tl;dr; Brief: Reflecting on the topics, readings, and projects introduced by this course, work collaboratively to rebuild and reinterpret a seminal IoT product, prototype, or concept for social connection

Introduction to the final project

Over the past couple of weeks, you’ve been introduced to the world of connected systems and the Internet of Things.

We’ve explored in-situ sensing and using data from the Internet to create ‘enchanted objects’. We’ve looked at how these objects can enhance not just daily routines but human-to-human connections. We’ve seen how ambient information can make data present in physical spaces and give subtle cues to action or nudges towards behavior change. You’ve been introduced to design methods for IoT applications and network centered design. We’ve also looked at the challenges and considerations in realizing internet appliances with multiple interacting stakeholders, needs and within complex service maps.

In addition, you’ve learned a set of skills to explore, understand and contextualize the past, present and future of the field. You’ve uncovered and examined influential examples in Week 1’s discovery and through our readings. You’ve deconstructed and decomposed these precedents to consider how they have been built and how you might remake them. Through the skills devs you’ve remade and re-interpreted devices like smart light bulbs, the Ambient Orb, Paper Signals, and a series of paired devices. This leads us nicely to the final project…

The final collaborative project will be an opportunity for you to put these skills into practice by rebuilding and reinterpreting a seminal IoT product or prototype.

For the final two weeks, small teams (2-3) will work together to:

• Identify an influential internet appliance;
• study and understand how it was developed and adapt it to the Particle platform;
• rebuild and reconstruct that device (or some aspect of it) as a working prototype;
• speculate on how it could be creatively reimagined to new internet-connected experience

Context: Remaking Things.

Within this project, we’ll use a framework from some recent research that examined how to past works, historical examples, and influential (but perhaps overlooked) interactions can be a resource for inspiring new design experiences.

To give you some context, a summary of this research and this approach is below. After this, a short overview of how we’ll approach the project is outlined.

Primary Precedent: “Slurp” Revisited

Within our recent work, we revisited an influential example for locative media: Slurp. Zigelbaum, Kumpf, Vazquez, and Ishii’s 2008 project ‘Slurp’ is a physical eyedropper to interact with digital content from IoT devices. It was introduced as a new interactive approach for locative media - or the process of associating digital content with a physical, embodied artifact located in space. The device could be pointed at augmented objects in space (e.g. a screen, a sensor, etc.) By slurping out the content from one of these devices, it could then be transferred to another object in the space. For example, you could slurp a file from one computer to quickly move it to another.

Within our work, we represenced (a fancy word for rebuilt) Slurp through a five stage process.

• Represencing: We revive the historical approach using present toolkits and approaches. We focus on a restoration of the experience of interaction; but are not necessarily concerned with an exact replica of the original technology. Note: In this case, we analyzed and adapted Slurp to work within commercially available toolkits for augmented reality. In your case, you’ll use the Particle platform.

• Experimentation: This phase recognizes that computational capabilities have changed since the original. We consider what might be possible in light of new features and functionality.

• Scenarios: An interactive scenario is prepared so that the restored project can be experienced broadly. This is an opportunity for conversation with other designers and what future possibilities there might be.

• Expansion and Reflection: As part of workshops with designers, we showed them the restored system and interactive scenario we developed. We invited the designers expand on our scenarios (see image below). At the end of the workshop, the designers reflect on current interactive approaches and alternatives that might exist.

For more see:

Shengzhi Wu, Daragh Byrne, Ruofei Du, and Molly Wright Steenson. 2022. “Slurp” Revisited: Using ‘system re-presencing’ to look back on, encounter, and design with the history of spatial interactivity and locative media. In Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ‘22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 263–276. https://doi.org/10.1145/3532106.3533464

Secondary Precedent: The Undertable

Tables are a ubiquitous piece of furniture, a familiar sight in most environments from intimate to public. The dimensions of social interplay surrounding every single table are profoundly complex. In our project, we lift the importance of the neglected space under the table through the playful development of a tangible prototype. We approached this by a design remake of the Mediated Body: a wearable prototype encouraging touch between strangers using the conductivity of the skin. Instead, we leverage the familiarity of tables as a means to encourage playful explorations of bare-skin touch. We report in visual and textual form on the emerging design knowledge throughout our design process, including first-person narratives by the designers. We contribute with (1) a series of counterfactual table artifacts inspired by the Mediated Body; (2) a sequence of participant studies analysed through reflexive thematic analysis and summarised into the notion of “an odd invitation” as a new lens for homo explorens; and (3) an appeal to the importance of design remakes for research-through-design.

