Brainstorming Sketches
Description:
- Pneumatic hand powered umbrella. Umbrella with sacs underneath the hinges for the canvas connected to a pump in the handle. Squeezing the handle inflates the sacs and opens the umbrella. Alternatively, the whole cover could inflate. The goal would be to redefine the core interaction of opening an umbrella, not so much as to improve its functionality, but to make the experience feel more organic and playful.
Google Patent:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US6354314B1/en
- Hydraulic/Pneumatic heart/lungs linked to a person’s heartbeat/breathing. This idea would involve creating an external heart/lungs that are linked to your own bodily functions. This could create an interesting out of body-like experience where the movement of an external object is linked to one of your core subconscious functions. The goal would be to make people more aware of a process we usually don’t see, but is essential to our lives.
Art/Sculpture:
The Lungs
Research Paper:
“Soft Robotic Surrogate Lung | ACS Applied Bio Materials.” Accessed February 8, 2022. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsabm.8b00753.
- Plant thermometer: plant filled with veins that contain a low boiling point fluid. As the temperature in the room/surroundings vary, the fluid inside exerts more or less pressure on the surrounding plant walls. When the temperature is low, the plant appears to wilt, when the temperature is high, the plant appears to perk up. The goal would be to create a playful thermometer that gives a rough estimation of the temperature at the time.
Research Paper:
Wang, Yecheng, Kun Jia, Shuwen Zhang, Hyeong Jun Kim, Yang Bai, Ryan C. Hayward, and Zhigang Suo. “Temperature Sensing Using Junctions between Mobile Ions and Mobile Electrons.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 119, no. 4 (January 25, 2022). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2117962119.