I think it is safe to say that for most of us, our relationship with technology is a love-hate affair. Tech gadgets that start out as luxuries quickly become must-have necessities. I have become hooked on invention, ingenuity, and innovative products over the past few weeks while doing research for my thesis at ITP. The question I keep asking myself is whether these problem-solving products actually make the world a better place?

Woomba
Woomba is a small disc-like object that takes care of all of your feminine-hygiene needs. Activate Woomba and it does the rest. Woomba’s built in sensors can tell when you’re not at your freshest and that’s when Woomba goes to work. Its gentle but powerful onboard cleaning agents assure results every time. (Developed by Saturday Night Live)

Talking Tissue Box
Each time you reach for a tissue from the Ah-Choo Talking Tissue Box, it imitates your illness with one of six sneezing and coughing sounds. They say laughter is the best medicine so with the Sneezing Tissue Box you’ll be better than new in no time. (Developed by Baron Bob)

LED Menorah
An updated take on the traditional hanukkiyah, the nine-armed Hanukkah candelabrum. Two candles are lit on the first night of Hanukkah (one “real” candle plus the lighter candle, or shamash), three on the second night, right up to nine on the eighth night. (Developed by Evil Mad Science)

Zen Dog
De-stress Your Dog with Music and Touch. Tap into the power of music to calm your dog and learn the art of gentle massage to improve your pal’s mental and physical well-being. (Developed by Janet Marlow)

Sportbinox
Sportbinox are hands free binoculars that offer an optional am/fm radio to help follow the game, or just listen to relaxing music while enjoying nature. (Developed by Sportbinox)

Ion Steamer
Apparently, blasting your face with steam is good for your skin. Who knew? Even better than normal steam is the fancy-pants steam this Panasonic Nano-Care Ion Steamer pumps out. They claim it “creates ion steam particles that are extremely small, thereby enabling the moisturizing steam to deeply penetrate the outer layers of a user’s skin.” (Developed by Panasonic)

The Journey to Wild Divine Biofeedback
The Journey to Wild Divine is the first “inner-active” computer adventure that combines ancient breathing and meditation with modern biofeedback technology for total mind-body wellness. Progress through the realm using the power of your thoughts, feelings, breath and awareness. The Journey to Wild Divine is not just a game, it’s a tool to reduce stress and improve physical and mental health. (Developed by Wild Divine Project)

Presented at the ITP Winter Show 2009 and NIME 2009, Rusty Business is a video sequencer that produces electronically controlled cartoon antics using large inflatable hammers.

A database of slapstick comedy gags are executed when inflatable hammers hit push button switches. The interactions performed by the users handling of the hammer produces a unique visual and auditory experience onto the projected montage displays. Every hit from the inflatable hammer triggers a different, unexpected and shocking reaction from the character, conveying his struggles with work, sickness and modern day insanities.

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Memory Box reveals the recollections I have from my childhood through an interactive memory box. The memory box gives the user the ability to discover my childhood past through a montage of personal photographs, depicting images of my youth and significant others in my life. By utilizing these historic images as miniature push button switches, distinctive sounds and LED lights promptly respond to the user’s input. These animated responses reflect my own personal impression of the selected images based on my memories of them.

Stir it Up! from Jason Safir on Vimeo.

This was a quick physical computing improvisation assignment I did for my Networked Objects class. The idea was to be able to control a video by stirring a coffee mug. Random, huh? We do very weird things with technology at ITP!

The Joy of Technology is a playful video installation that uses both humor and drama to emphasize our intimate relationship with technology. The satirical character inside the cardboard television set responds to the user’s operation of technology. An electronic razor grows hairs on his face, a pencil sharpener rotates him and tears his shirt, a stapler pokes staples onto his forehead and leaves shatters all over the television glass, and a blow-dryer rotates the screen. All these actions affect the character’s overall appearance once all the technologies are shut off. In addition, the character can also be placed into different settings by turning the television’s rotating knob. Some of the programming that the character is placed into includes a news broadcast, a courtroom and outdoor settings.

Jason Safir giving a live demonstration of his interactive television at ITP.

The main character always appears lost and has lost control of himself through the technology around him. Watching the main character being trapped in an endless, repetitive loop makes his pointless actions and gestures hopeless and neurotic. The piece projects humor and irony throughout the user’s experience by implementing opposite feedback from common technology we use everyday.

FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
- A robotic television that vibrates and rotates. Also, an antenna that moves when there is activity inside the screen.
- Development of character and channels: more channels that individually respond differently to each device. More dynamic animations.
- Randomized effects implemented by each technology rather having them all pre-determined and edited.
- A more polished cardboard box television design and more interesting placement of props.
- Ability to adjust the depth of field (blurring) of the screen when increasing and decreasing the intensity of a dimming lamp.
- More technology!

Sharpening character

Staples and shatters

When the screen is rotated upside down with the blow dryer, nails fall down!

Electric razor static

Orlando’s courtroom

TECHNICAL DETAILS
The installation uses serial communication between Arduino and Flash using the as3Glue library. To make each device trigger an animation, I used Phidgets current sensors to detect how much voltage is coming from each device. Conditions were placed with these values to change the character’s overall appearance once these devices were shut off. Other physical computing components used were a potentiometer, LEDs, miniature vibration motors placed inside the box, a subwoofer, speakers and a flat screen monitor.

