Tom Igoe's class site

Final Project

Final Project Documentation: Networked Flowers

Please go to this link for more info.

Progress Report

Figured out logic to get Jason's Making Things module (substitute for xport, that allows for an easier flash interface to code communication between devices) speaking to our circuit. Tested it with a simple circuit, and got Mauricio's device communicating. When we hooked it up to the crazy heep of wires and LEds that is my circuit, it won't work. There's not enough power to supply all these LEDs. We'll just dummy this using switches for now. Need to solve power issues.

Mockup for what the web interface should look like is up: here.

I'll document more after I get some rest.

Stuff on final

scenario, sketch 1 & sketch 2 of stuff I've having laser cut. Testing out some very, very basic shapes to see what the laser cutter is capable of, and how light plays off of the plex. I'll refine the shapes if this comes out okay. other sketches and models also exist.

Final Project

Networked Bouqet/Digital Flowers: emotional communication device. Below is cut & paste from an email I sent Tom describing the project (since I can't be faffed to rewrite this):

Description:
I'd like to create a networked bouquet. Someone would have a bouquet (out of LEDs) -- and based on email input or through web interface, you could send a note, to light up one or multiple flowers, in a color according to your sentiment or mood, or whatever you're trying to express. (Among florists, there is a convention where different color roses signify different things.) Or, if it were a decent sized bloom (with multiple LEDS), you could have it light up according to some pattern. The interaction from the receiver (input could be at the flower ) -- if the person is viewing or smelling the flowers, i.e. the person is actively enjoying them , it could send email/message back signalling acknowledgment. Or, the flowers could be programmed with a simple default pattern, when activated (person goes to "smell" them or view them, turns on a more engaging or beautiful display.
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I had been thinking more and more about emotional communication devices. I was thinking about this in the context of Maurico and John Shimmel's projects: why they are succesful, or why to some people, they wouldn't be. I was thinking about what form mine, specifically for my dad, would take -- it felt a little stumped -- I think the real issue here is it was starting to feel too specific, and in this case, he wouldn't use something like this, so nothing felt right. As mentioned in conversation with you, I think they are so difficult to be successful outside the domain of the designer (presumably the person who will be using it), and whomever the audience is. Usually, I think it's so personalized that it's only relevant and meaningful to the select few (1,2, or 3 or so people) for whom it was intended. I often find them either impenetrable, irrelevant, or just corny. So the challenge here is to try to come up with something that does feel personal, but can translate to a broader audience.

In this case, we already have the convention of sending flowers (a gesture and a non-verbal form of communication) that is a fairly universal practice, but personal, and capable of meaning many things. Flowers or plants as an inspiration for the form seems to make sense. When someone is sick -- it's customary to send flowers. Or if you're thinking of someone (birthdays, weddings, Valentine's etc.) There are a lot of permutations for the bouquet -- i.e. bloom patterns, shape, form, etc. So part of the project will really be about finding the appropriate form for the "flowers", and what kind of interaction feels right.

I've asked Mauricio to work together with me on this project. Our projects are very similar and overlap. It's a non-verbal, personal communication device. Like you had previously mentioned, it would make more sense to use a web site or email. We're also both in the materials class, so we'll be each try different directions with form, material, etc. He's still planning on continuing on the project he's already started.

I'm in the process of getting the qprox up and running. I've got a bunch of digipots wired up. I'm also looking into possibly using microphones or IR sensors -- I'll see what works and what makes the most sense.

Location/Identification

Hmm...makes me think of (stream of conscious here) about issues with geopolitics, world affairs, national security, our right to privacy, bill of rights, surveillance, and how this technology is (ab)used. It makes me think of the case of libraries being pressed to send the gov't library records. A lot of these technologies were originally made for manufacturing/business purposes, but end up being repurposed. A lot of information technology weighs convenience and other benefits with our right to privacy. It always seems like a Faustian bargain. GPS stuff -- I used to play in the streets of Taiwan with the neighborhood kids at age 4. No gps tracker needed. I will be very sad if I have to give my kid's one of these gadgest. I had to carry a pager for work, back in 1995-6, my dad called it, appropriately, an electronic leash. GPS for outdoors-y people -- I'm all for it, as long as they still have mastered the basic Boy Scout skills, how to read a map, common sense, etc. Otherwise, if the device malfunctions, you're screwed..

Week ?
Domestic Appliances

SmartHome:Some of this stuff looks like the stuff showcased in the homes on MTV's The Crib (or whatever its called -- tacky homes of nouveau riche celebrities who lack good taste and judgment, and fill their homes with gadgets.) The electric tea kettle -- I miss my electric kettle I had in England. We also had these Warmrails - AMEN. So simple, but I tell you, a godsend. You'd have a warm towel and warm underwear (it's like always wearing clothing out of the dryer), which in the middle of winter, should not be underrated. Makes me think of the gorgeous radiator I saw in the paper a few months ago by a Dutch designer, part of the Droog Collective: http://www.jorislaarman.com/. (click on "reinventing functionality".) This thing is gorgeous, and takes a necessary nuissance (the ugly radiator in the housefhold) & ubiquitous product and transforms it into this gorgeous thing. The Dutch design sensibility-- smart, witty, and quirky.

