I’ve just returned from having the pleasure of spending over a week in New York City. My time there was spent finalizing an exhibit installation at the Empire State Building aimed at educating the visiting public on the great efforts the building has undertook to retrofit it’s existing systems, aiming for building-wide gains in energy efficiency. The Empire project has been specifically challenging since the beginning; visualizing the inherent complexities in a simple and easy to understand dialog for a mixed age and largely foreign audience proved not to be a trivial task. Our solution was to provide a 5 chapter story, starting with building envelope all the way through the reprograming of internal systems.

The sustainability exhibit, now open to the public, marks my last and final project with Hornall Anderson. More photos, and process work is posted at my portfolio site.

For now, goodbye New York City, goodbye Hornall Anderson, and goodbye Seattle.

Through word of mouth and a few convincing testimonials, I had decided to register for the Seattle based Metrix Create:Space electronics workshop. Fifty dollars and 3 hours turned out to be a very enjoyable hands-on learning experience. Most of my involvement with EE has been following how-to guides and reading theory, which doesn’t really apply to much of the work I’ve done with single-board microcontrollers like Arduino. Not having much (read: any) formal training on circuit or logic design, it was most beneficial to spend a few hours on a Sunday afternoon experimenting with voltage, current, resistors & capacitors; I’ve gained a new appreciation for how powerful and simplifying the Arduino + programming combination really is. The course was given by a high energy, excited-to-educate recent grad from the University of Washington, and I’d recommend it to anyone interested in learning the absolute fundamentals of electronics.

What we made: A circuit containing a 555 timer IC which acted as a metronome for blinking an LED based on the dynamic value of a potentiometer.

After an amazing and formative six years in Seattle a new opportunity has arisen that will bring me to the great city of Cambridge, Massachusetts. On September 1st I will begin working as an assistant research and graduate candidate at the MIT Media Lab, studying under Dr.Hiroshi Ishii & the Tangible Media Group.

New Directions:

For at least the last two years I’ve known my interests were shifting from the design of ‘how things look’ to the design of ‘how things work’. I have been experiencing an increasing interest in the relationship shared between our digital and physical worlds. Heavy exposure to the concepts of interaction & experience design at Hornall Anderson set the course for my curiosity to grow from a small flicker to full flame; I attest it to the years of designing for people interacting with computers, spaces, and other people – something we refer to as experience design.

Today, my focus rests in human-computer interaction and its surrounding fields. As a result, I will spend at least the next two years exploring the intersection of physical atoms and digital bits, aiming to bridge their relationship in new & exciting ways.

Finally:

I’ll be keeping ThoughtSpoken updated with my research (where permissible), as well as life at MIT & The Media Lab.

MIT Media Lab

Tangible Media Group

(Photos: (left) Andy Ryan, from MIT News, (right) from the Tangible Media Group)

What happens when you give 40 people flashcards of mixed sensors, actuators and display technologies and ask them to provide insights on how to improve a randomly selected public space? A lot, actually.

Today during a scheduled 30-minutes work session, I presented my team with this exact challenge. Groups of 4 were given a stack of flash cards containing roughly 15 objects ranging from thermal sensors to analog dials, and asked to come up with ways to enhance community spaces such as hospitals and parks with selected technologies. As a result, many methods and insights were discovered. Here are just a few:

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Public Park
Interactive Display, Mobile Application, Acoustic Sensors

Private Spot: A digital park community board & mobile application that allows you to see park activity through a wireless network monitoring acoustic sensors. Find a lowly populated area to have your picnic.

Airport Terminal
RFID & Receivers, Vibration Actuator, Mobile/Handheld Application

Enhanced way finding for impaired travelers through haptic networks & audio cues. Travelers would use a hand held device fitted with RFID that assists them in locating their destination through vibration feedback (hide/seek, hot/cold) as well as auditory cues through headphones.

Grocery Store
Web Camera, Pressure/Weight Sensor, RFID & Receiver, LCD display

Smart cart: A non standard shopping cart fitted with a number of sensors, and input modalities, that offers shoppers deep insights into the quality of foods and dietary balance placed within their cart, displayed on an LCD screen at the cart’s handlebars.

Public Library
Programmable LED lighting, Acoustic Sensors

Enhancing the space by installing LED wall lighting that passively reflects the levels of ambient noise. As the libray halls become louder, walls begin to glow red, kindly instructing the patrons to lower their volume.

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We will be hosting another session towards the latter part of next week, I’ll update with more insights as they’re discovered.

A few weekends back, a group of us took a weekend trip down to portland. Nate Young put together this (cheesy, in his words – awesome in mine) video of all of us at work relaxing. Happy birthday, Joseph King. 30 is the new 20.