Physical Computing & Wearable Tech - Week 4 (tri 2)
- Julia Toczyska
- Apr 9, 2024
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 23, 2024
Today, we started off talking about drawing machines - pros and cons? satisfying to watch, however, how would artists feel about it? what's the actual purpose?
I believe drawing machines face the same issues AI image generation does, after all it serves exactly the same purpose, only difference being - one is digital and the other is physical. AI image generation is a tricky debate. It provides efficiency and inspiration but also jeopardizes the uniqueness of handmade art. However, I believe there's beauty in both and while AI art can be considered quite controversial at the moment, I believe drawing machines have much more potential than AI. After all, isn't it satisfying to watching a machine draw for hours?
Robotic chair
The Robotic Chair was created by Max Dean, Raffaello D'Andrea, and Matt Donovan. It features a seemingly ordinary chair with robotic mechanisms that enable it to self destruct and reconstruct. I found this project highly interesting, but also highly... dreadful. I think the idea of a piece of technology being capable of rebuilding itself to this extent is fantastic. However, the process of repair is incredibly slow and impractical. As one of my friends said its "good for people with mobility issues - NOT for people with patience issues". Despite that, the robotic chair made me consider if my final project should feature a similar self repair function.
Furby Organ
The Furby Organ doesn't link to my project as much but I found the concept fascinating, I mean it sounds terrifying and I love it. It features a whole army of Furbies, nostalgic interactive toys from the late 90s, connected to an Organ. I think this is a brilliant idea of essentially giving a dead piece of tech a whole new, slightly disturbing, life!
Physical Computing, Example I found interesting
The example I chose to talk about is the Teddy Ruxpin Rebuild by Erin St Blaine. The project is meant to create a personalised animatronic plushie. I found this to be an excellent idea, not only because of its creativity, but also because this is something I can use to create a prototype for my cuddle therapist project!
The process is actually not that hard at all but definitely won't be as easy for a beginner like me. All that is necessary is a micro USB cable that will be used to connect the bear into any computer to create audio files. Once connected, a drive should appear called NO_NAME. On that drive there should be a folder called Books, and in that folder there are all the story files, in .bin format. intro.bin is the file that plays when Teddy starts up, and in theory can be replaced with anything you want. I imagine I could replace it to something along the lines of "hello, I am your cuddle therapist buddy" - still working on the script.. There are 10 story files, but stories 4-10 are "locked" due to a paywall. The company has long since gone out of business, so there isn't any way to unlock them anymore. But the first three are easily accessible. Each story is about 20 minutes long, I don't think I would need more than that anyway, especially for the prototype.
The tutorial goes through additional details, such as creating mouth movements, but that is not as relevant to my project. Overall, this is something I could definitively try. Even if it doesn't work out for my project, I still think it would be awesome to own a fully customised animatronic plush!
Comments