Category: Assignments

On the technical side: We programmed the microcontrollers, and our setup involves two Arduinos: One is connected to the multi-touch grid. This arduino is controlled by a processing sketch and sends signals to the other arduino for outputs other than sounds. One is connected to all other input&output components: neopixel LEDs, vibration motors, and fabric
Continue reading 5/3 Catherine&Yanwen Updates

We have developed our own working API with the following events: We ran into some troubles when trying to detect sliding behavior, partly because of the grid is actually low resolution, and it cannot slide from touching multiple positions at the same time. Thus we decided to put sliding apart and use the other interactions.
Continue reading 4/26 Catherine & Yanwen Updates

Following the suggestions on mapping out possible user behaviors towards the touch pad and designing states and unpredictability for the setup, we started to write down the categories in a Google sheet: While waiting for the components to be ready for pickup, we will continue on finishing and refining these listed interactions and outputs before
Continue reading 4/21 Catherine & Yanwen Updates

We did more literature research with the goal of focusing on a single sensing technique, and we realized that work in this space is much more advanced and complex compared with the approaches that we were looking at before. The two possible technical directions that we eventually narrowed down to are touch tracking with electric
Continue reading Catherine & Yanwen Project Update

My project brief remains largely the same as before–to create a robot capable of licking lollipops in an eerily biomimetic manner, count those licks, and, before finishing the lollipop, biting the candy with a hidden jaw mechanism. The concept and background I discussed in the last post left a big technical hole: how to keep
Continue reading Research Part B

Themes: Design and fabrication of soft textile based sensors Inspired by existing artworks of responsive and interactive spaces, I want to explore making soft interfaces with textile based materials and sensors. Instead of building the entire environment, I plan on creating smaller scale prototypes (could be in the form of swatches or interactive soft objects)
Continue reading Exercise 8: Research Study B

The question that emerges from my last assignment is why should we design responsive and interactive spaces, and how might we create these types of designs? Man-made environments have long stayed static and dominated by the visual elements. Integrating interactive components can change the passive relationship between people and space to an active one. Large
Continue reading Exercise 7: Research Study Part A

Two years ago, with another student, I built a robot to lick lollipops. The robot functions, but I think more can be done with the concept; the piece consistently elicits references to the 1970 Tootsie Pop commercial (the one that posits the question about how many licks it takes…) from those I’ve shown it too,
Continue reading Research Study: Revisiting a Previous Project

Lumen is an immersive interactive installation created by Jenny Sabin Studio. It was exhibited at MoMA PS1 as the winner of the Young Architects Program in 2017. The digitally knitted structure uses responsive textile that can emit glowing color at night by absorbing sunlight throughout the day. The installation was created with the concept of
Continue reading Exercise 6

Phase In, Phase Out is an artwork created by EJTECH studio. Working with electronic textile and experimental interfaces, EJTECH connected materiality and sounds through making textile into a multichannel electroacoustic transducer.  This artwork is related to Judit Eszter Kárpáti’s PhD research Soft Interfaces – Crossmodal Textile Interactions. Artwork: Phase In, Phase Out. Sound installation /
Continue reading Exercise 5