Phidget current sensors detecting the voltage from the razor, sharpener and blow dryer.

All animations were recorded in real-time behind a green screen and then were traced with a fine liner pen using a light box. These selected stills were then scanned and converted into vector graphics using Illustrator and then colored in Flash. This lengthy process helped me achieve the vibrancy and quality I was looking for in both the character and the environments that he is placed into.

All animation frames were drawn using a fineliner marker and were then vectorized into Flash.

Production for my final project in my physical computing class is going very well and I am beginning to feel excited about it. My concept has changed a great deal since I sketched it out two weeks ago. This evening, I received all the electronic components that I will require for my project in the mail. I just went through some successful tests with the AC current sensors that I will be using for my video installation. It was interesting to see the different feedback I was getting from the different electronic devices that I am considering using. I am looking forward to playing with these values and then develop some dynamic output effects with them. I am also considering implementing homemade devices with some of the sensors that have been introduced to us in the beginning of semester such as photo cells and flex sensors.

Now that I have resolved all the issues surrounding the input aspect of my piece, tomorrow I plan to begin developing the output phase of my project. I have decided that the video projection that I will be using will be all in vector graphics which means I have a lot of drawing to do! The main character I am using is very eccentric and awkward which will add a lot of humor to the piece. I plan to record voices for the cartoon character as well.

That is all I really want to say about my progress for my final project for now. I would like to keep much of what I am planning as a surprise for my final presentation!

by Jason Safir and Martin Ceperley

DESCRIPTION

chromaCubes is an interactive color control panel and game for all ages. The intense colors and the visceral reactions they provoke produce a relaxing and entrancing experience. It can either be in free form input mode, where the user is free to move the knobs around the circumference of the color wheel, or a short challenging game. The object of the game is simple: a sequence of colors appear, and it is your job to turn the knobs, rotating through the color wheel, to recreate the colors. The result is an enjoyable, immersive experience as you watch the glowing colors respond to your touch, and are guided by a computer voice (there is no text on the minimalist interface).

VIDEO DOCUMENTATION

MATERIALS & TECHNOLOGY

Four plastic cubes
Sheets of fog transparency paper
Scotch Tape
Double sided Tape
Tools: drill, saw, rulor, scissors, hammer
Krazy Glue
Wood
Small plastic cube
Four potentiometers
Arduino Microcontroller
Four Controlled RGB Leds (BlinkM)
Push button switch
USB Cord
Arduino
Processing

FUTURE PROTOTYPES AND IMPROVEMENTS

- More advanced color patterns- The boxes can communicate in other ways such as by opening and closing
- LED Timer that is arranged in square shape
- Develop different modes (i.e. game mode, input mode, light reaction from RSS feeds)
- More sounds! Such as when the user turns a knob and when light motion occurs
- Since we are playing with lights and diffusion, the use of a photocell (light sensor) can serve as an interesting input. It can also add another dimension such as by acting as trigger instead of a typical push button switch.
- Develop the user interface process
- Design improvement of the push button switch (i.e. text, logo, a cube blinking button)

Using multiple analog inputs can get confusing. This week’s lab emphasized on how to obtain clear values when using three separate inputs. It also introduced the ‘handshaking method’ which is essential in recognizing data from each input that is being sent to and from the Arduino.

A simple setup,  yet I encountered two obvious problems in getting this application to run properly. The first problem I had was with the push button switch. Arduino was not receiving any boolean values from the digital input. This problem was quickly resolbed by replacing the switch with another one. The second problem that I encountered involved forgetting to assign the COMM port in the processing code. This must always be properly identified instead of assuming that processing, or any other programming environment, will automatically detect which port I am communicating with.

Project team: Jason Safir and Martin Ceperley

Speaking Boxes is more than just a fun device to play with: it proposes a new, animated and efficient way to organize your belongings. The device presents nine small white interactive boxes arranged in a square sequence that automatically opens and closes when the user rotates a bakelite knob. Each box speaks with its own personality such as by the way it opens and by outputting a distinctive sound effect when they open and close. By ascribing separate characteristics and behaviors to each box helps the user recognize the differences between them, which in turn, gives them the capability to quickly identify which box their belongings are organized into. When the knob is turned and settled into a location, a box quickly opens while the preceding one closes. The user may then take an object out of the open (selected) box and place it into another one. All the boxes open and close just by turning a knob. Speaking Boxes may also be portrayed as a creative art piece. For example, a mystery memory game can take place where the user can be instructed to find objects from the boxes based on given clues. All controlled with a knob! By using this device, you can find your items a lot quicker and easier without having to go through the frustration to opening and closing boxes with your hands. Wow, technology is really making us become more and more lazy. If all goes well, we also plan to incorporate a security system into the speaking boxes, where if the user attempts to open any of the boxes with their hands, a buzzer alarm will be heard.

MATERIALS

Nine white boxes
5 solenoids (to open the flaps of five of the boxes)
4 servo motors (to open the flaps of the four other boxes helping us generate a variety of behaviors in the way the boxes open).
4 rods (to be used to open the boxes with the servo motors)
Arduino microcontroller
Breadboard
Bakelite knob
Wood/Old Antique (if we decide to make the device look like an antique)
Speaker/Buzzer
LED’s
Electrical wire
Colored paper (each box will have a different colored base inside of them)