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.
Recent Posts
SUMMER 2011
Spring 2011
Fall 2010
Tags
analogRead
analogWrite
augmented space
button
calm computing
computation
concept
conductive materials
conductive thread
critical design
Csikzentmihalyi
curriculum
education
Facebook
final project
Game of Life
games
installation
interactivity
learning
light
materials
modular
paper
physical computing
play
pressure sensor
prototyping
public space
PWM
readings
research
sensors
snapTOtrace
soft circuits
sound
stretch sensor
stroke sensor
thesis
time
ubicomp
urban probes
virtual reality
weiser
Winner