deciding to use Minim for my Physical Computing project was a huge relief. Not only was it easier to use and had documentation I could understand, it was also easier to get help since Minim is something that other people at ITP have actually worked with on a somewhat frequent basis. (It’s also in the book).

Plus, I could research more about Minim while I was away at a conference in London for a few days. When I got back the States, I went back to the prototype I’d set up before I left using FSRs as triggers for the playback buttons. The FSRs I switched out for exposed wires, because I really didn’t need the analog input values the FSRs provided. (Plus, I seem to have a tendency to destroy my FSRs.) What I really needed were simple HIGH and LOW values from a digital switch which I made out of small sheets of copper.

To test the soil for its resistance to electrical current, I made what could easily be called the simplest switch ever. Add 2 nails + 5V + ground to wet soil. Test for current. Actually, I learned how to do this from reading the internet, the blog of another student,and talking to yet another knowledgeable person.

As I understand, this switch works when the resistance of the soil changes enough to allow a current to flow more freely. At first, I tried this out with just a bowl of water, but I think maybe it shorted out (?) – you really need a plant or at least the soil to get this to work properly. I also added an LED for my own visual feedback.

So, now I had the buttons and the plant. Eventually, I also had a pretty nifty audio visualizer (which at the time of this writing, I may still try to improve upon). So, finally, I just had to assemble the pieces.

Pretty much I just found whatever I had lying around. I found a picture frame in the junk shelf and used that for the frame. I also had some pieces of cork lying around for a bulletin board I never put on my wall, and I used that to cover the frame and to be a backing for the buttons. The whole construction phase literally took just 1 day. Most of my issues with this project were with the code. Luckily there are more knowledgeable people around who can offer help with the code. It also made it a lot easier to test the switches when the wires were not stuck in a plant.

Now that I’m done with the simplest of functionality, to improve it here are a few things I could do:

  • Make a sturdier interface – use something other than cork

  • Label the buttons

  • Provide more feedback when a button is pressed, such as an LED
  • Make the hardware smaller – so that it could fit into other plants or could be portable
  • Make the hardware wireless – so it can work with your iTunes playlist or another array of music files; e.g., it would just give the go ahead that the plant is well watered and you can now play music
  • Use a larger array of sound files, such as from your computer’s music library or a specific playlist you’ve selected. The issue with this improvement is that Minim doesn’t seem to like audio files that are not .wav or .mp3

Flickr Photos!

Play and Next buttons - more photos on Flickr!
Back and Next buttons - more photos on Flickr!