I started my first experience in Maker Faire in this Sunday. It was very impressive event for me. The 3D Printing gives me a new perspective of how designer can do for their prototypes and tons of interface design give me a lot ideas about how technology can build up a newer, closer and stronger relationships with human in today.
I will share three interface design that I saw in today and describe what they did, how they encourage user interaction and what made them successful.
“MakeBlock” is a project from a Chinese local company. It is an open source construction platform to turn idea into success. they provides various mechanical parts and electronic modules to let user to build small robot or interface system work with physical shapes. It even can be compatible with many industry standard parts.
One new experience for the user form this project is that it provide a platform for user to design anything they want and rebuild their innovations into a physical form. users can get their sense of accomplishment from realizing their ideas, also they can learn principles and functions about interface design and physical computing from this program.
The only advise from me for this program is that I would like to see a kids version of this project which is easier to start for kids and does not require too much fundamental knowledges. It will let kids have opportunity to create and interact with basic physical computing and interactive design.
“Make Anything”(maybe this is just that company’s name), a project that make interface device with fabric materials.They have several different projects about how to insert digital device to fabric materials like toys, glovers, hat. The one thing is very interesting. It is a pair of gloves that human can wear it to control other device by using the digital interface system attached inside the gloves. User can simply point a toy and move it and turn on the light.
What makes this project successful is that it challenges the common perception that an interface device cannot be comfortable to wear. In the future we can comfortably wear ergonomic digital interface devices without even noticing them.
The last project I want to share in my experience today is a ball speed radar project. It build a small baseball court. Player can throw four different kind balls to the board at the back of the court. The computer will trace the motion of the ball and record the speed of ball and the speed will show on the LED screen. During the game, people can know the speed differences between different balls. Also, people can test and improve their skills by practicing to throw ball faster and faster.
Speed is a data that we are exposed everyday, but it really hard to make people to have a connection with speed round their life and the speed they made. This project makes people have a closer experience with speed by building up the connection between the power from their muscle to push the ball and speed of a ball appears on the screen.
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