About ID Realities

Many realities exist. People continuously shift, among sometimes physical, sometimes virtual or even spiritual realities. Design manipulates the boundaries between the realties, creating experiences that are not experienced otherwise.

“Pitch” the ideas: Project presentations on Friday, March 4

On March 4, all the 2nd year projects from theme Realities will give “elevator pitch” presentations to each other and to their coaches:

9.30-9.35: Meeting and general intro
9h35-9h40: Intro New Entrpreneurs
9:40-9:50: New Entrpreneurs 1 (Kirsten) – second years group that work with 2 chinese students
9:50-9.55: Feedback
9:55-10.05: New Entrpreneurs 2 (Kirsten) – second years group that work with 2 chinese students
10:05-10:10: Feedback

10:10-10:15: Intro ID’X
10.15-10.25: ID’X (heleen)
10:25-10:30: Feedback
10.30-10.40: ID’X (Matthias)
10:40-10:45: Feedback
10.45-10.55: ID’X (Jorge)
10:55-11:00: Feedback

Make it Social – New Entrepreneurs [DPA34 Project Description]

The world around us is changing fast, and not all the changes are positive. We’re facing the biggest natural, social and economic challenges our world has ever seen. This project is about the new realities in this world changing and how a New Generation is there to rip up the rulebook and start over.

Background Information | New Generation of Entrepreneurs
New Entrepreneurs

New Entrepreneurs

In this worldly context of change, there is an upcoming influence of a generation of new entrepreneurs, that experiences creative freedom. They don’t wait for something to happen, they start doing it.
With their desire to create and the technical gear (hard & software) available, they are starting their own little businesses – especially if they can’t find their creative freedom within the existing corporations.

Digital is no longer something new, it’s a given. This creates a gap between the perception of technology in the heads of this generation and their client’s perception that digital is a specific discipline.

This is a network-generation of entrepreneurs that is characterized by a cocktail of the concepts ‘multi’, ‘sharing’, ‘inline’ and ‘open’ and that will change the future as they like to do it on their own terms.

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Realities at ID’10, Dutch Design Week

“Blurring the real and the virtual” is one of the selected themes being presented at ID’10: “...the ubiquitous and adaptive systems that our students design weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life. This implies that the boundaries between the real and the virtual are blurring. But what are the implications of this merger? How to respond to these new challenges and opportunities?”

A few projects from the theme Realities are exhibited at ID’10.


Cueb

Cueb

Cueb, by Connie Golsteijn. Coach: Elise van den Hoven

This project aimed at facilitating parent-teenager communication about the parents’ past. The final concept, called Cueb, is an interactive digital photo medium which allows parents and teenagers to explore individual and shared experiences, thus triggering an exchange of stories. Through interactive controls like shaking and connecting cubes and by transferring and locking photos, surprising photo results are displayed to trigger memories. Cueb was evaluated in four families. The evaluation showed that the concept triggered and facilitated sharing experiences and telling stories significantly better than a more traditional photo medium.

TIM

TIM

Tangible interaction device for instant messaging. by Koen Beljaars, Jelmer de Maat, Rick Dutour Geerling, Sivaraaj Soundarajan. coach: Christoph Bartneck

TIM is a product that makes it possible to bring a part of the interaction with an instant messaging program into the living room. The product provides an overview of all the different contacts displayed as fish in an aquarium. Every fish represents a contact person. The color and the speed of each fish shows the status of that contact (online, away, offline etc.) en whether the contact is sending a message or not. The touch screen provides an intuitive way of interacting with the fish and makes it possible to read the incoming messages and send quick replies.

Adaptive Office

Adaptive Office

Interactive window shades that stimulate a natural and free experience of office spaces. by Teun Vinken. coach: Jorge Alves Lino

By creating dynamic shadows inside an office space our modular system blocks direct sunlight from office workers. The aperture of the circle structure varies depending on outdoor light intensity. In addition, the system provides a free and natural office experience. The circular shades provide an outdoor experience in a closed office environment similar to the effect of shadows created by leaves of a tree. This way the sense of being locked-up in the office is reduced and a more pleasant work atmosphere can be created.

