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Assignment :
Final ++

Implement a concept of your choice within one of the following areas:

Mobile Phone Software
Augmented Reality
Camera Input / Computer Vision
Generative Animation
Generative Music
Artificial Life
Immersive Software Environment
Information Visualization

Response/Concept:
For this final project, I was interested in experimenting computation and design outside the realm of computer screen, I wanted to bring the project out from that. There was not specific goal or aim for me at this point, and I went through two weeks of research, first experimenting the physical experience of computing, and then the initial concept proposal.

Research/Concept Proposal:
week 1 : research (PDF)
I started to research about computation designs applied to physical objects and products. Through this research I came accross some of professor John Maeda's work, and also professor Casey Reas' print design done through computation. Also I studied a lot about the projects done at Tangible Media Group, lead by professor Hiroshi Ishii at MIT Media Lab. I was very impressed by professor Ishii's idea of TUI (Tangible Users Interface) and started to think about a final project based on a user interface which the navigation is done through physical activity.

week 2 : concept proposal (PDF)
Combined with the notion of TUI, I thought it might be interesting to take in the aspect of wooden toys which the small kids play. Come to think about it, toys are the first physical material which children first gain an experience of interaction. In terms of this project, I consider my piece as a very simple interactive toy which small kids (or even adults) can interact and engage with repetetive routine to indulge themselves.

The system is fairly simple:

By placing a plexi cube ( I like to call them PLEXI-PIXEL ) the hidden switch triggers the LCD screen which is right beneath the plexi-pixel to start animating a undulating emergent color pattern.

By placing more of these plexi-pixels, the interactor can make a visual pixelate pattterns.

After completing making a desired pattern, the user can press a button, which records that patter as a "frame" for animation. A short touch of the button would only record very short period of frame, however, by pressing down the button for a long time, that particular frame will be recorded as a longer sequence.

And finally, the interactor can hit another button which manages to play back the recorded frames.

week 3 & week 4: final procedure (building)
Although in concept proposal I made it clear that I'm going to use a LED to light up the plexi-pixel, I decided to use a LCD screen which enables the piece to have a far more complex animation pattern when the plexi-pixel is being light up.
For the input, I simply strippped down 2 keyboards and built 10 switches that would take in keystrokes. The reason for having 2 keyboards is that because modern keyboard (interestingly) still takes only up to approximately 5 keystrokes max simultaneously. Therefore, I had to install 2 keyboards connected to a USB cable that would take in the input data. The 11th input, record button, I took apart a generic mouse, and replaced the switch which was more suitable for this project.
The transparent plexi-pixels were bought from SOLTER PLASTICS. (great plexi cubes!!)
Finally, the casing was made with bass wood that is usually used for architectual models.