This paper explores design remakes. In defining design remakes, they draw from how ‘Bergsmark and Fernaeus’ describe interaction design remake as the method where an existing tangible system and its core design values [are] used to create a new variation with available technology exactly one decade later”’. They describe a design remake as having “[t]he ambition .. to use the original study as a starting point, aiming to preserve most of the ’core narrative’ and ’interactive gestalt’ of the original work, while allowing modifcations to the design.”

For us, this approach suggests some important ways of working with prior work and the opportunities for designers in reverently exploring past work and underscores “the importance of building on each other’s work”

For more see:

Sjoerd Hendriks, Mafalda Gamboa, and Mohammad Obaid. 2024. The Undertable: A Design Remake of the Mediated Body. In Proceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ‘24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 2591–2610. https://doi.org/10.1145/3643834.3660698

Learning Objectives

As part of this assignment you’ll be asked to:

• As part of this assignment you’ll be asked to:
• Be able to critically reflect on the past and present of connected products
• Be able to identify, analyze and explain the implementation and design of one relevant, influential connected device in detail.
• Be able to generate a proposal and plan the implementation of an internet-connected network-centered device..
• Develop your working knowledge of circuits, code and cloud interactions by adapting an existing design to the Particle Platform.
• Be able to design and make interactive objects that integrate sensing, actuation, software and networking
• Be able to integrate considerations across design and computation to prepare connected products
• Work collaboratively to explore and develop a well realized working prototype with the Particle platform.
• Be able to generate a conceptual design for and speculate upon future directions and opportunities of this prototype.
• Be able to articulate the future possibilities and potential directions for the field

Project Brief

The final project asks you to revisit and revive (some aspect of) an influential IoT product, prototype or concept for social experiences. You’ll realize a working (experience) prototype, share that with some other people, and generate conceptual designs for new possible interactions based on your chosen historical case. You’ll do this over 3 weeks. 

Small teams (2-3) will work together to:

• Identify an influential internet appliance;
• study and understand how it was developed and adapt it to the Particle platform;
• rebuild and reconstruct that device (or some aspect of it) as a working prototype;
• speculate on how it could be creatively reimagined to new internet-connected experience

To get there, we’ll organize as follows:

Phase I: Remake: Study and understand the core elements of your assigned IoT device by rebuilding an aspect of it

1. Week 1: We’ll form teams, investigate the precedent you’ve been assigned and develop a plan to remake it.

2. Week 2: We’ll review preliminary proposals for the remake. We’ll learn how to network devices and work with more advanced components.

Phase II: Reintrepret: Adapt the idea and put a new spin on it.

1. Week 3: We’ll reflect on the remade projects and develop a proposal a create interpretation of it . You’ll learn about opportunities for advanced interaction with Particle devices, components, etc. You’ll co-design some expanded scenarios with others.

2. Week 4: Additional office hours will help support remote collaboration and the final show case will present outcomes to guests for review and commentary.

At the end of this sequence, each team will deliver:

• working demonstration of their idea (a prototype) for both phases.
• A series of Conceptual Design(s) - low-fidelity sketches to high-fidelity designs, (e.g a concept video) that expands the revisited device into new opportunity spaces.
• Digital Documentation of the work and outcomes, to include a functional workflow diagram, circuit diagrams, bill of materials etc.
• a presentation and demonstration.

This brief gives you latitude to self-define a final reintrepretation that is meaningful and interesting to you. You get to pick the scope, approach, and outcome. You are strongly recommended build on the topics introduced by the course through readings, provided examples and skills development exercises: namely designing ambient information, physicalizing and communicating data through tangible interfaces, making bespoke devices through co-design, and designing paired devices for tangible and remote communications. Carefully review the additional precedents below for examples of the kinds of objects you are expected to produce.

Note: Outcomes of the final project will be presented and demonstrated to invited guests in lieu of a final exam.

Collaboration and Organization

This creative assignment is to be completed collaboratively.

You’ll work in teams of 2. Within each group, it’s recommended that you organize into the following roles:

Organization, roles and the distribution of effort throughout the process should be noted in outcome documentation.

Process and Sequence of Activities

Over the three weeks of this final project you will work as follows:

1. Team formation: Form a team comprised of 2 (maybe 3) students and define the roles and responsibilities for each student involved.

