Published by Tom on September 17, 2007 12:47 am
under Networked Objects
Amazing things are possible in this city… like stores that only sell feathers. Resources like that make rapid prototyping possible, which is good because I am going to be doing a lot of that in ‘Networked Objects.’ Our first assignment was to make an reactive object that included an action, thing, and response from a provided list. I chose stroking, feathers, and color… not sure why really, just appealed to me. For awhile I had lentils instead of feathers, but the organic look of the feathers eventually tipped the bucket.
Anyhoo, the trickiest part of this project eventually became finding the ingredients-nice looking feathers, decent LEDs (which are still not found), and diffusers (also still MIA). Because of the LED problem I could not create the color ‘response’ I really wanted, but c’est la vie, I think it still turned out beautiful. There is something nice about combining a really organic object like a feather, with a crisp electronic component; its like ‘wow, those aren’t supposed to go together’… but they do, and you like it. Well, organics and plastics don’t go together easily, but with enough finageling I got them to stick.
Overall I am satisfied with my physical computing improv. I do feel a bit guilty over the hodgepodgeness of the LEDs and the overall ‘wires stuffed in a box’ approach; but I did learn a lot about combining electronic components with fabrication materials. The whole process seems messy (physically and academically) and makes me wonder if I will get tired of simply stuffing boxes with parts. I feel like there is a better way… there needs to be one. |
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