Sounds like home

Sounds like home

sounds like home. by Sebastiaan Pijnappel. coach: Elise van den Hoven

Sounds Like Home creates peripheral soundscapes that tell how many people are home and away Two glass vases contain marbles, their number equal to the number of members in a family. One vase indicates “home”, the other “away”. A marble rolls to the “away“ side whenever someone leaves, or the other when someone comes home. The sounds of marbles rolling and bumping into each other compose a gentle soundscape from which the number of people home or away can be derived.

Tom Frissen

Tom Frissen

coach: Joep Frens
An intelligent remote control for controlling and transferring personal media

This project aimed at finding new and better control and interaction possibilities for home entertainment systems. Through a wide range of research and explorations a personal remote control has been developed for controlling and transferring media throughout the complete house. Wireless technology enables the remote control to know what devices are nearby and through this it can adapt its control and interaction possibilities. Because it is a personal remote control, every family member now has a personal access point to his or her media.

Jasper Dekker

Jasper Dekker

coach: Lucian Reindl
Touch-less interaction for a kitchen tap

The goal of this graduation project was to design gestural interactions for a kitchen tap and design and build a fully functioning tap accordingly. Every hand-gesture one performs has a certain meaning. This – often culturally determined – meaning can be coupled to the meaning of functions of products we use everyday, such as a kitchen tap. The touch-less nature of this interaction offers an added value to this kitchen tap as dirt and bacteria can no longer be transferred from our hands.

floffy

An enviromotive robot that desires nature
by Luke Vink, Pieter Oosterwijk
coach: Omar Mubin

Conventionally, robots are separated from nature by mere description. As the goal of our project was to develop an emotional robot, we decided to add a layer of environmental awareness to our robot. The
result was Floffy, a children’s toy that responds to sunlight, water and the user. Thus, Floffy promotes outdoor activity using emotion and awareness of nature.

Arduino quick start course, Monday October 4, HG3.21

arduinoFrom dr. Geert Langereis:

As discussed with you, I will give a short workshop about the Arduino microcontroller next Monday. I will give a presentation of about an hour, afterwards we will connect our Arduino’s and make the first LEDs blink. It may be helpful for you if you have a laptop, USB cable (80ct at the Hal) and an Arduino board (new ones available at Service Desk).

Where: HG3.21 (in the front of the USI space)

When: Monday, October 4, 13:00-15:00

We will install the Arduino Programming Environment together, but if you have time, you could already download it here http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Software. Version 0020 is the newest, and is the only valid one if you have the newest Arduino Uno board (and not the previous Arduino Duemilanove)

Kick-off

On Friday, Sept 4, we will be kicking-off the projects in the Orange space:

10:30am-11:00am Presentation by Jun HU about the theme
11:00am-12:30pm Presentation by prof.dr. Matthias Rauterberg about Reality and Design
13:00pm-15:00pm Arranging the space; Coach meeting the students

Looking forward to a successful semester.

Elevator-pitch presentations

On Thursday, May 20th, theme Realities is going to organize elevator-pitch presentations. You will be asked to present your project in 3 minutes, and the coaches (not only the one coaching your project, but the coaches from other projects as well) will comment on your project and give you some feedback. This activity is not to access your project, but to help you to prepare your project better for the final exhibition.

The schedule is as follows.

10:00am-11:00am, 1st year projects. All the 1st year students are required to be present. Others are welcome.

11:00am-12:00am, 2nd and 3rd year projects. All the 2nd and 3rd year students are required to be present. Others are welcome. If you do have a good reason not to present your project, please contact your coach.

Skills Market: Thursday, May 6

On Thursday, May 6, we are going to organize a skills market for all the students in the theme Realities. The idea is that coaches in the theme would be available during certain time slots in the space Orange, to give an inspiring presentation, to show you certain skills to get things done, or simply to answer your (practical) questions. No subscription is needed. No obligations.