I currently do not have enough time or energy to write in coherently, so I'm just going to spit out some notes here:
Salton -- connected home: how much functionality do you want to put into one product (discussion from a week or 2 ago about cellphones, pdas, ipods, and other handheld mobile devices) bar codes on microwave -- how much information can you retain and recall? in the information age -- how much of it is really useful. time it takes to use more complex product, time gained or quality of life improved.-- what's the threshold? how much of your life do you want or need automated? How much time do you have? what are your priorities? what will make your life easier. what do you want? and what are you willing to give up in return? how many appliances need a web browser interface? do they use this as the universal interface because it is the most ubiquitous, or because it makes the most sense.

final project ideas: awareness (dad and rest of family), monitoring his well-being, staying connected, Jean Nouvel's Institute du Monde Arabe, the windows/diaphragms that open and close depending on the light, laser cutter acrylic, interest in moucharabie, light, fiber optics, etc.

Week 5
Ping Pong and Furniture server project

Ping Pong. It worked fairly smoothly. But an occasional bug when you've lost the game. First time, Amit and I hooked up our Xports, I think we were both in AutoConnect mode (D5), and we were able to connect without a problem. However, in this case, we were in C4 & C5 mode, and Amit wrote our own handshake/autoconnect protocol. Pic code and flow chart. Amti can probably write this in his sleep, but It takes me a bit for me to wrap my head around all the game logic. Here's the important part of this exercise -- figuring out the protocol to getting the 2 xports to communicate, so it knows when to transmit and when to receive, and what to do with the info. Since serin is a "block out' function", we use the "WAIT" command, so the pic will continue running a subroutine until it receives the piece of info it's waiting for.Also, it's smarter to send all the data in one array/one piece of data, than as multiple chunks.
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Furniture project: doing something with lights. Not sure why a piece of furniture would need to commmunicate with a chat server, but am trying to figure out some meaningful reason why. Right now, that functionality feels tacked on.

Week 4
Space annotation projects

A lot of networked, interactive projects seem to be about bridging time/space, and facilitating propinquity, when people can't be in the same space at the same time. Now that we can do networked computing that is location sensitive, there's an amazing potential for interesting work (like some of the readings). I love maps and the visual display of information, so it's hard for me to take to them when they're reduced to tiny real estate on a PDA or cellphone. Granted, that is the challenge of making this stuff. When dealing with location-based work, I still prefer a more physical display of information. I really like the work of Local Projects, particularly the Memory Maps and City of Memory. I realize this is like comparing apples and oranges -- these "location/mapping" related projects are completely different in purpose and context. Back to location-aware computing and space annotation...the one project in our reading I didn't take to was the SonicCity. "It enables users to create a real-time personal soundscape of electronic music by walking through and interacting with urban environments. " Everytime you walk in a city, you get your own, unique personal landscape based on your interaction/reaction with the urban environment, as well as the ambience of your surrounds, which are specific to that time and place. I'm fairly sensitive to the sounds around me, and it shapes my experience there. The SonicCity thing doesn't do it for me. It's augmenting and artificially changing the aural experience.

Week 3
PingPong and remote displays

Xport is up and running. Got the Xport and PIC communicating. Figured out how to configure Xport to autoconnect to a specific IP address. Paired with Amit for the PingPong project. He comes up with the idea of something along the lines of "Simon Says" using push button/switches and LEDs. I built a circuit of a bunches of switches and LEDs to get back used to wiring up a circuit, and mapped out flow chart for how the logic would work, and have the framework for this code. Amit's written a program in Processing that can check for communication between the Xport and computer, that we can use to debug the Xport. Right now, it will print to screen which LEDs we send out. He programmed a chip with some basic logic, built out a circuit with LEDS&switches which I've mirrored, and we have the 2 boards (Xports and chips) successfully communicating using his PIC code. I've taken a look at his PIC code and logic. We came up with different protocol/system for establishing communication. I'm going to flush out the PIC code to reflect the correct physical setup (chip, ports, # of switches & LEDs) and clean up the logicof the game a little.

The projects in this week's reading are far more intriguing. I lived in England from 2001 to early 2002. We used text messaging there all the time, and it was exciting to think about all the applications you could come up using this very simple, ubiquitous technology for communication. I was sorely disappointed when I came back to the US that we hardly use it. It's starting to catch on, but nearly like it is abroad. Speakers Corner -- I love these projects. I love the idea of art for the masses, engaging the public, making art participatory and democratic. I love the subway poetry on the MTA. They take a few steps furthe and make it interactive -- very cool. Blinkenlights -- very charming. It's amazing how much you can express with so little (i.e. the animations) -- you can express a lot with a little, this isn't rich media, but it's far richer than a lot of the rich media public displays out there. The love letters idea is quite romantic.HelloMrPResident -- there's some tie to Jenny Holzer's work -- but far different -- I like the scale of this, and the forum -- Davos. Artwork can be particpatory, political, and beautiful. Ideo's BBCi Showcase didn't compel me as much -- not because it is a more commerical project (vs. artwork), but because the user has a less active role in the actual content of the piece. The content isn't the artwork, or user input in this case, isn' integral to the content. The user input seems more peripheral to what's being showcased. Whereas in the art pieces, the user is creating all of the content. I do like the idea of visibility and making the interior accessible to passersby. Caffeine online: supremely nerdy, but endearing and quirky in that very nerdy way.

