Christine Selleck, who has some magic when it comes to what dazzles and moves us visualy , spacialy, and as people, came across these Mr. and Mrs. Clauses from a closing vintage store. She saw the Oppertunity to use these as an engaging interactive peice at an annual Christmas Party she Throws for Children without Families.  This real world object, and moving application made the project Irresistable.

First we had to undress Mr. and Mrs. Clause to see what makes the Tik. LITERALY, we need to reinvent how they move and give them voices!

Here is what the look like inside.

Phase 2 : What will Sant’a now armeture and robot ecome?

A voice activated tree inspired by disney.

first step is to order this voice Recognition Module chip from spark fun

http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9753

Chris and I went through a lot of ideas for the design of the interaction. This is designed for chidren.

It should feel                it should NOT Be

// enchanting                 X mutalated

//fun                              Xscary

//surprising                 Xrandom

//personal                  X set up expaectations or dissapointment

http://vimeo.com/16563460

MEMORY PHOME //Video Controler

A Memory Mixer?!
ok a video Mixer!
Myslef , Kate Watson and Maira Rabonovich scraped our memories privatly and considered how we could display them to feel universal to any audience. We chose cinema and videos as a way to access the universal audience and chose to isplay them in a disorienting and fragmented way in order to not only use memory but best to mimck how memorie arises which can be rather full of static, moments of clarity, and sometimes bizzare, fun , or silly.

For the media controler we set out ambitiously to use used an array of 6 sensors.
Quite a literal bouqet.

Maria focused intensly on getting these guys working and communicating with processing.

While Kate and I worked with existing codes and browsed video libraries that would best work. Reaslly this was only the begining, after trying Basic Firmata and import arduino and trying to customize codes it became more confusing than helpful to get it to what we wanted to do.We were looking to manipulate speed, color, and sound in the video via the sensors, so the JMC video Library served the best purposes for us, this library was hardest to install , however after that this set us oon track to were we were going.

The soucre code looked a little something like this.

import processing.serial.*;
import jmcvideo.*;
import processing.opengl.*;
import javax.media.opengl.*;

Serial myPort;

JMCMovieGL myMovie;
int pvw, pvh;
int val = 0;
int oldval = 0;
int old = 0;

String[]vids= new String [] {
“Sledding POV.mov”, “Slide POV.mov”
};
int vidNum =0;

void setup() {

size(800,480, OPENGL);
background(0);
frame.setResizable(true);

println(Serial.list());

myPort = new Serial(this, Serial.list()[0], 9600);
// myPort.bufferUntil(‘\n’);

myMovie=movieFromDataPath(vids[vidNum]);
myMovie.play();
}

void serialEvent(Serial myPort) {

// read the serial buffer:
String myString = myPort.readStringUntil(‘\n’);
// if you got any bytes other than the linefeed:
if (myString != null) {
myString = trim(myString);

int sensors[] = int(split(myString, ‘,’));

for (int sensorNum = 0; sensorNum < sensors.length; sensorNum++) {
print(“Sensor ” + sensorNum + “: ” + sensors[sensorNum] + “\t”);

// convert the sensor value to a value that will control the playback speed
// we are expecting a number between 0 and 1023
// we want to turn that number into a framerate between 0 and 10
float movierate = map(sensors[sensorNum], 0, 1023, 0.5, 4);

myMovie.setRate(movierate);

}
println();

{
myPort.write(‘a’);

}
}
}
void draw()
{
if (0 < myPort.available())
{
val = myPort.read();
}

println(val);

//trigger the video switch once when the sensor is activated
if (val !=old && val == 1) {
vidNum = (int)random(vids.length);
myMovie.switchVideo(vids[vidNum]);
}

if(val !=old && val ==0) {
myMovie.play();
}

//not sure why this is
PGraphicsOpenGL pgl = (PGraphicsOpenGL) g;

GL gl = pgl.beginGL();
{
if (pvw != width || pvh != height)
{
background(0);
gl.glViewport(0, 0, width, height);
pvw = width;
pvh = height;
}
myMovie.centerImage(gl);
}
pgl.endGL();

oldval=val;
}

JMCMovieGL movieFromDataPath(String filename)
{
return new JMCMovieGL(this, filename, RGB);
}

//void mouseDragged()
//

//void mouseReleased()
//{
// myMovie.setRate(1);
//}

So no we have sensors working, We have video code , and we had to make these communicate. We were working intensly to resize videos and curate content from our memories to the web into processing.

