Category Archives: Thesis

Nancy Hechinger, Peiqi SU, Projects, Thesis

The Penis Wall

Peiqi SU

This kinetic sculpture consists of 81 erectable penises that respond to either a viewer's movements or to realtime movements in the stock market.

http://thesis.itp.io/students/ps2409

Description

The penis is so different! This is my initial motivation, to study one of the oldest and probably the most attractive thing that humans interact with.

The Penis Wall is made up of 3D printed penises that each have six segments driven by servo motors. Equipped with an ultrasonic distance sensor, each unit can respond to a viewer's movements. Moreover, the Penis Wall can also be used as a display to represent data, for instance, fluctuations in the stock market.

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Thesis

Heather Greer, Projects, Thesis, Vitor Freire

IJO | Indoor version

Vitor Freire

Connecting people through dance.

http://ijomove.us

Description

The original project connects people in different (public) spaces through dance. The indoor version will illustrate the concept. Using Kinect + Projector running a web app, IJO will send your motion information – skeleton track – to the web. People will be able to open a web page on their phones and watch the visual representation of the person dancing in front of the installation.

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Thesis

Nancy Hechinger, Projects, Thesis, Will Canine

BioBot

Will Canine

BioBot does biology for you!

Description

The OpenTrons BioBot is an open-source, easy to use liquid handling robot you can make for under $1000. It will empower makers and entrepreneurs with one of the most powerful emerging technologies, synthetic biology, giving them a whole new tool to solve the problems they are focused on.

As a cool proof of concept interaction at the spring show, the BioBot will mix together a fizzy colored concoction of the user's choice — I did this at the USA Science and Engineering Fest in DC last weekend over 400 times for people from 4-80 years old, and it was a huge hit.

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Thesis

Katherine Dillon, Projects, Thesis, Xinran Wang

Markdown Graphics

Xinran Wang

A Markdown extension, in the form of a web-based editor, that enables users to create both text and graphics for the web, in a single platform.

http://markdown.graphics

Description

Currently, off-the-shelf Markdown editors support plain text editing only. Markdown Graphics enables users to create and edit graphics right at the location where they are inserted, which provides a much more cohesive composing experience for creating content for the web. In addition, Markdown Graphics supports diagram component tagging, allowing diagram and text to be styled by a single stylesheet. Also, diagrams created and stored in SVG will be web-publishing-friendly and light-weight. Thus, content creators, journalists and notetakers can communicate ideas on the web much more efficiently.

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Alexandra Diracles, Kathleen Wilson, Projects, Thesis

VidCode

Alexandra Diracles

A learning tool designed to ignite girls interest in computer programming through video art.

http://vidcode.herokuapp.com/

Description

VidCode aims to create a conversation and a community of coders among teenage girls. The idea is to pair a medium in which they are already fluent—creating video content—with learning to program. VidCode also allows teenagers to be social as they learn about code: to take videos of their life, edit code with friends, and share information with each other. In my research I found that girls' interest in CS increases when they can pair programming with self expression. The experience begins by creating a video, uploading it to the site, then editing it by scrubbing values, mixing and matching filters such as “grain” or “blur”. In the future, advanced video programming tracks will be available in algorithmic art, motion, and storytelling.

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Thesis

Anne-Marie Lavigne, Katherine Dillon, Projects, Thesis

Woven Signals

Anne-Marie Lavigne

A textile composed of yarn treated with thermochromic pigments. When activated by interwoven conductive threads, the seamless and unified material is transformed, revealing a dynamic fiber interface.

http://emeteuz.com/Woven-Signals

Description

The project fuses new technologies with the fabrication techniques characteristic of traditional textile design to create functional fibers and integrated interactive textiles, specifically a woven display.

The textile is woven with a custom-made thermochromic cotton yarn spun with conductive copper thread. Designed patterns incorporate channels for low-power current. The generated resistive heat catalyzes the dyed fibers to change color and reveal hidden, programmatically-controlled content.

Woven Signals is inspired by the mutually informative histories of textiles and communications, and aims to investigate a fiber’s ability to transmit information and emotion through visual and tactile interactions.

The project is an exploration of soft circuitry materials and textile design.

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Jon Wasserman, Kathleen Wilson, Projects, Thesis

VENT NY

Jon Wasserman

VentNY is a fast, casual space to release the pressure of injustice great and small.

http://ventny.herokuapp.com

Description

VENT NY is a website where people can post short ideas and frustrations and comment on other people's posts. The thing that makes this site unique is that you can only reply with web links. This disrupts the ability to over-editorialize, troll and hijack conversation. Keeping the interaction lean and easy lowers the barrier to entry and improves signal to noise digestion.

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Katherine Dillon, Projects, Thesis, Wyna Liu

Fluid Geometry

Wyna Liu

A set of sculptures about geometry, nature, and the forms that emerge through repetition.

http://wynaliu.tumblr.com/tagged/thesis

Description

These sculptures are my personal meditation on geometry and form. When the rules governing the symmetry and perfection of polygons and polyhedra are subject to extrinsic factors such as gravity and material properties, they lose their rigidity and begin to display a diversity of movement and behavior that resemble those found in the natural world. These simple shapes are essential to the creation of forms in nature at every scale. Fluid Geometry is my attempt to build from these elements and explore their intrinsic possibilities. Inspired by traditions of craft and learning through physical practice, each sculpture consists of hundreds to thousands of “two-dimensional” pieces, hand assembled to create an object in three dimensions.

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Brett Peterson, Nancy Hechinger, Projects, Thesis

The Path of the Pirate

Brett Peterson

In this exhibit children ages 2-4 embark on a quest to become a pirate. Along the way, they engage in activities that reinforce early childhood development milestones including pattern matching, sequencing, counting and motor control.

Description

This project was inspired by and created for my daughter. We love going to museums and play together. I wanted to create something fun for her but that also focused on her learning and development.
I designed and created three interactive experiences, each imagined as a portion of a larger exhibit, that are tied together by the theme of a pirate quest. Kids encounter these activities that challenge them to apply skills of pattern matching, sequencing and counting — all key skills in the cognitive development of children between the ages of 2 and 4 years. At the end of the quest is an opportunity for the children to create their own pirate flag and print out a temporary tattoo to celebrate their accomplishment.

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Thesis