Tangible Displays of DataProblem: There is too often the feeling that when finding a form for the display of data, the result has to fall into the screen/intangible realm. While this is a totally adequate and appropriate answer most of the time, solutions that fall into the more physical and industrial design realm should also be considered. Through-out my stay at the University of Michigan, I’ve been comparing and exploring different methods of stepping from the world of screens into more of ‘the internet of things’.

Recent Existing Examples

Solution: There are many routes towards escaping the pure-ly screen driven realm of design and stepping into the physical world, regardless of a users abilities in regards to industrial design or programming. Arduino has allowed microcontrollers to be-come an easily alterable system, so that someone with the barest knowledge of circuitry and programming can start to prototype smart objects. While these are better moved into a more robust environment if thought of as commercial products, for the Infor-mation Science Designer they allow an easy step into dealing with sensors and electronics.

There are also many smart systems being designed by companies that are hackable and alterable. Displayed within this boards are a few such examples, including the HUE LED light-bulbs from Phil-lips, Red-Park cables which allow for an Arduino connection to iOS devices, and set iOS applications which allow for the begin-ning steps if attempting to connect to Arduino’s through wireless communication.

Michael Senkow is a Masters of Science in Information: Human Computer Interaction and Architecture Science Masters student at the University of Michigan. A sampling of his work is viewable at www.mhsenkow.orgTwitter: @senkowmLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/mhsenkow

Michael Senkow

“SPIMES” are manufactured objects who informational sup-port is so overwhelmingly extensive and rich that they are regarded as material instantiations of an immaterial sys-tem. SPIMES begin and end as data. They are designed on screens, fabricated by digital means, and precisely tracked through space and time throughout their earthly sojourn.

Shaping Things, Bruce Sterling

You can’t eat bits, burn them to stay warm or put them in your gas tank. Ideas and information are important, but things matter much more. Yet today’s in-formation technology is so dependent on data originated by people that our computers know more about ideas than things. If we had computers that knew everything there was to know about things—using data they gathered without any help from us—we would be able to track and count everything, and greatly reduce waste, loss and cost. We would know when things needed replacing, re-pairing or recalling, and whether they were fresh or past their best. The Internet of Things has the potential to change the world, just as the Internet did. Maybe even more so.

Kevin Ashton on ‘The Internet of Things’

Kickstarter Project to create a smart socket, to turn any dimmable bulb into a controlla-ble object. - www.sparkdevices.com

Spark Socket

Kickstarter Project for a smart lamp system, when you turn on the small base stations it alerts the home object, no matter where. - www.goodnightlamp.com

Good Night Lamp

Twine was an MIT project, to get the objects in your life talking to you remotely. It’s a temperature, vibration and orientation sen-sor that emails you when its environment changes. - www.supermechanical.com

Twine

Formerly Pachube, Cosm connects devices and apps, exchangeing data and ideas with developers, and bring smart products to the world. - www.cosm.com

Arch 506: Responsive SurfacesTaught within the School of Architecture, this course asks the question on how to connect your physical environment to smart systems. The two project I developed in this course connected with two concepts; using the growing number of smart devices we throw away within a second life as con-trol mechanisms AND experimenting with push-ing data into physical objects.

Project 1 - iPad as Room Control: This project dealt with controlling simple mechanisms through used iPod Touch or iPad controls. While the project created was more of a toy, an iPad controlled musical device, it was meant as a model for a more practical system, say a room controller.

Design ProcessComparison to Existing InstallationsEarly in the course there was specific research into existing projects that fell into the realm of pushing data devices into the architectural realm.

niklasroy - Responsive Window

TouchOSC Connection

Low Fidelity Display Conception

jimcampbell - Scattered LIght

Initial Testing with LED lighting

ExperimentationBefore settling on the wired connection between the iPad and Arduino, multiple experiments were performed, with different wireless and wired connections. The final project was taken on due to limitations with the schools wireless network.

Final Critiques and ContinuationThe final results of the course ended in more of the Architectural Critique form and part of the projects continued into other courses. The lighting studies moved into the examples I have on the next board, and the low fidelity prototype inspired work for SI:582 Interaction Design

Expansion Potential While the project was simply an arduino being controlled through an iPad, this con-cept could easily be exanded into housing controls, interfaces for other mechanical systems, or other physical systems that need an interface. A first gen iPod Touch can be found on eBay now for less than $30.00, displaying an entire realm of poten-tial interface options.

Expansion Potential All too often data ends up purely in the screen environment. This project shows a potentail stepping stone, moving information nodes into more physical objects. While lighting is only a small step away from a screen, it shows that you could de-velop a system that doesn’t fall back on the flat world quite as often.

Videos and Further discussion at http://portfolio.mhsenkow.org/responsivesurf.html

Project 2 - Sensors within Furniture The second project connected a more physical, ambient object with a data store. This project created a higher powered, incandescent lamp that detected a user nearby and set off a organic lighting display.

SI 601: Data Manipulation

Michael Senkow is a Masters of Science in Information: Human Computer Interaction and Architecture Science Masters student at the University of Michigan. A sampling of his work is viewable at www.mhsenkow.org

The core of the Data Manipulation course is look-ing into ways to stream data from sites and ap-plications. As a final project, I worked with Haley Vingsness, Vijay Swamy, and Nicholas Hung to produce a simply python concept that connects with Phillips HUE lightbulbs.

The Core concept was to think of a way to take weather data and push it into a physical object. HUE recently put out an API for control of the bulbs, but at the time this was more of a hack on the system.

Design FocusMultiple steps were taken to determine the final set of data that could be displayed. Weather.com was the first source, but Yahoo weather became our go to because of its more segmented set of weather options.

One of the biggest challenges was simply deter-mining patterns for the weather. A sample of some of the code prouduced is shown below.

Code for the Project is at https://github.com/mhsenkow/Hue-Weather

Video of the Project is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq6Tn0AiFn4

if display == “weather”: while description == “0”:#tornado l.bri(250) l.alert() for y in range(10): for dim in range(10): l.set_state({“bri”: 250-dim*20,”xy”: [0.1, y*0.1]}) time.sleep(0.01) l.alert() switch = switch*-1

while description == “1”:#tropical storm l.bri(250) l.alert() for y in range(10): for dim in range(10): l.set_state({“bri”: 250-dim*20,”xy”: [0.3, y*0.1]}) time.sleep(0.01) l.alert() switch = switch*-1

while description == “2”:#hurricane l.bri(250) l.alert() for y in range(10): for dim in range(10): l.set_state({“bri”: 250-dim*20,”xy”: [0.5, y*0.1]}) time.sleep(0.01) l.alert() switch = switch*-1

Solution Without a Problem: Part of the joy of this project is simply in its solu-tion for something that doesn’t have a direct need. Not all of the concepts created in the In-ternet of Things Realm really have a problem to begin with. They’re more of a solution to some-thing se didn’t even know we needed. By having this added bit of aesthetic though, you can start to see solutions to other problems that may not have been considered.