explorative environments

sodaplay snake by www.warptera.com click to start appletThe

Sodaconstructor is one of the smartest web applets to play and learn about the construction of artificial lifeforms while playing with springs masses and muscles. By doing so you are able to explore fundamentals of statics and dynamics in an abstract but playful way. Further it’s an interesting tool to explore adaptabel and active structures.

The smart simplicity of the interface is a good example of how to control complex systems the easy way. Combining the sodaconstructor with an hardware interface to control actuators (like Festo’s Fluidic Muscle MAS) and read out sensors might offer an intuitive way to experiment with adaptive architecture.

image: www.festo.com

In fact thats what the folks at the hyperbody research group at the TU Delft did with their MUSCLE Tower II. But instead of hacking sodaconstructor they used virtools a 3D authoring software. For further information go to www.thegreatesthits.net


image: www.bk.tudelft.nl

Simon Elvis work is about visualizing invisible things. For example above you can see a haptic map of London most silent places.

SILENT LONDON

March 2005 - 735×500mm - Blind embossed etching - Edition of 10
Using information the government has collected on noise levels within London, a map has
been plotted of the capitals most silent spaces. The map intends to reveal a hidden
landscape of quiet spaces and shows an alternate side of the city that would normally
go unnoticed.

VIA: http://www.simonelvins.com/silent_london.html

SEEN AT: http://www.generatorx.no/

The rising complexity of of electronic products, demands iterative ways to develop their interface. While there are several systems for functional prototyping outside the The VoodooIO system amazed me most. I’ve never seen such an easy way to custumize your tangible interface.

VoodooIO adopts a vision of the physical interface as a malleable material that can be shaped and adapted, rather than a device with a predetermined form or prescribed use. The intention is to overcome the obstacles that prevent hardware interfaces from being as easily appropriable by users as graphical user interfaces (and software applications in general) have become, blurring the boundaries between interface developers, interaction designers and end-users.

The concept is based on deconstructing the interface into atomic units of control – such as buttons, switches, knobs, sliders and lights – and a substrate material that allows individual units to be aggregated and spatially organized into control surfaces distributed across the environment.

VoodooIO Video Documentation

VIA: http://eis.comp.lancs.ac.uk/

SEEN AT: we make money not art

Pinkie is a network based electronics prototyping board. Developed as a precursor to building large networked systems that incorporate physical space and objects. Pinkie has been designed to easily compose sensors and actuators that reside in different locations. Pinkies are inherently invisible, they hide behind the structures and only serve as facilitators to interface the physical world to the digital network. Today creating architectural spaces connected to digital networks is possible, but not so easy or sustainable. Furthermore, it is not well practiced. So how does the design of spaces and objects change when they are networked? How do we situate communication / interaction technologies? What are the qualities of our experience in these spaces? To explore these questions we started to develop a new project called Open I/O.

http://openio.org/

http://openio.media.mit.edu/  

http://plw.media.mit.edu/people/arikan/2005/pinkie/index.html

VIA:

http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/009014.php

MORE: 

http://01sj.org/content/view/555/146/