How it works: This project sets up a situation where two participants explore a pre-recorded dialogue through the act of drawing. In this project, each participant is given a special graphite crayon. When they draw on the paper, the conversation between a man and women will be played from two speakers. The women’s voice will be played from one speaker and corresponds to the drawing of one participant. The man’s voice will be played from the other speaker and corresponds to the other participant’s drawing. Through drawing on the same piece of paper, the participants permute the existing sentences and recreate the pre-recorded dialogue of marriage, life and eternity. They also completes this conversation through their creation of art which embeds their own understanding of the topic.

Concept: In this project, we are interested to see how two participants can inject their creative input into an already engaging and open-ended conversation and eventually complete a dialogue between themselves. We chose a clip from “The Certified Copy” as the audio track because the movie explores the legitimate value of copies as recreation of original work, which echoes the participant’s creation of a new conversation from a copy of an existing dialogue. Through this project, we hope to explore the richness and openness of a conversation.

YouTube / Dan Sakamoto – via Iframely

Implementation: This piece senses the graphite laid by the pencils and plays the soundtrack corresponded to each participant based on the amount of graphite. The sensing of the graphite is completed by two RC circuit connected to two arduino. The arduino then smooths out the analog input with a smoothing algorithm and transfers the data stream to the computer through the serial port. After receiving the data, the computer uses Max to map the audio with the varying input. The audios and programs used in this project can be found in this Github repository. The schematic of the RC circuit is shown below.

YouTube / Dan Sakamoto – via Iframely

This project sets up a situation through which a pair of participants collaborate to make an invisible space visible. Through the act of drawing together with special pencils, the two participants reveal a hidden embedded audio track, creating a audible dialogue through the act of creating visual art. As the audio responds to the graphite laid by the pencils, the participants’ interaction is poetically recorded in their drawings. In this project, we hope to explore the interactive aspect of a conversation under an unconventional mode of interaction. Upon starting, the participants are given pieces of paper and pencils, which are all connected to an arduino. The arduino then takes in the input from the participants’ drawing and transfer the input to the computer through the serial port. After receiving the data, the computer outputs a random series of words that are mapped to the input. The participants can create a dialogue between them through changing the audio output that’s controlled by their drawing.

YouTube / Quirky – via Iframely

The Egg Minder is a AA-battery-powered tray that holds 14 eggs. It keeps track of how many eggs you have as well as the expiration dates of those eggs, based on both the date they arrived in the tray and how long you set the freshness period in the accompanying app. Each individual egg cup comes equipped with a sensor and a small LED. The light next to the oldest egg will turn blue, indicating that you should use that one first. Once you remove that egg, the light beside the next oldest egg will light blue, and so on.The Egg Minder uses weight sensors to determine which cup contains an egg and when it arrived. The Egg Minder then transmits this information to the Quirky Wink app, which works with iOS 6 and above and Android phones/tablets. With the app, the user receive egg-based notifications and can change various settings like the freshness period.

YouTube / Vessyl by Mark One – via Iframely

Vessyl is a drinking glass with embedded sensors and the capability of linking to a smartphone to provide its user with nutritional and other data on the beverage contained. The cup is expected to recharge via inductive charging on a proprietary base station. The cup comes with an app called Pryme which tracks and displays the user’s hydration needs and beverage assumption. The user’s personal data will be automatically updated to his or her mobile device. The current price of one Vessyl cup is $149.

YouTube / GeoBeats News – via Iframely

TweetPee consists of a sensor and a Twitter alert. The cute little bird-shaped sensor attaches to the front of the diaper. When it senses a change in moisture, it sends the user a tweet letting the user know it’s time to get off of Twitter and attend to business. The user can decide whether to retweet that message to his or her followers. A corresponding TweetPee app also tracks the number of diapers used so parents can make sure they don’t end up without one next time they get an “it’s time to change him/her” tweet.