2. Remakng Proposal: As part of developing your concept, each team will start by

• Identifying and Analysing a Precedent: What is the historical case you’re working with? Why was it made? who is this for? how is it intended to be used? what contexts is it in? etc? Why does it (or hope to) make lives a little different? Include images and videos as needed.  
• Elaborating and Reflecting on Available Resources: What are the sources of information you have about this thing? What do you know you know and what does it tell you about how this thing works or why it was made? What do you know you don’t know i.e. what do you need to know more about and where will you find that information?
• Preparing a Workflow Diagram: What is the workflow and operation of this thing? What do you think the system is built upon? How do you believe creates the interactions it offers?
• Preparing a Bill of Materials: If you took it apart, what do you think is inside? What components from your kit do you think are in there and/or which are analogous? [AOK if this is preliminary and initial - this will be a space for conversation about getting the right components to you.]
• Reflects on Working with AI Copilots: What strategies has been helpful? What has not worked? What will you try next? Give examples
• Conducting a Pre-Mortum: What’s going to go wrong? Why? What can you pre-empt being difficult? What does this tell you about how you should work? How do you limit your scope to be successful? What aspects of this are essential and what are you going to focus on?

1. Remade Experience Prototype: Build on the ‘templates’ provided as part of our Skills Devs to rebuild a preliminary version of your assigned device. Consider how the networked interactions between the device and data/services/other devices will take place. Remember the focus is on demonstrating experience, and not on developing a fully functional, or technically perfect implementations.

2. Reintrepretation Proposal: As part of expanding your concept, each team will:

• Debrief on the remake: How did you approach the remake? How did you implement the remake? What did you learn from remaking the precedent?
• Explore Reinterpretations: How are you planning to adapt the precedent? What changes will you make and why? What will it do similarly and differently?
• Develop an Implementation Plan: How will you implement the reinterpreted precedent that includes a workflow diagram and bill of materials.
• Reflects on Working with AI Copilots: What strategies has been helpful? What has not worked? What will you try next? Give examples
• Conducts a Pre-Mortum: What’s going to go wrong? Why? What can you pre-empt being difficult? What does this tell you about how you should work? How do you limit your scope to be successful? What aspects of this are essential and what are you going to focus on?

1. Expansion and Conceptual Design: Using the experience prototype and analysis of the case, develop a series of conceptual designs and possible ways to expand the interactive experience in new and interesting ways. The method of developing the conceptual designs is at the discretion of each teams. For example, you could recruit one or more people from beyond the class to show and demonstrate your revived design and have them help you speculate on new possibilities; you could develop it within the team and leverage your own insights of the restored device, it’s operation and your knowledge of the contemporary possibilities for internet-connected experiences, or you could leverage the class cohort or the final feedback session to generate possibilites within our learning community. The final documentation should include descriptions, illustrations and rationales for each new conceptual design that’s prepared.

2. Optional Extra Credit: Use the final week to get additional feedback on your prototype, and to dry run your presentation and demonstration

3. Demonstration: In lieu of a final exam, you will present your experience prototype to a group of invited guests. This will include a demonstration of your final experience prototype and a 2-3 minute pitch that discusses the value created, the target community, design proposal, and principles for responsible design incorporated.

4. Documentation: See below.

Constraints and considerations

1. At least one device must be prototyped and working i.e. you can demo something
2. The device must be based on an existing and influential project assigned to you in class.
3. The device must have a relationship to the internet; it must be networked to something e.g the interaction relies the device sending/relaying information to the internet, consuming data from the internet, and/or interacting with another internet-connected object/device.
4. No high fidelity communications may be used (video, photo, audio transmission). This is not what the Particle is designed for, is a pain and will cause a lot of headaches.
5. You should prepare a form (i.e. an enclosure) for your device.
6. You are not required to create a fully implemented product/prototype, but should have a working experience prototype i.e. something that can be used demonstration an aspect of the experience or interaction.

Note: The goal is not to completely rebuild a fully functional devices. Instead, teams should focus on an aspect of the core functionality or an experience prototype. An experience prototype means that you can demonstrate some aspect of intended functionality of the device you propose, but it does not all have to be implemented. In addition, there should be some consideration of the aesthetics and form of the device. You do not have to build a high fidelity form for the object; you are encouraged to hack/repuropse an analog object (if appliable) or create a low-fi enclosure (cardboard, foamcore), to illustrate the outcome.

