Tangible User Interface

1 week | Sep 2020 | Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design

Role: Ideation, Programming, Physical Prototyping

Tool: Arduino, P5.js, Adobe Illustrator, Rhinoceros

Team: Julian Jimsa, Richard Wecker

Project details: Design for meaningfullness, focusing on a sense of purpose and fulfilment in the long term. 

Advisor: Vanessa Carpenter, Olivia Prior, Omid Ettehadi, Nikolaj Møbius

Costa Rica is a Central American country with a strong family tradition. In-person reunions between immediate and extended family and friends are commonplace. Virtual engagement is also a fundamental part of their weekly social interaction using social media and messaging applications to share stories, articles, and conversations. As a fast developing country with a growing culture for use of technological platforms, some family traditions are changing in order to encompass a more modern and city-centered lifestyle. Due to this, family stories that are told in an oral way, may be neglected and disappear with time. 
What if the reunion of modern Costa Rican families was marked by a ritual of oral storytelling?

Listening to the story

A receiver on the wall

Recording a story with a recorder

1. Receive a new story (light)

2. Listen to a story (light & audio)

3. Record a story and send (haptic & light)

Receiver

A light pattern signals the arrival of a new story. A person can push in the center of the device to hear the recorded memory, which will be deleted after it is played. The decision of letting the story fade away or preserving it by re-recording it into their own transmitter and re-sharing it, relies entirely on the family member.  

Recorder

Recorder is meant to be kept at home for use whenever a family member wants to share a story. They can record them and it will be uploaded to a cloud repository. Once a story arrives to the repository, it will be redirected to a receiver device in one of the family member’s houses.

Slow, traditional, and emotional enhancing purposeful communication

where users need to actively participate, creating meaningfulness and connection by the action itself. We believe that by allowing families to keep their stories circulating and alive, they are creating an inheritance for their future generations. In today’s society, our relationship with technology is based on immediacy. We expect both fast responses from our technology and technology expects fast responses from us. This has also come to play in the way we communicate with loved ones since the majority of our communication platforms are based on those same fast feedback loops.

Hanging a receiver on the wall

Putting components inside the device

Building circuit board using Arduino Uno

Building a receiver 

Testing the light pattern

Programming using P5.js and Arduino

Different patterns and sizes for testing

Programming different light patterns