Skate Pinball

Considering this was only constructed for the purposes of a Mountain Dew advert and a competition, this skate park has had a lot of time and money invested in it. What interested me about it was the combination of technology within a street sport to record a score which is based on physical movements. It's pretty gimmicky though and I don't think it could easily be transferred to a external skate park due to maintenance issues. What I would like to take from it, however, is how the sensors have been used to measure movement and then to try and consider this within a more subtle context.


MOUNTAIN DEW SKATE PINBALL from Jae Morrison on Vimeo.

Cubelets

The video below interested me due to the modular and sensory nature of the cubes, which when connected together behave in different ways. It made me think of my desire to do a research project based on kinetic interaction which could help someone learn about maths or physics.

They seem to be a brilliant size and appear to be easy to use. Not so sure about the background music to the video though!

Cubelets Engineering Prototypes from eric schweikardt on Vimeo.

Google As A Built Form

Ideas Day project idea one: Google as a built form

During our ideas day on the 27^th April 2011 I developed two project ideas, this being the first with the second (on a separate blog post) entitled memories. Out of both of the project ideas I feel that this is the strongest and consequently,is that topic that I am going to be focusing my research on.

Concept:

1. What would Google look like as a building?

Technologies:

1. Adaptive

2. Reconfigurable

3. Movable

4. Kinetic

5. Dynamic

6. Parametrics

Challenges:

1. Appropriate Mapping?

2. How do we do it?

3. What do we want to map in the first place?

4. How do we create an architecture in flux?

5. What data do we map?

Research Questions:

1. What is the design process for translating data structures into physical forms?

2. What constitutes a meaningful interaction between a person and a data structure at an architectural scale?

3. What do we do in the building? – Social Experience? Beacon? Research Space?

4. What is the meaningful data?

5. Who has control?

Methods:

1. Build Stuff – design as research

2. Wizard of Oz – observational

3. Prototype – Robot, Wearable Computer, Architectural computer

4. Design Studies

5. Literature – Ambient interfaces, information visualisation, philosophy of knowledge, adaptive architecture

Doing the ideas storming made me decide what I would like to get out of the linked Research project. I want to develop a strong, interesting and original project idea that I can take forward into my 6^th year Design Thesis. How can I do this? One thought has been to use the linked research project to generate a topic of which I will design a small part/component as the outcome, which can then be used as the starting point of taking the investigation further in my 6^th year design Thesis.

Kinetic Parametric Interactions

The architect Herman Hertzberger spent a lot of his time dedicated to research about how flexibility can be worked into architecture. One notable example of this can be the Centrall Beheer offices where static objects (desks and tables etc…) were rearranged in a modular fashion to create variation.

Recently, I saw a more modern (all be it theoretical) example of this by the MIT Kinetic Design Group for a competition proposal for Boeing. Here the space can be reconfigured by sliding elements such as chairs, tables or wall partitions up and down the space, creating varying environments.

What this got me thinking about more was that in order to provide this type of flexibility in a space you need to first define a set of ‘parameters’ that can be manipulated for change to occur. A question that I then asked myself was whether it was possible for a person to then influence a 3d model in a parametric modelling software like Grasshopper by having their actions manipulate certain parameters. After I did some more research on this matter I found an open source software called UbiMash which aims at bridging the gap between parametric modelling software (i.e. GC, Grasshopper…), physical/hardware devices (i.e. Wii remote, Eye Toy…) and Online virtual data from sources like twitter.

These examples prompted me to think what sort of parameters could be used to modify a person’s space? Could the mapping of people’s mood influence the space around them to adapt to how they feel? This could be through a combination of twitter feeds searching for different emotions of people in a space. Furthermore, you could look at the way people are navigating about a space or a combination of these and many more. Alternatively, people could manipulate certain parameters on a tablet or their smartphone to quickly change a space around them?