Two weeks ago the entire lab visited the final presentations from this years round of Physical Interaction Design and Realization. PIDR is a course held at KTH and is one of the main reasons to why we started this company. Therefore we like to stay updated on interesting projects designed and prototyped by the students in the course. A couple of weeks ago we also got the opportunity to show the Man Machine 2 exhibition to the students and give them our take on interdisciplinary processes and how to design robust productions for museums. We were overall very impressed with this years projects, however, three of them really caught our eye.

1. Klossen (“The block”)

The idea is to use this quite good looking and light shining block as a physical music sequencer. Each side acts as a button that triggers a kick, snare or any other sound. With the help of basic time quantization it´s quite easy to build a nice sounding loop. “Klossen” is built with 3x3x6 RGB LED´s & basic digital buttons on top of the SunSpot sensor platform which means that all the code is written in java and that the block is completely wireless. The push of the buttons are processed in a computer and translated to MIDI notes, this makes it possible to connect the block to various audio/music software like Live! or Logic. To clear the current loop, simply give the block a shake and the built in accelerometer will pick it up and let you start all over again. Push the buttons, flip the block, watch the beautiful RGB LED´s blink and nod your head!

Project by Joakim Bergman & Jesper Jalvemo

2. UFC 2400 - The electronic flute

This group wanted to create an electronic version of the recorder, and they did really well. With the use of LED´s and optical sensors they created the holes on top and with a wind sensor they simulated the blowing mechanism. MIDI was the protocol of choice for this group as well which gives it great flexibility. What was especially interesting about this project was that the design and construction of the actual flute was awesome. The group had the benefit of having one person from the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design working with them and it seemed to have payed off. We are looking forward to the next version!

Project by Tobias Ter Laag, Anton Hedblad, Jakob Li and more

3. LED Jacket

Ever since we started working with interaction design and physical computing we have been talking about creating the LED jacket. I guess they beat us to it, although i´m not sure we would have gone for the horse design.

Project by Marja Gustin, Jörgen and more