Week 2
Xport setup & various readings

Readings: Writing (Equator & Disappearing Computer Initiative) on stuff like this (interaction design and research, physical and digital, etc.) seems to use the the following words a lot: "seamless", "blur", "disappear," "divide,", "integrate," and "smart." Good resources to see what kind of work other people are working on, and inevitably, there will be overlap with interests here at ITP, but those sites are a bit unwieldy to navigate. Other 2 articles --Greenberg/Kuzuoka: their protoypes of "surrogate" and"active hydra" provided some comic relief while waiting for the Q. Virtually living together -- I'm not sure when this article was written, but the methodology they write about seems to be be fairly standard practice in the design discipline. Although, they made some good observations about the way families, I'm not convinced their prototypes addressed those issues very well. Overall, some good food for thought.

Xport: Got it up and running. Amazing how much information from last semester I have not retained. But good to get back to it. Maybe by the end of my 2 years here, I will finally learn how to properly read a circuit diagram/schematic. Working with electronics is a pain because they're at such a small scale, so sometimes it's hard for me to catch some glitches-- I should get a magnifying glass or those granny reading glasses.

Here are some thoughts and observations from being back in the lab the last few day 1) I've completely lost the level of patience, which isn't very high, to actually read through material thoroughly, which would make life a little easier. I'm not sure if it's because I haven't been in an academic environment for a while, or if it's because I've become acclimated to flashes and blurbs. 2) I've been fascinated by the anxiety we (ITP students, myself included) seem to have about physical computing, or technical material in general.

Week 1
Calm Technology

I'm always a bit wow'ed when I see the dates(1996!) that these articles were written. (When they're on, the prescience is uncanny, when they're off, it's highly entertaining.) Almost a decade later, we still can't get our shit together to make things desirable or useable, or better yet desirable and usable. Granted, not everything is meant to be "useable" in the sense of product. But, the art or pieces of provocation or contemplation should leave me more than that feeling of "so what." They should do something for someone, not necessarily me, aside from just the creator.

I hadn't heard the term "calm technology" before -- it's an interesting and odd expression. We've developed a lot of technology to glean and process information. What's more interesting and important to me, is seeing it used in a meaningful way. What is "meaningful" is certainly debatable -- and it usually comes down to intent and user. There's a lot of real estate for us to work in between the goofy Spencer for Gifts or more "high" end Sharper Image gimmicks and all those dry products that the Silicon Valley seems to pump out, that's had their soul sucked dry by the usability folks. It's interesting for me to hear folks at ITP, or designers in general, engage in all these cultural theory discussions, although the work we produce doesn't seem to reflect our respective mantras. Classic case of easier said then done.In our defense, when you really start trying to work through all the issues, they can be very hard to resolve elegantly.

Back to the idea of information overload that this article addresses....and ubiquitous computing. Sometimes I think as designers and technologists, we underestimate the user, or fall in love with the technology for technology's sake.( We also tend to be narcissists -- we want our creations front and center, whether or not they belong there.) Humans are capable of processing a lot of info -- it's a matter of whether or not we want to or need to, and when and where. I keep thinking about other complex and "hi-tech" products, such as cars and medical devices, though they may not be great comparisons. I revert to cars, because I worked for an automobile manufacturer. The basic technology of the car has not changed in almost a century -- internal combustion engine.There've been many, many advances and cars have become far more technologically complex. Cars are also a product, though technologically complex, that really plays to human emotions, and has a complex place in our culture and identity. Basically, a car needs to get you from point A to B in one piece. Safety trumps emotion and comfort. There is a lot of peripheral infomation on your dashboard, and also within arm's reach. Each piece of info is there for you to access when you need or want it. The technology of each component (seat-warmer, stereo, GPS, power windows just to name a few) is invisible to you until it breaks and you see what the mechanic's bill is for it. All these peripherals are great, but they are irrelevant, if you can't do the main task -- get from point A to B in one piece, safely. I don't think it's a question of whether we as users are capable of handling all the info. It's an issue of providing us with what we want when we want it. Things are going to get more complex, and we adapt and filter out what we don't need, and use what we do. We all have choices. With any technology, be it ubiquitous computing, there's always the potential for it to be used thoughtfully and intelligently, and a lot of room for idiocy. (There are a lot of ass-ugly, unreliable cars out there.)