Deliverables

Outcomes should be reasonably well developed and documentation should be submitted to the Gallery on or before the deadline.

Deliverables should include

• A detailed description of the chosen case that includes its significance, rationale for its selection, its functionality, values and experience. This should include supporting illustrations and videos (if available).
• Planning documents that translate what’s known about the original precedent into a proposed implementation on the Particle platform that includes: an interaction workflow diagram, a bill of materials, a network diagram, and learning resources.
• A working experience prototype that includes software (code), hardware and electronics elements.
• One or more conceptual designs incl. storyboards, sketches, renderings, etc. that illustrate a creative turn and expansion over the original project.
• Documentation of the project (contributed to the Gallery).
• A presentation and demonstration of the completed project.

Grading

Grading standards are as per the outlined guide in the deliverable and grading section.

Reuse and Using Online Material

This isn’t a race to the finish. This is a collaborative exploration. Feel free to Share, reuse, revisit past projects as needed. You are welcome to use the code, ideas, outcomes from any previous project even if it is not your own; but you must acknowledge it.

It is perfectly fine to use examples, code, tutorials, and things you find on the web to help you realize your project. That’s part of the open-source mentality that surrounds much of Making, Arduino and microcontrollers. However, you cannot just copy and paste these solutions. In your documentation you must acknowledge where you got this content from. Include a link to any tutorials, guides, or code that are part of your final solution.

Outcome and Process Documentation

Outcome documentation should be added to the Gallery . You should provide a clear and concise description of your project, your process, and the outcomes. It should be quick to get an overview of the project. Ideally, your description of the outcomes should be repeatable too i.e. anyone in the class can replicate it easily from the information provided.

Your project documentation should:

• ARTICULATE AN INTENT: Clearly explain and provide a succinct overview of the exploration space. How is this project positioned and how does it address the exploration space / driving intent,

• BE REPEATABLE: Make sure you describe the final implementation sufficiently to allow anyone else to repeat or extend the outcome. A bill of materials (sensors, input devices, actuators, and other components) should be provided. Documentation should also include code, circuit and network diagrams, photos, design files, 3d models, video demonstrations, etc. as required. This should be accompanied with a short narrative that explains the workings and operations.

• DOCUMENT PROCESS: At what key moments (iterations, refinements, challenges encountered) in the design and development process did insight emerge? How did those insights inform the outcome you arrived at? Avoid a step-by-step exploration and instead offer a few reflections on what you discovered through the process of making and materializing your device.

• CRITICALLY ASSESS AND SPECULATE: Reflect and leave advice to others. Ask what has been the value of looking back at overlooked, forgotten, or older works to inspire new design directions today? Ask what you learned, what went wrong, and how your expectations of the outcome chaged in the process of going through this assignment. Distill down your insights into clear, concrete, and brief reflections.

Specifically your documentation should include the following sections with at least 150-200 words per section:

• INTENTION: A statement on the design of the product, intentions and decisions you’ve made. Clearly explain and provide a succinct overview of the exploration space and how the proposed prototype develops a solution, and/or a critical examination of it.

• HISTORICAL CASE: Provide an analysis of the case. References to concepts, theory and methods introduced in class should also be made. These should be well-cited and illustrated.

• REMAKING to include:

  • Approach: A description of the approach you’ve taken to rebuilding the device (i.e. what aspects have you chosen to revive and why) and a rationale for this approach.
  • Process: Briefly describe the design process (iterations, refinements, challenges encountered) of rebuilding your device. What design decisions did you make and why. You should document each milestone and expand on design decisions, changes, and lessons learned from the restoration.
  • Prototype: Deliver a functional mock up of the device(s) prototyped using Particle. Document the outcome itself (code, circuit diagrams, photos, design files, 3d models, video demonstrations, etc. as required) and provide a short narrative. This should include: a workflow diagram and a bill of materials (sensors, input devices, actuators, and other components). This documentation should be sufficiently rich to allow anyone to repeat / recreate it. This must include a well formatted bill of materials, a workflow diagram of the interaction/operation, a circuit diagram, a photo of your rebuild, and relevant code samples.
  • Video: Create a short (1-2 minute) video illustrating the restored device. This should illustrate what aspects of it are working and how someone would interact with it.
  • Reflection: Describe what you learned about the original precedent by remaking it. Overview the opportunities for reinterpertation you uncovered through restoring the device.

