Over the weekend Tellart hosted a couple of great events at the first-ever Rhode Island Maker Faire in Providence. We kicked things off with a workshop on WiiMote hacking, where we taught folks how to write applications controlled by WiiMote gestures. After that, and then again on Saturday at WaterFire, we installed our special interactive pong game – like the one from your childhood, but projected life-size on the floor and controlled via infra-red LED’s on your head. Who says video games cause laziness?
The “What is a switch?” project is a Tellart classic.
It takes the form of a workshop or a longer course, and, by using low-cost materials and familiar design tools, is meant to demystify electronics for design students and artists – expanding their conception of what it means to design with embedded electronics.
A switch, after all, is just a connection made or broken between power and ground.
When you begin to think about it that way, the “what is a switch” experience goes beyond a simple electronics lesson. What happens when you take the switch away from the wall, out of the plastic casing?
What kind of interactions can you create when you start experimenting with other materials, quick prototypes of your concepts, and new ways of connecting?
Tellart teaches Physical Computing/Interaction Design workshops yearly at the Umeå Institute of Design in Sweden – in this particular two week long workshop, the students were asked to conceive of ideas that would encourage a more energetic “desk-job” experience. “Repetitive strain injury”, or RSI, is the name for a group of conditions common in computer workers and assembly line workers – carpal tunnel syndrome is a well known example. The conditions arise from too much time spent in a poor posture position or too much repetitive muscle activity.
The students, who came from a variety of different undergraduate backgrounds ranging from Computer Science to Psychology, were taught some basic physical computing concepts, and given an introduction to our Sketchtools platform.
Check out the Offsite section on tellart.com to see more videos of our workshops and courses…
Photo courtesy Matt Mets