MEMORY: as analog as it gets

To keep the theme about memory we chose POV , point of veiw videos , so the experience of watching them was to mimick rememebering an experience through “ones own eyes” then the manipulation would distort this literal image through the sensor interaction.

We Adressed the collective memory through television shows. We did consider that people from different countries and family philosopies did not all watch tv, or care for the same shows , but we wanted a playful sense of novelty that theses 80′s shows could offer. Ultimatly memory was our inspiration and leadrer but the user only needs the playful experience not a literal explanation.

We

FORM/FOAM

didn’t want the piece to be too literal, and of course not too abstract. We decided the display to suggest televion withou actualy using one so we built on out of card board and a thin plastic  used for rear projection, acquired at canal plastics, this is the raw materials getting toards an engaging form.

we thought we would Use memory Foam to encase the sensors

Pun intended!

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER:

inserting sensors into the memory foam and trouble shooting there directional layout , for a spontaneous interaction, an element of surprise. it was very important to us that this was not a remote control.

Next getting the rear projection to Mirror, We used a samsung pico projector and put the function on REARFLOOR by going though the menu so that the image did not apear backwards on the screen … details!

visablitly, one of the biggest design problems
in a way the parts have to convey a message to about what the designed thing does, or can do or how to use it for what it can obviously do , but how?
This book was written in the 80′s , I was born in 1982 so the dates and rate of development in my life time alone have made this book still relevent and also partialy solved.

What is relevent is that , still devices Ikea, all kinds of things that are mass manufactured are a pure nightmare. Administrative details that make you think ” I need a degree in following instructions of other peoples designs” or you take a step to becme a designer, or a tinkerer who has idiosynchratic way of making toast, oprning the fridge and putting things together. Oh also sending faxes , saving fils, opening and closing doors, making copies etc.

What has Happened in the iage of this book to date is, yes we now have a display screen on all cell phones. DIY culture is a booming one because collectivly we have decided maybe I will JUST MAKE IT MYSELF!

As a student at ITP we are designers, but not quite, we are programmers but not quite, we are artists, but not quite, We are crafts people, well not exactly.

We are problem solvers, crtiques and reinventers. Perhaps thats a little more like it. Some of us were one of the above things before but in choosing ITP we decided to be not quite all of them and a little bit of some of them until we have a new vocabulary for what we are solving, fixing, reinventing.
I am begining to think that vocabulary is tranlsation itself.

The designer and User do not operate under the same language concerning the designed object.

The book  suggests
for the designers the model is,
1) provide a good conceptual model,, allowing us to predict the efforts of our actions.
2) make things visible

for the user
there is no conceptual model, there should be steps, clear steps to gain results from the product .

the user should not work as hard as the designer.

as Students we can relate to the moment, when studying interactive telecommunications. its time to present your terms worth of work and still the most commmon problem is your are presenting an amazing robot and there is no adapter cord for the projector, or the projecter doesnt work ofr the audio adapter is wrong. The anser to this problem is practice your presentation, over and over again. But this book makes me say WHY! reherse, still with the growth of technology the administrative detail don’t change.

The main Characteristics of interactivity
LISTEN THINK SPEAK and the degrees of quality of these essential parts, all parts must be done well, equally well
generations lineage

Human Factors engineering: 50+ years efficiency industrial Phd. standards highly specialised industrial
User Interface : 20 yr field, the personal Computer math/science specialised Less concerned with the THINKING of the algorithm and rather the LISTENING AND SPEAKING
Interactive design: Youngest weeby arts/humanities flexible new paradigm

QUESTIONS I HAVE RAISE. is shopping interactive? grocery shopping?
NO, i feel so disappointed when I think shopping participating in the market place is not interactive.
WHAT ABOUT IN THE MARKETS IN MORROco, where there is no fixed price no self checkout, the value of the object in eastern markets is solely dependent on the interaction with the vendor. the art of haggling!
is www.nolable.com interactive! NO, it is more like user interface with explicit options, HHHMMf and there was my hopes for real interactive shopping. I think what I am getting from this is that the ambiguities and complexities of say human haggling might shape the value of the item but does not influence the shape of the item.
Like the dancer interact with one another the dancers do not shape the music.

DOES good INTERACTVITY shape the reality in focus?
A framework of good potentials and variable where the outcome is a record of the event of interacting.

is gambling interactive? no
is throwing a pot interactive?
yikes, inanimate and mortal …aah!