In another DIY Kit, children tackle the challenge of making their own wired field gadgets. With eGadgets that act more like a ball, a stick and a cardboard box than an iPod or iPhone, children invent modern twists on good old-fashioned games like hide-and-seek. An online interface gives them a place to share their accomplishments, helps them make things and download local programming.

Kids drive the experience with little intervention from adults. The range of possibilities will tempt even the most apathetic and squeamish child. Interpretive staff, teachers and parents see the system as an antidote to the adverse impacts of pervasive technology. Pockets-Full of Wonder makes a child see nature as their playground.

With mock-ups and simulations I made of the system parts, children, parents and teachers have helped me complete the define and discover phases of this design project. Next steps in the design process include, among other tasks, prototyping fully functional eGadgets and programming DIY project templates.

Through the distribution of stickers embedded with RFID tags placed on mobile or fixed objects, RFID-enabled cell phones will be tagged with media content created by participants. These stickers are distributed in packs around the city for free and they contain episodic content that other people can contribute to as well. The stickers placed around the city and on moving objects are representative of a collective of artworks/media that lives on an unmediated channel. You Tag encourages free play and activism around issues coerced by society and repressed by other mechanisms. For the first episode, the subject is the collective subconscious and childhood of the city that has been repressed by work ethics, efficiency and the promise of scientific progress.

My goal for this thesis project is to start a conversation about tag litter; what might be some of the consequences if we could anonymously carry and project media on our physical selves on unmediated channels in physical space? How would people respond to new types of interactions thus created? What kind of content, conversations and culture would be produced?

The complete implementation of this project is a near future scenario in certain aspects. The stickers and the database that stores the collections are implemented, which means the collection and distribution of the artworks can start. However, one requirement to the platform is the wide-spread adoption of RFID-enabled cell phones. This part is presented as a working prototype. For now, the artworks and collections are ghosts but they will ‘become’ soon when the technology is adopted and utilized by different industries such as interactive advertising. That is why the tagline of the project is You Tag, before they do…

Music storage is currently done very well by different brands and devices. The controls still have room for improvement. The so called “universal design” principles help make it easy for most people in most situations. I’d like to address one particular situation and type of people: those who prefer to not have to change the music manually in the middle of their exercise or relaxing activity. I’m proposing a new interface to control the music player that attempts to make the music be more in sync with the body and react to what happens to it, when the situation allows for this.

I also see an application for this in relaxation techniques, yoga and anti-stress treatments, where the music player is able to detect a change in the body and through music, help bring it back to equilibrium.