Can you spare some change?

“Can you spare some change?” started out as a public spaces project. The goal was to create an interface in which strangers would interact.

Prototype I:

For our very first prototype, we took an RC car and attached an iPod to it so that we could use FaceTime to communicate between the iPod and our computers.

Here we are testing our prototype:

 

It seemed pretty successful, so we moved forward.

Prototype II:

We then decided to give our prototype a personality. We were testing our prototype, and were approached by religious solicitors. So we started thinking about other solicitors, and thought about the homeless. Because I had worked briefly with a few homeless individuals in the city, and found them to be quite intriguing, we decided we would try to give our prototype a homeless personality. We then came up with this for our second prototype.

We put a mini portable speaker into the robot’s mouth, and asked my homeless friend, “Spooky” to help us test-drive it around Union Square in New York City. Here are the results from the first test.

 

We felt that the results were overall successful. But, we were given some feedback from some of the strangers we encountered. A few people felt that this robot looked a little bit scary, and sloppy. And having one eye was creepy. So using that, and input from “Spooky,” we moved forward.

Prototype III:

Testing for the third prototype wasn’t as successful as we had hoped. According to more feedback, the black wasn’t as inviting as the cardboard. People also tended to gravitate towards the human aspect of the robot when it was wearing clothing.

So, we decided to go back to the original design, but make the robot more sturdy, and give him another eye. We also named the robot “BumBot” and gave him a Twitter account to enable people to follow his activities online.

Upon further research and thought, we decided that we wanted to compare how “BumBot” interacts with people, and how “Spooky” interacts with people. So we followed “Spooky” around for a few hours and made this video to document it.

 

We really enjoyed our day with “Spooky” and decided that for our final project, we would create a documentary.

Here is our final documentary.

 

“Can you spare some change?” is a short documentary that examines the relationships between human-human and human-“robot” interactions. A robot, “BumBot” was created by Parsons MFA Design and Technology students Peter Chang, Jennifer Matsumoto and Paweena Prachanronarong in collaboration with “Spooky,” a homeless citizen in New York City. “Spooky” drove “BumBot” around Union Square, and shared his perspective on the differences between human-human and human-robot relationships for one homeless citizen – himself. The documentary created a poignant examination into human relationships and the social landscape of New York City. The viewer is also asked if they can spare some change in their perception of the homeless community.

Music by: The Doors “People are Strange”

“Star Mario” costume

For Halloween, my son wanted to be “Star Mario,” so I hacked a regular Mario costume and plush question box to make that happen using Arduino, Processing, and Adafruit Wave Shield and LEDs.

Here is a video of my final midterm project, utilizing both Processing and Arduino.

 

Here’s my son wearing the costume.

 

Here is a link to all my code.

PART I: LED hat

For the first part of this project, I wanted to light my son’s costume so that when a button is pressed at the top of his hat, he’d flicker like “Star Mario.” I was going to try to use EL wire, but I purchased the wrong inverter, and didn’t have time to order a new one. So, I went with LilyPad LEDs. Also, it’s quite expensive to light an entire costume up like “Star Mario.” And, I didn’t want to accidentally blow him up.

The first step was to play around and make a soft button. I used this tutorial: http://www.instructables.com/id/Soft-button/

Here is documentation supporting the tutorial.

I then tested the button using my son’s Snap Circuits Jr. toy, which has really helped me to understand basic electronics. And it worked!

Then, I made a pouch for my button using felt.

The next step was to test my button using my Arduino board.

Then, using these tutorials, I made circuit using LilyPad and LEDs.

http://web.media.mit.edu/~leah/LilyPad/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj639_ez6TM&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cRKdzIhbZM&feature=relmfu

I also viewed a ton of other videos on YouTube.

I tested the circuit with one LED.

Here is a picture of my final circuit, all cleaned up.

I then used velcro to fasten the circuit to the top of the hat.

For the code aspect of this project, I started with the “Programming a Button” code example given in class. It worked great with one button, but didn’t work the way I wanted it to with multiple buttons. I wanted all the lights (I had 5 LEDs) to flicker randomly for a total of 15 seconds. I found this tutorial which was very helpful, and asked my teacher to help me fix the rest of the code that wasn’t working as well as I had hoped.

