Well this person, Massimo Banzi of Torino, Italy was here doing a workshop and he brought with him his latest offering called TinkerKit. The kit was an arduino board, a sensor shield, wires and custom manufactured sensors. Everything you need to do some exploration. Well, he was kind enough to leave one of these with me and to put me in touch with his manufacture so I can buy some more for my students. 8 Students took up the charge to learn both the programming side and the physical computing side. I must say that I had very low expectations, but as usual whenever I do my students always prove me wrong and do oh so well!

The direction was vague for this first class. Just create a product that serves some utility. Innovation or originality was not required, though some of the ideas are pretty interesting. My fave statement from a student was during the final (paraphrasing):

I wish I started working on the hardware side of my project earlier. It was really great to see how ideas shifted as I was working in the physical form.

A teacher of physical prototyping could never be happier than to hear a student make a comment like that.

So here are the final presentations and videos (sometimes done in 1 shot).

Lavatory Science by Clint Rule

The Presentation:

Movie:

Olga by Clara Bunker

The Presentation:

The Movie:

Mama by Chris Wronski

The Presentation:

The Movie:

Bike Radar by Daniel Smith

The Presentation:

The Movie:

Blinker Bike by Trevor Wild

The Presentation (links to new window; requires QuickTime):

The Movie:

Sleep Buddy by Izac Ross

Presentation & Movie in 1:

I’d like those of you who know you’ll be attending whether you registered or not yet to register there. For example a student from afar is already asking for help. Would be nice of students show the true hospitality of the Hostess City.

thanx!

The exciting bullet points:
1) Submissions are of previous work by individual students or recent grads (undergraduate and graduates are both welcome; up to 1 year out) of work done as students. (no teams)
2) There are 2 major stages of the competition:
* Stage 1 is the submission of a substantial telling of your student project in the form of a process book. This will lead to 5 finalists.
* Stage 2 will bring those 5 finalists all expenses paid to IxDA Interaction 10 | Savannah where they will compete through 3 onsite challenges which will include elements of public voting.
3) Stage 1 submissions will be done between Nov 23 & Nov 30 via the conference web site. Announcements will be made when opened, but preparations should begin immediately.

For more information please go to the conference web site: http://interaction.ixda.org/student-competition/

http://www.genelu.com/content/blogcategory/0/13/

10/GUI from C. Miller on Vimeo.

Here is my critique? What’s yours?

First check out the presentation on their process to date:

Mate: Savannah Conference Game (video prototype) from David Malouf on Vimeo.

All IACT classes are going to take 90min out of their class time to work on the following design challenge put forth by Core77 and Portigal Consulting. I will be coming to class next week with more details for everyone.

Core77 1-Hour (90-min) Design Challenge

– dave

The folks at the Oslo School of Architecture & Design (AHO), Touch project (http://nearfield.org) have always presented great work (Take a look at their archives). But this piece in particular is the perfect combination of IxD theory, material execution, and theoretical visualization all in one video.

Kudos to @timoarnall and the folks at BERG.

Take a look at the video here:

Nearness from timo on Vimeo.

Here is the link to the challenge, tell me what you think.

http://labs.mozilla.com/conceptseries/2009/08/31/design-challenges-fall-09/

– dave