Solid Work

Here is 3D model I made in SolidWorks for my current project.

more info to follow as the deadline is Thursday and there is still work to be do.

hope you enjoy

Open Shop, Internet Week

Hello

Long time no speak…

I had the pleasure of visiting some digital design agencies that I wasn’t aware of before. I would like to thank Poke, Digit & Somethin’ Else for an afternoon of wonderful ideas and lovely projects. The agencies were very welcoming I even got a cup of tea at Poke.

First I went to Poke, at the Biscuit Building, they do a lot work online. They focused on their newest project, which is Balloonacy, for Orange. It is a race on across the internet, sounds crazy but it is brilliant. When people explain that is a race across the internet, people sort of look at you blankly and then screw their face up and say “What?”, I cant imagine what is was like for the designers explaining to people. But the execution is simple which make this project so lovely.

Secondly we went to Digit near Brick Lane. These guys do more stuff that I understood with processing (coding). They had some nice projects too, one that stood out was Bob the Lamp. Bob’s mood would be dictated by the RSS feed of the BBC website, the good news there was Bob would be upright and bright but when it was bad news Bob would be down and blue. I liked this as it made me smile and I think that is a big part of interaction design. It was simple and gave an object a personality, which I think is brilliant.

Lastly went to Somethin’ else design, I felt sorry for the person (Paul Bennun) showing us round because it was 6 o’clock and I bet he wanted to go home. He was a really nice bloke, he showed us round the building. They had an array of recording studios for live interactions, which seems pretty cool and they had a huge amount of editing suites. Paul also managed to show a few projects they were working on which involved a website called “Super Me” another cool idea to help teenagers be better at life by watching videos, playing games and other activities. Each time you play a game or watch a video your attributes goes up and you can share this on facebook. This a really lovely idea to get teenagers to realise they are not bad people but they are learning and might need a bit of help along the way.

All these agencies have much more going on than I have explained, I urge all of you to check them out.

Twitter, ahh how Tweet

I have become a member of twitter in order to present on the web, if your interested here is my call sign...

@Keir_Royale83

The Blog Suffers…

Hello there, you may of notice that the blog has been neglected over the past 2 months. This is because I have been working since leaving Uni, which hasn’t left me enough time to update this poor old blog.

Over the summer I hope to launch a website and continue working, so updates maybe few and far between.

Until I find something interesting to blog about.

adios

Experience Working

For 2 weeks in June I was on work experience at a interaction company called Random International. They are considered artist, but I think deep down they don’t like that title, I think they would rather be referred to as designers.

They produce awesome interactive pieces that mainly react to sound and movement. Hopefully I will be going back there for a bit over the summer.

Check them out at their website also they have video on vimeo

Welcome to The Machine

For the final project at uni we had to produce a machine that is started by human touch, then every action had to start another action. We had to have a physical element and a digital element as well.

The project was more about prototyping from the initial working models to the final object.

I decided to make my machine pretty big, it was a meter and half by a meter. It had 5 different actions, I would start the machine by ringing a mobile with a golf ball balance on the top of it. The ball would then run down some pipe to a box that was connected to a piece of wood that was holding up a hammer. When the ball goes into the box the string would pull the piece of away from the hammer and would cause a vibration on the shelf.

Another piece of wood falls from the shelf due to the vibrations with that a piece of acrylic, that is attached to the wood, falls from a pipe to release a ball that would run down the behind my laptop and start an animation that was of a ball falling into cups and would run off the other side of the screen that would release another ball that would fall onto an iPod to play a random song.

There would be a video of this process but due to unforeseen circumstances (and not having time to test the machine as a whole) but I do have images of the final machine. I decided to keep it the look of the machine very miminal with just a hint of colour from the 3 pieces of wood used. Also the boxes were made from acrylic to give a clean look.

Code Name: Public Toilets

We were given a brief of coming up with a design solution for a public toilet. Yes, PUBLIC TOILETS!!!!!!!!!!!! We were asked to research human behavior within a public toilet, how people use the space and facilities within a public toilet. We had to use video research, which I wasn’t most comfortable with, but we managed to get footage.

I took it upon myself to see what it would be like to use a Public toilet blindfolded. It was pretty horrible. I was touching everything and not knowing what you were touching and how dirty the space is can be quite disconcerting. I didn’t get to talk to any blind people, which was unfortunate, so I couldn’t get a view from a blind person on how they use a public toilet.

After doing that video I decided to design a navigation system for blind people to use in public toilets. I decided to design an app for an iphone. AN IPHONE FOR THE BLIND, I hear you cry. Well, I did a bit of research and found out that blind people own iphones and is recommended by the RNIB as suitable phone for the blind, due to the fact it has a speech functions as most Macs do.

The purpose of this application is guide the blind around a public toilet through photo recognition, using a camera on the iphone. The application will help the user to touch less surfaces in the public toilet, also it will locate and guide the user the available facilities. It will give the user warnings of hazards such as water or toilet tissues on the floor. The user will be warned by a bleeping sound so they can avoid the hazard or obstacles.

The features include:

Recognition of facilities in public toilet such as urinal, cubicle, hand dryer and paper towels

Guides you to nearest available facility

Warns the user of hazards and obstacles in public toilet

Tells the user how many people