What will be offered:

  • 0900-1000: Presentation by Matthias Rauterberg: Realism
  • 1000-1300: Lucian Reindl: From 2D to 3D
  • 1000-1300: Joep Frens: Cardboard modeling
  • 1300-1400: Saskia Bakker: consultancy on how to involve the user in your project
  • 1400-1600: Jun Hu: Consultancy, software engineering and programming, (processing, java, arduino etc.)

The program is subject to change. Please check the realities website for the latest update:

Come to pick up the skills. All for free.

skôn

an exploration into textiles and electronics by
Paula Kassenaar
Paula Segura Meccia

The front part of the hoodie is a knitted variable resistor. Its resistance varies when you toy with it. This changing resistance value is used to change the intensity of the light strip in the front edge of the hoodie.

skôn means beautiful in dutch dialect, and in swedish skön also means nice or beautiful. This relates to both our cultural backgrounds.

camera: Gordon Tiemstra
model: Elien Vergeer
music: one evening by feist

Eindhoven University of Technology
Department of Industrial Design
Wearable Senses

one week module in Spring 2010
given by Michel Peeters, Carl Meegens and others

Touris Photo Tagging

Brief Description

With the arrival of digital cameras, the number of pictures taken by tourists have increased dramatically. These pictures are no longer printer, but published in online photo communities, such as Flickr. This project explores a parasitic game that resides between the taking of the photos and the publishing on the web. Players tag the photos taken by other tourists by standing in the background. Once these photos appear online, the players scores points. The player is a harmless parasite in the avalanche of tourist photos.

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Everyday Audio

Brief Description

In any given situation, there will be multiple auditory channels reaching the ear. However, we are able to focus our attention on one of them. The remaining auditory channels are typically monitored in the periphery of our attention. In other words, we do not have to pay specific attention to them, but if something unusual happens, our attention immediately shifts. For example, when driving a car, one will normally focus the attention on the road, the radio, or the conversation with passengers. However, when the engine suddenly makes an unusual noise, the attention immediately switches to this sound. In other words, the sound of the engine that is normally in the periphery of the attention shifts to the foreground. The same thing will happen when you hear someone say your name.

In this project, you will explore how you can leverage the above described auditory perception skills in interaction design. The goal of this project is to study how audio can be linked to everyday objects to provide peripheral information while interacting with these objects. For example; what if the refridgerator tells us what is in it whenever we open it, or the door-knob tells us if it is going to rain when we open the front door? In this project you will explore and create several of such auditory cues and study their potential use in a home context.

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Growing Systems

Brief Description

Designing for systems is a new challenge for design. As systems are dynamic and open the design challenge is different than the challenge of designing (interactive) products. Amongst others, systems are not bound to one location in input and in output and they can grow in size and in functionality.

Imagine the case of a media system offering audio and video functionality and it has the potential of offering much more functionality (time-shifted TV, internet chatting, etc. etc.). Design a ëlocus of interactioní (a remote control) for this system that offers meaningful interaction but that has the ability to grow and to be as dynamic and open as the system it controls. Use the principles from the framework of rich interaction as the basis for this.

Objectives / Specifics

(project objectives; learning goals)
To understand what a growing system is, and to design a meaningful locus of interaction for it

Deliverables

A locus of interaction for a growing system, in this case a media center

Smart brushing

Brief Description

It has proven to be difficult to teach people the proper teeth brushing routine. What is more, even if people know the proper routine, they often get sloppy over time. This can result in all kind of medical problems like tooth decay or even the untimely need for dentures. Obviously this is a problem. The design challenge therefore is to design a device that encourages a ‘proper’ teeth brushing routine. As we prefer seduction over enforcement the product should be more like a coach than like a dictator. Also it is essential that the elements of proper teeth brushing are explored and documented through literature research, observation and interview. This needs to be used as the basis for the design challenge of seducing people to take care of their teeth..

Objectives / Specifics

(project objectives; learning goals)
To understand the elements of proper teeth brushing and to stimulate them through seduction rather than enforcement.

