Favorite Things

Today is the studio we bought our favorite physical objects, which pretty much means nothing electronic.  So I brought in my favorite cup.  There is nothing really special about the design of the cup its self but as it was one of the last gifts my grandfather gave to me before he passed away it holds great value to me personally.  Also while in studio today I talked to my tutor about the design of my object (really need to give this a name, calling it an object is annoying me).  I decided to change the design from that of a loop of paper to a string of paper (see the picture below).  This is because the loop was quite hard to make and I felt that the string was a better shape for fidgeting with.  Also with the string of paper I can use bookbinding tools to make the object.

 After some tries at tying the paper together I found that the string I was using was not strong enough to bind the paper tightly.  This meant that the paper kept moving to much and did not give a satisfactory flick to it.  I will go and get some different string this week before the next studio and talk to my tutor about this.

Project 1: First Hand in (stroyboard)

Project 1: First Hand in (text)

My idea for the first project is to make an object that changes over time as you interact with it, and the changes look different depending on how you interact with it.  I plan to make multiple copies of the object and give them to different people to fidget with during their normal daily routine, such as at work and uni.  After a period of time I will collect them back and ask each user what they thought of the experience.  From this I will most likely redesign the object based on feed back and ten repeat the test handing in the used objects along with an unused one for the final hand in.

What I want the users to get out of this experience is an object which is distinctly theirs, some thing which changed because of the way they fidgeted with it and became their own.

Testing

On Fridays studio we took in our prototypes for testing.  Although I wanted to test my texture that changes over time prototype I was unable to due to not being able to produce a successful prototype before the studio.  Instead I bought in a prototype for  paper the realizes its smell when cooked.  I was told that a few people around the class were talking about doing that as well so I decide to focus on my other idea.  We talked about way to make it work, such as using different paper and binding methods so that the object gets the right feel to it in the beginning that would make you want to play with it.  I also discovered later that the reason that my previous prototypes were unsuccessful, was due to the fact that the paper near the center of the circle was not ridged enough so instead of flick back like I wanted it to it would just found over and stay their.

Presentation of Ideas

In todays studio we presented our three best ideas to the group.  The ideas I presented were an object that changed it's texture the more you used it and depending on how you used it, it got different textures,  an object that looks completely different to how it actually feels and something to do with the way texture affects taste.  Of these ideas the first idea and last idea were deemed the strongest.  I want to pursue the first idea personally and have started to make mock ups.  Another idea which a group of us came up with is making paper smell like food when it is cooked in a pan.  I am going to give this a go if I get time before the next studio where we are testing our prototypes with the group.

Interactive Objects

Today in studio we had a look at objects with interesting interactions.  Almost everyone brought at least one object where the interaction with it was fidgeting.  Noticing this I think I want to try and add this component of fidgeting to my design, as it seems to be something everyone does.

The Five Senses

Today in the first studio for DSDN112  we were asked to each bring one object which was interesting to each of the five senses.  The things I found really interesting from this were the objects that had interesting textures and objects which had history to the owner of the object.  I think I will explore how textures can affect the other senses or how textures change depending on how you interact with them.

After this we filled out a morphological box on the five senses and the different interactions that we have with them.  Mine is incomplete because I could not think of or find any examples of illusions for touch, smell and taste that did not have to do with taking drugs that cause hallucinations.