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Critical making exercise

For the first assignment Sophie Mastenbroek, Lianne de Jeu, Bas van de Sande and I formed a team. We first started with a different set of cards and came up with the idea to create clickbaits physically. The irritating, unbelievable links that we sometimes still fall for. The idea was to place a large button, and a monitor at a busy place at school. When the button was pressed, the person would experience a shock. We thought we would do this by the same technique as the shock pen. After experimenting with one for some time, we came to the conclusion that this was not the right way. The form did not work with it as well . A mouse would which gives the shock by a battery would be better. Unfortunately, it would take a long time to realize this model and we did not think it was worth it. We still found the concept abrasive. Besides that, it was too easy and a bit naive. Another idea that emerged during the brainstorming session on basis of other cards was thrown back into the group and we went further with that. The cards we had used for this were; 'Use your mobile phone to create a short video of this thing in action', 'Highlight emotions that are not normally included in', 'Cellphones'. The outcome was a phone that likes to be touched. The sensual swipes on the screen would give pleasure to it. Here you will find the video and the blueprint over here.

From Devices to systems

Bas and I worked together for this assignment. After having done a round in a thrift store, we noticed two machines; a travel hair dryer and an aroma diffuser. We started deconstructing them immediately after being back. Besides that the Hair Dryer can be a dangerous device to play with, it was, as we expected, an analog device and therefore difficult to hack. The contents of the aroma diffuser gave us more surprise and insights. The - in our eyes - useless and cheap device still had quite advanced technology under the housing. A LED strip that constantly changed color and a sensor that detects moisture combined with a vibration motor were the most interesting parts. When the perfume ended up on this sensor, the vibratory motor vibrated so quickly, which resulted in heat and evaporated the moisture. This piece of technology was also connected to the LED strip and served as an indication to observe when the diffuser did its work.

We had carried out a number of experiments with the device. For example, we tried to make a bubble blowing machine and we tried to hack the sensor by measuring the constant moisture. A wet wad of paper was ultimately enough for this. However, after a few minutes, the paper was so hot that the moisture had evaporated. We later used the technique for a concept where we replaced the fly in the urinal. This fly - just a sticker in the urinal, is a gamification to get men to focus. It is 2019; time for a renewal, The concept was to connect the sensor to a meter that served as a scoreboard. With a toilet visit, you could set a score. Below you will find the process.

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  EMF sensor process - Inside the diffuser

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  EMF sensor process - Components

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  EMF sensor process

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  EMF sensor process - working electronics

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  EMF sensor process - working model

Final project: Tōsen

Here you can read the research document en check the final project.