Deliverables

A product, system or service that excourages a ‘proper’ teeth brushing routine

Consumption Monitor

Brief Description

Design a device that can monitor the rate of consumption of toothpaste. The device should be versatile but it should not influence the rate of consumption itself. This project asks for a very pro-active approach. It is essential that the daily routine around the use of toothpaste is well undestood at the very beginning of the project. This could be accomplished by a series of observations and interviews at peopless homes. After the routine is understood and documented it should be taken as the starting point for design. Please consider the requirements below for this phase.

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A Product That Remembers…

Brief Description

What would happen when a product in your home, remembers your daily patterns, remembers what you did, remembers where you were…

This can be scary (think of Big Brother), but this can also be very helpful and pleasant, such as when someone remembers your birthday. In this project we will focus on this positive angle. Imagine: you are looking for your keys and you cannot find them. Luckily you have this product that remembers how people move through the house and you can literally retrace your steps.

In this product you will come up with a concept of a product that remembers things/activities in the home environment and you will implement a working demonstrator.

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Contextual Information Exchange

Brief Description

A design case done by Bram Knaapen

The non face-to-face communication of social and emotional experiences between people now happens through phone or other media like e-mail, IM (instant messaging), webcam (e.g. Skype) and other virtual communities such as Second Life. In the communication these experiences the context it has happened in pays an important role. Neither the technology nor our way of describing it enables us to communicate this context, in such a way that it can be “experienced” by the others, you can only imagine.

We first show a design case that tries to tackle this issue. The design concept proposes a system that is able to communicate the context of a remote (virtual) user so that the receiving (virtual) person is able to “feel” as if he/she is there without the translation steps. Often these steps are required when describing an experience. This concept enables a seamless transition between a real and virtual worlds leading to interesting scenarios.

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Beyond L$

Brief Description

Virtual worlds such as Second life (Ondrejka, 2007) and World of Warcraft (Nardi & Harris, 2006) have entered our lives, our communication patterns, our culture, and our entertainment. “It’s not only the teenager active in, the average age of a gamer is 35 years by now, and it increases every year. This does not even include role-play in the professional context, also known as serious gaming, inevitable when learning practical skills. Virtual worlds are in use for entertainment, education, training, getting information, social interaction, work, virtual tourism, reliving the past and forms of art. They augment and interact with our real world and form an important part of people’s lives. Many virtual worlds already exist as games, training systems, social networks and virtual cities and world models.” (MPEG, 2008)

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Tangible Instant Messaging

Brief description

Instant Messaging is a popular means of communication on the internet. Programs like MSN Messenger and ICQ are widely used to exchange text messages within a community of ‘buddies’.

The interaction with these programs is through a Graphical User Interface (GUI) augmented with simple sounds to indicate incoming messages. The two main areas of interaction are the dialog window, in which the exchange of messages takes place, and the status window. The status window informs the user about several things. It indicates the status of others, e.g., which of his buddies is online, who is sending a message, if buddies are available or busy, etc. The user can also set his own status through this window, e.g., away, occupied, busy, ‘be right back’. Through pull-down menus in this window you can also contact buddies and send them messages or emails.

As a reaction to the dominance of GUI’s in human computer interaction (HCI) alternative interaction styles are explored. One of these alternatives is tangible interaction which stresses the importance of the physicality of the interaction. In this approach the physical controls for (digital) input are integrated with the physical representation of (digital) output.

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Semantic Connections Demonstrator

Interaction Tiles

Interaction Tiles

For the EU project SOFIA (Smart Objects For Intelligent Applications), Bram van der Vlist and Gerrit Niezen created a demonstrator for one of the use cases: semantic connections. “The demonstrator consists of a set of devices; surround sound-set, mobile mp3 players, an ambient lighting system and interaction device(s). The interaction device is a tile-like interactive object that allows for both exploration of the Smart Space in terms of connections and manipulation of these connections and information/data streams. Coloured LED lighting and light dynamics visualize the connections and connection possibilities between the various devices. By means of putting devices close to one of the four sides of the tile, a user can check if there is a connection and if not if a connection is possible. By simply picking up the tile, and shaking it a user can make or break the connection between the devices present at the interaction tile.”

More at www.sofia.id.tue.nl

[youtube width=”480″ height=”290″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdZcjqfq8RQ[/youtube]