• REINTERPRETING to include:

  • Approach: A description of the approach you’ve taken to reinterpeting the device and a rationale for this approach.
  • Process: Briefly describe the design process (iterations, refinements, challenges encountered) of reinterpreting your device. What design decisions did you make and why. You should document each milestone and expand on design decisions, changes, and lessons learned from the restoration.
  • Conceptual Design(s): Build on your design and imagine new possible interactions and scenarios of interaction for today’s computing based on what you’ve learned from rebuilding your design. For each conceptual design, provide a high level design overview that considers and describes: what context it operates in ; what it does and how it behaves; how someone would or could interact with it; and how these interactions unfold. Pay particular detail to how each proposal builds on the original precedent work in a meaningful way. Detail your design proposal(s) with a series of illustrations.
  • Prototype: Deliver a functional mock up of the device(s) prototyped using Particle. Document the outcome itself (code, circuit diagrams, photos, design files, 3d models, video demonstrations, etc. as required) and provide a short narrative. This should include: a workflow diagram and a bill of materials (sensors, input devices, actuators, and other components). This documentation should be sufficiently rich to allow anyone to repeat / recreate it. This must include a well formatted bill of materials, a workflow diagram of the interaction/operation, a circuit diagram, a photo and/or video of your rebuild, and relevant code samples.
  • Video: Create a short (1-2 minute) video illustrating the reinterpreted device. This should illustrate what aspects of it are working and how someone would interact with it.

• WORKING WITH AI COPILOTS: Share vignettes of how you worked with AI. Offer 3-4 well documented example prompts and logs of interactions (as text or screenshots) and approaches along with a short description of how you approached working with AI. Overview what was valueable about working with an AI for creative electronics. Describe what didn’t work or was challenging.

• REFLECTION AND CRITIQUE: In particular, ask how has your understanding of this precedent work changed based on the act of restoring and reviving it. Reflect on if your understanding of the value of this project is different. Unpack what did and didn’t work, what you learned, and what you would do differently if you could go back. Finally, ask what has been the value of looking back at overlooked, forgotten, or older works to inspire new design directions today?

• Acknowledgements: Provide credits to any sources of code, images, etc. that you have used directly within this project.

• References: Provide a list of academic papers, articles, videos, etc that you make reference to in your documentation.

Each section should be 300 words max. and well illustrated (images, videos, etc.). For the Project’s summary description: it must be tweetable - summarise your outcome in no more than 140 characters

Precedents and Sources of Inspiration

What you choose is entirely up to your group and you could for example:

• Choose a research prototype or example from scholarship like Slurp.
• Choose a consumer products like the Ambient Orb or Ambient Umbrella
• Choose a design proposal like the Durrell Bishop’s Marble Answering Machine
• Choose a project that restoration would benefit others like Berg’s delightful Little Printer which offline for years until Nord Projects revived it.

Below are a series of reference projects to consider. Additional precedents may be found in the following catalogs:

• Ambient Devices - a partial inventory of ambient projects.
• Remote Communication - a partial inventory of devices that support digital gestures and social connectedness.

Other Resources:

• You can also take a look at the MoMa’ Talk to Me exhibit for lots of inspiration

• YoYo Machines has a ‘An Incomplete History of Peripheral and Emotional Awareness Research’

• Elisa Giaccardi. 2015. Designing the connected everyday. interactions 22, 1 (January 2015), 26-31.

“…we live in a world of increased complexity, in which digital data, everyday objects, and social practices are increasingly connected and interdependent. In a world of increasing complexity, designing digital technologies that facilitate meaningful interactions and integrate elegantly in our everyday lives requires an understanding of how to design for commensurability—that is, making our ability to connect across networks commensurate with our current practices in the physical world. Designing the connected everyday is fundamentally about making things commensurate as much as it is about making them smart.”

• https://github.com/betteriot/betteriot-principles

This is a set of principles that we think a vendor — a connected product manufacturer, team or founder — would use to make a good, secure, ethical, product that also takes into account the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). But also to push beyond the GDPR and look at the entire life cycle of a smart device. From manufacture, to final disposal.

• The Future Of Tangible Interfaces: 5 Insights Backed By Science, Fast Co.

• Data Phys maintains an amazing list of these “physical counterparts of data visualization” - from the connected to analog