The Arduous Button
Computers are easy on us, which makes them seem fake (or at least artificial). In the real world we get feedback from our actions on objects in very real ways: fire burns, rocks are heavy, and bees sting; because we know all of this, our subconscious watches out for us by giving us signals… really nice. Another nice thing about being human is our ability to think ahead and predict a series of events: I shouldn’t move that rock because it looks heavy, so that means I will sweat and get scrapes if I try, and because I am in a tuxedo, that would be a bad idea… see, isn’t that nice?
Well computers take a lot of that away 
With the press of a finger I can fire a missile, or lift a car in the wild world of computers… and at the same time circumvent millions of years of evolution. I know that sounds a little extreme, but if you think about it, we are slowly getting dehumanized by our technologies.
So, when we were asked to think about buttons in Design for Constraints, I decided to make a button that put our bodies back into the equation. Most buttons are easy… mine is hard… arduous in fact. Pressing my button requires some positioning… some planning. The first time you are bound to fail, learn, and try again. Some people will not be able to press my button without making tools, some will give up… just like life. My button might even make you cry. Thats life I guess.
This is what it is:
A block of wood with a spring attached to it. The spring has electricity in it waiting to get to the screw top in the wood-so, you have to bend the spring down and touch the screw head with it, then a circuit is closed that interacts with a Flash app. The Flash app is a thermometer that rises when the circuit is closed and falls when it is open… this way, the user has to hold the spring down on the screw head for around 10 seconds to fill up the thermometer… and thats hard. So there you have it.