Hi everyone, thank you for having a look at
the pictorial named Smörgåsbords for physical computing.
My name is Laurens Boer and this work is done
together with Harvey Bewley at the IxD Lab of the IT University of Copenhagen.
This work is mainly motivated by us teaching
interaction design projects that involve physical computing, in particular teaching those
students who are new to physical computing.
When we engage students with physical computing,
we show different materials, from left to right: we have composed electronic kits that
we hand out to students, we show the drawer storage units that contain all available components,
we hand out books for self study, and we show what actually can be produced with physical
computing by showing them prototypes.
This can be very successful, because combined they provide an awareness of components that
are available in-house, an awareness of their physical appearance, they stimulate hands-on
or step by step learning, and they illustrate the potential of physical computing.
However, we felt that something was missing
in this collection. In particular because we often saw that these materials can be experienced
as overwhelming or intimidating, but moreover, that none of these provide an immediate experience
of what an individual physical computing component can do for newcomers
We took this as a starting point to see if
we could develop additional educational material for physical computing
To start this process, we first looked at
the offerings that we actually have available in-house, and we looked at all the sensors
and actuators in particular. These are the most frequently used sensors and actuators
that are also lend out most often.
We organised these components on a table, and in that process we saw different categories
emerging. For example, sensors could be clustered into movement, environment, flex&force, distance
sensors, passives and switches; while actuators could be clustered into tactition, audition,
thermoception, or vision.
This reminded us of a Swedish Smörgåsbord - a collection of celebratory dishes of various
foods served buffet-style on a table, where guests serve themselves from the possibilities
laid out for their choice.
Inspired by the offering of a variety of possibilities that can be physically explored and experienced
independently, we initiated the design of electronic versions of these S Smörgåsbords,
to display our collection of physical computing components.
One board would offer a buffet of
sensors that could be explored, and another would offer a buffet of actuators
that could be explored.
Our students could go to these boards, and get a taste for what each component
actually does.
Our idea is illustrated on the image to the right here.
To continue our formgiving process we articulated
4 design principles. The first one was to demystify the function,
form and feel of a component, and instantly experience its basic form factors.
Secondly, to facilitate simple interactions to explore the potential for interaction of
these components. Third, to group, label, and stage the components
to create a categorised way, to allow students to compare them, but also to give prominence
to their form factors.
And fourth, we wanted to use only those components that we actually have available, so students
can have access to them and start working with them right away, and to give the support
for them that is needed.
This is the first board that was made: the sensorboard.
What you see here are individual components,
that are grouped and staged in a meaningful way. Each component had an LED underneath
it, and you can use the clickable scroll wheel here in the bottom right to select one of
the sensors.
Upon selection, the sensor can then be manipulated and the output will be displayed on the LCD
screen
The wheel to select a sensor is clickable, and upon clicking, you change the output mode:
either a numerical value, or a horizontal bar graph. This movie shows how the selection
of the sensors goes.
And this movie shows how the numerical value is displayed.
The second electronic Smörgåsbord that
we produced was the actuator board.
It followed a similar principles, although here we did not use a scrollable click wheel
to select the actuator, but we wanted to have interaction happening with the actuator itself
directly. You can also see different motors grouped
together on the left, and on the right vision related outputs grouped together.
Here is a movie that shows the interaction
with the board.
We start with the shape memory alloy. An LCD display.
A 7-segment display. An RGB LED.
A fan. A solenoid.
An airpump. A vibration motor.
A piezo buzzer. A peltier element.
A stepper motor. A servo motor.
And a DC motor.
As you can see, the interactions are very brief, like little tastings of these components,
and very quickly give a good impression of how a component works and can function.
This inspired the development of two other boards.
This one, the PiezoBoard, was designed to
illustrate that one component can also be combined with various materials, to show that
it can be used in very different interactions.
Here you can see silicone hair, silicone,
a spring, fur, and a water balloon. We combined this with a simple LED output to show how
interactions could be different.
The last board we developed a board that exclusively focused on the light sources that we have
available.
You can see from left to right: an incandescent light bulb, a single coloured LED, an RGB
LED, a Neopixiel LED strip, and an LED Matrix.
The control in the bottom right enables you set different to explore different temporal
form possibilities.
For example for the light bulb, the horizontal position of the control would change its blinking
speed, while the vertical position changed its intensity.
Similarly, for the Neopixel LED strip, the horizontal position would change the colour
from red to green to blue, while the vertical position would set its position on the strip.
This is video shows how the control works, and the outputs of the light when the control
is set to the top left.
As a collection, we staged the board permanently in a main corridor of our university building.
This has had very positive effects on very different levels: they gave visibility to
the practice of physical computing, they triggered very playful interaction with physical computing
components, they raised curiosity and excitement in doing so, and overall invite and inspire
our students to think in possibilities beyond the screen.
Practically, the boards also helped a lot
in realistically constraining student projects, as they are better informed about the limitations
and possibilities of some components, and students had better expectations of what actually
could be supported when they would start with their projects.
Thank you!