Browsing articles tagged with " sensors"
Apr 19, 2011
admin

First ProtoBoard Components! (INPUT)



Apr 15, 2011
admin

Natalie Freed’s Amazing TeleScrap Book

This is great precedence for my current final project. I really like her execution and simple approach, as well as the ability to have two books communicate with each other.

Mar 21, 2011
admin
Comments Off

Push Me, Pull Me: Soft Circuits Final Project Concept


Concept

For our final project in Soft Circuits, Kate Watkins and I will create a large scale interactive, fabric-based soft circuit. One of the key motivations for us in deciding on this project was challenging pre- and mis-conceptions of soft circuits, especially in terms of their possible functioning and durability.

Feedback and New Questions

We got some fantastic feedback and new focus after our first class presentation. The main questions and themes that arose were:

    What are the assumptions we are dealing with? What does it mean to be durable? What are the terms and concepts we need to examine and define for ourselves? Moving forward, one idea mentioned is to associate each panel with a different assumption, which will allow users to push and pull it, discovering all the potential in between.
    How can you exploit the cracks, literally and metaphorically – i.e. how can we use what we know doesn’t work to stretch the boundaries of possible interaction. For example, silk screened paint on fabric is not the most durable way to create a circuit because it will crack when overused, but this could be used as a switch: when the cracks come back together, they will still complete the circuit.
    What types of materials will we use? And more importantly, how will they be executed within the structure? Will the materials be integrated or attached; i.e. will there be a panel of velostat that acts as the main material or will there piece pieces of it sewn onto a larger piece of spandex (or any other material). I think the former could be much more interesting for experimentation, but also much more expensive. TBD.
    How will we get people to interact with our project? What are the interactions we want to see happen? Or at least how will we constrain the type of interaction to create a meaningful interaction for our audience? Cecilia rightly reminded us of how easy it is to assume people will telepathically connect with the concept and engage in the associated action (which is never the case). In doing so, she also insinuated the trap of a one off interaction, which is so easy to fall into and a terrible mire, or for loop better yet, to climb out of.


Next Steps

Moving forward, here are the requirements for our second round of prototypes next week:

    Define interactions and interaction with materials
    List of materials
    Articulate how materials will integrated or attached


Documentation

Our presentation is living here at the moment.