Tobias Toft

The deadline for applications for the CIID Interaction Design Programme is May 3rd! I can only recommend doing this, if you’re interested in interaction design. Here’s the official announcement:

Dear All -

To find out more about the application process and requirements please refer to the website: http://ciid.dk/education/admissions/ – there is a list of FAQs but if you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

You can view documentation of the course and student projects here: http://ciid.dk/education/portfolio/.

mobile: +45 2090 5005
email: a.rose@ciid.dk
CIID web: www.ciid.dk
Interaction Design Programme web: www.ciid.dkds.dk

This might be old news to you, but I still wanted to mention that if you’re just remotely interested in dirty blues rock and bands like The White Stripes and The Raconteurs you should definitely check out The Dead Weather.

It’s a supergroup consisting of:

Jack White (The White Stripes, The Raconteurs)
Alison Mossheart (The Kills)
Jack Lawrence (The Raconteurs)
Dean Fertita (Queens of the Stone Age)

Their first album “Horehound” was released on July 13 here in Europe. This video is from the song “Treat Me Like Your Mother”.

My obsession with whitespace and Swiss and German typefaces (in this case Akzidenz-Grotesk) resulted in this minor redesign of my blog. Let’s see how long it’ll last.

Simona (the head of our programme at CIID/DKDS) gave everybody a small cactus, that she thought suited our personality. She gave me this one:

It kind of looks like a brain – but a very small one. Not really sure what that means

I’ve wanted to write this post for about 6 months now. And now I’m finally doing it! Hooray!

One of the first quick foundations courses we had was with Massimo Banzi and Gwendolyn Floyd, where we explored and played with physical computing. First week we played with the basics of Arduino and serial communication. That’s where I built a couple of small (and stupid, but cute) robots with Jason. Second week I worked with Eilidh and Ashwin on a self-chosen concept within the realm of physical computing and networked objects. We decided that we wanted to design for “Guerilla free-time”, in other words the project was a comment on how technology that is supposed to give us more free-time, actually ends up stealing our time, because everything becomes more and more efficient.

We set our context in busy office environments where people often isolate themselves in their cubicles, staring at the screen all day. The only times they take breaks is when they walk to and from the coffee machine or when they have lunch. We knew that we probably couldn’t convince people to take extra breaks, so we decided to tap into the existing “break-facilitator” of the workplace: the coffee machine. Getting a cup of coffee usually takes less than a minute, and then you’re back at your desk. We wanted to extend that time to a little more than a minute.

We decided to make a coffee machine that requires you to take a break, to get your coffee. We did it by hacking a coffee machine and a rocking chair, so that when you sat down in the rocking chair and started rocking, the coffee machine would start brewing you a nice cup of coffee. In addition to that, you would get a relaxing Gilbert O’Sullivan tune playing – and working as an indicator for when your coffee is ready. If you stop rocking or leave the chair, the chair will warn you by fading out the music. If you still aren’t rocking, the coffee machine turns off.

We did that by making a special plugboard, that could be controlled wirelessly (Arduino and Xbee) that the coffee machine was plugged into. Under the chair we put another Xbee equipped Arduino with an accelerometer, hooked it up with a hacked El-Cheapo mp3-player and a small Nokia speaker.

Fantastic video explaining the reason behind this blogpost.

Sorry. I know it’s been incredibly long time since I’ve updated this blog. To remind myself of doing it, I’m publishing this post of things to come:

Posts I need to write:

• One about the “Rock is the new swivel” project we did in Massimo Banzi’s electronics class
• A post about the Tangible User Interfaces-project “IntelliTrack” that I did with Erlend.
• Something about the industry project I did with Intel on smart grid water supplies.
• The service design project about COPD patients, that I just finished before easter.
• Reflections on what Interaction Design is and how to explain it to people.
• A post where I rant about the expensive tickets and disappointing line-up at this year’s Roskilde Festival.

…and, I think that’s it for now. I wish I had a nice picture to put here.