Hello everyone, my name is Ofer Asaf, and I am excited to present you with our work
in progress, Plantimus a Plant Stethoscope.
Plantimus was designed and created in Kadar Design and Technology Center in Shenkar college Israel.
I will start with the background and motivation behind Plantimus.
We are living in troubling times, an epoch of mass extinction and massive climate change.
In these complex times, cultivating responsibility towards our fellow species that live alongside
us on Earth, such as plants, is of crucial importance.
In this case, the sooner the better.
Learning to nourish and nurture our planet should start at a young age.
Motivated to encourage children to develop a nurturing approach towards nature we designed
Plantimus.
It is an interactive external device which allows children to hear plants using interactive technology.
Let's see some of the related work that influenced us while designing Plantimus.
Plantimus allows children to hear plants by creating a digital layer on top of nature.
The concept of augmenting information over the physical world was shown effective for
children's outdoor learning experiences in the work done by Rogers and her colleagues.
In their project Ambien Horn sounds augmented on top of the physical surroundings promoted
exploration and discussion regarding the natural environment.
The idea of hearing plants is not a completely fictional idea.
A research group in Tel Aviv University has shown that plants emit remotely detectable
sounds when stressed.
With Plantimus, we did not try to amplify those sound but rather use parts specific
sound to create an educational and playful experience.
Now let's go through how Plantimus is designed.
Wanting Plantimus to be an external enhancing device meant for exploration,
we borrowed the metaphor of a physician's stethoscope,
which is rich in connotations of caring and nurturing,
as well as revealing the sounds of the most precious inner parts.
Similar to a stethoscope, Plantimus is built of two main parts.
the Plant-Piece,
which is directed towards the plant, and the Ear-Piece, which is directed towards the ear
and emits sounds.
The two parts are connected by a string which houses the electrical wires and allows Plantimus
to be hanged on the child's neck While exploring and wandering.
A crucial part of the design was the process of sonification.
First, we created three sound libraries for the three main plant parts - flower, leaf
and Earth.
Each library contains two types of sound.
The first is figurative sound, which communicates information regarding the part role in the
plant's life and health.
The second type is abstract sounds, mainly musical sounds that create a more rich, textural
and playful Sonic experience.
When the Plant-Piece is directed towards a plant part, the different layers of sound
both figurative and abstract, gradually appear, creating a unique sound pattern for each part.
Let's look at the table for an example.
When Plantimus is directed by a child towards a leaf, we will first hear a breathing sound
relating to the leaf's role in the respiratory process of the plant.
After a few seconds, a saxophone sound will enter, adding texture,
And finally, a water slurping sound will enter indicating the water movement in the leaf venation.
Now I'll show you a little demonstration of how Plantimus prototype works.
The prototype is based on an endoscopic camera connected to a Max cycling 74 software.
The software generates real time sound according to the movement of the Plant-piece.
Hi, now let's see how the Plantimus prototype works.
Currently the Plant-piece doesn't recognize any plant part and it's in search mode and
emits white noise.
As I'll direct the Plant-piece towards the flower and the camera will recognize the color
pink sounds will gradually appear.
We tried a prior prototype version of Plantimus with a group of seven children at a flower
garden in urban context.
After they finished playing with it, we discussed with them about their experience.
Here are a number of our observations.
First, it seemed like the children enjoyed playing with Plantimus.
They danced and engaged with it for many minutes, and we're excited to discuss it with their friends.
Second, the children exhibited independent activity by trying out different plants and
objects than the ones we directed them to.
It was interesting to see that the children related to the abstract sounds we chose,
and that the figurative sounds prompted discussion regarding the role of the different parts of the plants.
Finally, we noticed that Plantimus raised concerns regarding the health of the plants
Children asking how a dried up leaf will sound as opposed to unhealthy one.
In the future version of Plantimus, we intend to develop the following features -
In terms of pant recognition we envision a more specific recognition of the plants part by image recognition software.
In the sound design aspect, we plan to create a more plant-specific library that may relate
to different health status, the plant origin, unique features and so on.
Currently, as you may have seen in the prototype demonstration, Platimus is connected to a
computer with a wire in order to work.
In future versions we hope to design Plantimus as a wireless device, which will allow
a cable free exploration in nature.
That is the end of my presentation.
Thank you very much for listening, and now I'd be very happy to answer any question you
have regarding our work.