PART II: Musical question box

For the second part of this project, I wanted to make a question box that would play the Super Mario Bros. theme song. But when “Mario” jumps up and hits the bottom of the question box, I wanted the song to change to the “Star Mario” song.

I ordered a Wave Shield from Adafruit and used this tutorial to help me build the shield. I went through the entire web site: http://www.ladyada.net/make/waveshield/

Here is some documentation of me building the shield.

Here is the completed Wave Shield with speakers.

I then tested the shield and it worked!

I then sewed a little case to hold all the wires, shield, Arduino, breadboard, etc.

I then stuffed the case and speakers into the question box.

For the code aspect of this project, I started with example code from the same site that helped me build the Wave Shield. http://www.ladyada.net/media/wavshield/wavehc_play6singlekeyloop.pde

I’m pretty happy with the question box. The only thing I would change is that I hope to find a 9V batter holder so the question box can be portable.

PART III: Processing and Arduino

The Processing and Arduino aspects of this project was pretty simple. Basically, when Mario hits the question box on-screen, the actual Mario hat lights up.

I started with this tutorial that I found on the Arduino website: http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/PhysicalPixel

If I had more time, I would control Mario with the keyboard arrows instead of the mouse, and wouldn’t allow for him to go off-screen.

Mashups

Media/software mashup: rememberwhen.com

For this mashup, I wanted to see if it was possible to evoke a feeling of nostalgia that predates when most people had access to the internet. I mashed up Wikipedia, Billboard Top 20, Flickr and YouTube to create rememberwhen.com.

The site asks what the user’s fondest memory is, and in what year it took place.

In this window you write your fondest memory. The website then aggregates all the data from Billboard Top 20 from 1989, Wikipedia, which has a cumulative database about individual years, and Flickr to try to recreate your memory. If not recreate, then at least act as a catalyst to bring memories from that time period to you.

The website then creates your personal memory video.

You can then replay or share your memory video.

Hardware/internet mashup: Write to me

The concept of this mashup was to combine digital and analog so that every time the user receives an email from certain individuals, a robot hand would write out the email.

The user would receive a new email from a targeted individual, and once the user opens the email, the robot hand would start writing.

The end product from one email would look something like this:

The robot would then continue to write emails repeatedly. The user would then have a record or collection of all their emails, like how gmail really keeps emails.

7 projects in 7 days

This project was a lot of fun for me. The way I tackled this problem was that I first thought of a theme. I need some sort of boundary, so I came up with the 7 deadly sins. But, I didn’t just want to do the 7 deadly sins, because it’s been done over and over. So I wanted to twist the concept a bit. When you think of a sin, like gluttony, the polar opposite of that sin could also be really bad in itself. Eating in moderation is fine, but eating so little to point of anorexia is probably not the healthiest way to eat. So, I guess the point of the whole concept is to show moderation. Take the middle path.

I thought about the opposite of the sins and called them “virtues,” and twisted them. All my projects share the same theme of “twisted virtues,” but each project has been executed differently.

ENVY CONFIDENCE

The first sin I thought about was “envy.” The opposite of “envy” would be something like “confidence.” Then I thought what if someone was over-confident, maybe to the point of vanity? That’s not really a good thing either. So I made a hat out of found objects in my apartment that would allow people to look at themselves the whole time they’re wearing the hat. I basically attached a mirror to a hat that you could reposition to better view yourself.

PRIDE SELF-ESTEEM

This sin was a little confusing but the twisted virtue was “low self-esteem.” Then I thought about the people whose self-esteem was so low, that perhaps they wanted to commit suicide, or had tried to commit suicide before. I chose to make a noose as a representation of suicide. A symbol. I then spray-painted the noose black and red to show the darkness and sadness around the idea of suicide.

WRATH HAPPINESS

“Wrath” is a sin, but happiness is a good thing. A state we all wish to achieve. But some people are so desperate to achieve this state of happiness that they take drugs like anti-depressants to reach this state. I’m not talking about people who really need to take anti-depressants, but I’m more speaking about those who take anti-depressants to deal with every day stress, or those who take them recreationally. For this part of the 7×7, I made a processing sketch. The sketch has an emoticon bouncing around, and when you feed the emoticon an anti-depressant (like Paxil), the emoticon becomes happy.

GLUTTONY ABSTEMIOUSNESS

For “gluttony,” I thought about people who eat so little, that it’s unhealthy. For this part of the 7×7, I fasted for one day. I wanted to see what it felt like to deprive myself of something I loved so much. On the scale, I probably fall closer to being a glutton than an ascetic. I kept a video blog throughout the day talking about how I felt.

GREED CHARITABLENESS

This execution falls off the realm of the concept. My original idea had been to donate to non-charitable causes. For example, only donate money to people who outright admitted that they only wanted the money to buy booze. Basically, donate money to non-charitable causes. However, I only encountered people who really seemed to need the money. So instead, I decided that I would donate $5 to each person who had a sign or a cup that indicated that they were asking for money, in exchange for their stories. I then built a website to document the project and their fascinating stories.

http://lovepaweena.com/namesbehindfaces/

LUST DISGUST

For this part, I thought about some of my friends who are so desperate to get married, yet are so picky. They have in their minds a set laundry list of every trait their potential  mate has to meet, and if their potential mate doesn’t meet their expectations, they act almost disgusted by these people. So, I designed a social networking iPad app for extremely picky individuals.

The user would be able select which traits they desire in their potential mate, or add their own.

The app would match these traits to a potential mate. The potential mate who most closely matches the user’s laundry list would be in a bigger circle closest to you.

The user can then view the potential mate’s profile. If the user doesn’t like the potential mate, they can just flick them off the screen, disgustedly, to make them go away forever. The person they picked will never again show up in their matches.

SLOTH INDUSTRY

The execution for this sin was purely for entertainment purposes only. I thought it would be a fun way to end such a dark presentation. However, it still goes with the theme. The opposite of a sloth would be a hard worker. When I presented this execution, I said, “Working hard is good, but not if you work so hard that you don’t sleep, and you don’t eat, or you might end up looking like this.” Then I showed my self-portrait that I created in Photoshop because I hadn’t been eating or sleeping in days. I was a representation of what I was trying to portray with industriousness.

Redesign a “social network”

This project was very difficult for me. Right now as a designer, I’m struggling to do things that are “off-the-screen,” and I realize that I could’ve done something “off-the-screen,” but my thought process is to automatically think of screen-based designs. I thought and thought for so long how I can connect people without using the internet, so I thought about phones, snail mail, things we used to do before the internet was all up in your face.

Also, I need to set limitations for myself. I thought I wanted to create a way for locals to hook up with travelers. Based on personal experience, I would love to meet locals to show me all the cool spots, and just give me advice about the places I’m traveling to. My initial thought was that it’d be cool to place pseudo mailboxes all over the world where people could pick up and drop off real postcards to places they want to go. But what if the postcards never get picked up? Or they get picked up and the traveler has already come and gone? I couldn’t figure out the logic even though I tried and tried, so I ended up going screen-based again – much to my disappointment. But I shouldn’t create something non screen-based just for the sake of it. Sometimes it just makes more sense to design something on-screen, and use that tool because it is the best available tool for what you are trying to do.

So, I came up with a website, a very simple website, called “journeyers.com.” The website would be invite-only for the safety aspects of this site.

People would sign on, and then they could do one of two things – send a postcard or pick up a postcard.

How I imagine this site to function, is people would then select a postcard to send.

Then the person would write on the postcard. They can write whatever they want, just like real postcards. They can also write the activities in which they want to participate in when they visit these countries.

And then you would send your virtual postcard.

To pick up a postcard, the process would be very similar. The user would log-in, select “Get a postcard,” then choose a postcard of a person they’re interested in meeting. Perhaps the user would choose the person based on shared interests – they see that a traveler wants to go a place where they love to go. Or it could be based on appearances. Or the user can see that the traveler is from New York, and perhaps that local has lived in New York before, so they want to select that person. As a designer, I don’t know all the reasons why someone would choose one postcard over another. Because of that, the “Choose postcard” page would have all sorts of information available to the person who is selecting a postcard, or essentially, a person to hang out with.

After selecting a postcard, the user can then read the postcard and decide whether or not they want to contact that individual.

Also, the website’s simplicity in design is intended. I’ve seen many social networking sites where I’m not sure what to do. So by having only two functions, I feel as if it would be easier to navigate the site.