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Danny Hawk’s Boop Game

A design exploration in “competitive sharing”

The Project

This game is based off of a prototype that can be played in the browser here. After fighting with my friend over the same trackpad, I created the original game as a first exploration into what a competitive game would feel like if both players were forced to share a control. Danny Hawk’s Boop Game is an extension of this, with an important introduction of arcade controls.

Separating the two directions into two joysticks solves two design problems: the readability of your opponent and the monopolization of the boop button. On the keyboard, a player can move in all directions with just one hand, and then use their remaining hand to press the boop button. This allowed either player to just hold down the button or to spam it too quickly for their opponent to utilize. Now with their hands occupied in order to move, they must sacrifice movement in one direction to press the button. The other benefit is that a player can only press the button when moving in a cardinal direction, so it is easier to predict their motives and respond in kind.

Production

Arduino interfaces with arcade controls very easily, because they are simple switches that either connect a circuit or do not. Once my first test with the button and joysticks worked, I placed them in their wooden housing, wiring all of them together, and then sending that data out of the Arduino through usb.

The Arduino sends a string through serial communication to Unity, where Unity then parses it and updates the game accordingly. It took many tries to get good realtime communication with Unity.

Code

The code can be found here.

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Serial Communication Case Study

The best aspect of physical computing is the physical part. The focus of physical design should be on the texture of the piece, the feeling of the space that it is a part of, or an interaction that only exists in the real world. Light Kinetics by Espadaysantacruz Studio meshes the feeling of a space with an interaction only physical computing will allow.

The piece sends its physics data through arduino to a computer, where the data is then parsed and the light’s physics are calculated. They’re then sent back over to the lights, which then light up accordingly. More information can be found here

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Careful Kettle

The Client

I was tasked with creating a game using two items from a list including ham, tea kettle, plush owl, lentils, jello, and lego minifig. It must be an interactive experience that is possible due to physical computing materials.

The Pitch

Careful Kettle is a game that teaches someone restraint when cooking. To be a cook, you must pay close attention to your exact process in order to achieve the best product. To address this, a player is given a kettle with an accelerometer attached to it, and they must first make lentils, and then jello. However, they cannot tilt the kettle quickly, or the game will make them start again. Lentils just require an adequate amount of water to be boiled in, while making jello requires a specific quantity of water. The player will fill the water up from the sink, and deliver it to their dishes, without once tilting the kettle too quickly.

A Variant

In order to make the game more stressful and competitive, just double the number of kettles and cooking supplies, and task two different players with racing. Having to move quickly without moving too quickly will create a perpetually tense scenario.

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“You’re beautiful,” but they hung up.

A phone call where they always hang up. 

The Project

This project started with the idea of a phone call where the only way you can hear what the other is saying is if you are also speaking at the same time. Active listening is difficult and most people aren’t necessarily conscious of how they are communicating. Unfortunately, without additional supplies, the arduino just isn’t capable of playing enough recorded sound to mimic a stilted conversation of interruptions. So instead, the project evolved to be about attempting to start a conversation, and getting shut down. You pick up the phone, dial a number, and then start the conversation. A couple seconds later, they hang up and you’re greeted with a dial tone.

Production

There is a drought of fake bananas in the Henrietta area. Apparently no one wants to carry fake bananas, and Michael’s is even discontinuing theirs. Fortunately, Wegmans came to the rescue, with a singular banana stress ball. Hopping on this opportunity, I created my phone. The phone has a speaker and a microphone, both with their wires exiting from the base of the phone. In addition to the on-phone interaction, the project includes one switch and one button. The switch is used to “pick up” or “hang up” the phone, and the singular button is used to put in a phone number (the only phone number you care to dial is 111-1111). 

Functionality

To call up the only person you wish to speak to, yo must flip the switch to “pick up the phone” and then enter in the phone number (111-1111) by pressing the button seven times. From there, you can begin your conversation. After beginning the conversation, the phone calls recipient will hang up on you, for any number of complicated social reasons, which you should try and understand by breaking down the various complex social cues that you were giving off in how you began this cold-call. Once they hang up, you can just hang your phone up and call again.

Code

The code can be found here.

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Audio Case Study

The marriage of sound and a way to physically control it is the reason that instruments are so enticing and magical. Sound and real world interaction are immediately coupled by our brains, and we start operating using that link to create notes, melodies, chords, and music. 8 Beat by Ayal Rosenberg operates within this space. (5:59 to 6:29 in the video below)

8 Beat brings the iterative musical design of a sequencer into the physical world. What I love about it is the physical manifestation of the controls. There are individual dots that can be placed onto the sequencer, but there are also patterns that can be placed. These patterns enforce a specific mode of interaction with the sequencer, providing limits to the user but also teaching a lesson in how to elicit the best results from the piece. These control pieces alone without the sequencer already inform someone of how they are to be used. This inherent instruction then fosters a problem solving process in the user, guiding their interaction. This is really intelligent and condense design.

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You are beautiful, but you’re too close.

The Project

Continuing the theme from my previous project (He is beautiful, but shy) I wanted to create projects with “anti-design” or “un-design”. Not that I wanted to make something with bad design, but I wanted to explore how people respond to an object doing the opposite of what they expect. In this case, I took a pair of glasses and flipped mirrors over your eyes when you put them on. A person expects to see through a pair of glasses, so I wanted to take that expectation and turn it around with mirrors. 

Production

There was a lot of hot glue involved in this piece. I first attached two servo motors to either side of the glasses, and bent a wire along the frame of the glasses to go between the two servos. I then used some of these cheap mirrors that are terrible if you look from a distance, and glued them to the wire frame. From there, the last piece was to attach an IR sensor to the side in order to detect when you actually put the glasses on.

Functionality

The only interaction is limited to putting on or taking off the glasses, and this project didn’t require any other type of input. Besides difficulties that resulted from my lack of hot glue gun experience, the last main hurdle was in tuning the IR sensitivity. After experimentation, I settling on a analogRead value of 340 being the determining threshold. If over 340, then there is a face next to the IR sensor. If under 340, then the mirrors would remain up. Here’s a link to a video of the project.

Code

The code can be found here.

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Wearable Case Study

Most wearables tend to be more ‘gadget’ than ‘fashion’, but not in the case of Marie Younghui Kim. There is an adherence to aesthetic and form that proves itself a through line in their work. I especially like a shirt that glows when you’re drinking alcohol. For this post though, I want to highlight the piece Gravity of Light.

The piece is created through 3D printed smart textile, and it responds to the tilt of the wearer’s head. The project started with the idea of having light adhere to gravity like water. From that point, Kim went further than just creating a technical demo by linking the fluidity with natural interaction for a person. What I like most about this project is that the user cannot actually see their own head, so even though the hat is worn by only one person, the nature of the interaction requires another person. Encouraging communication through a individual interaction is one really interesting design space. For more work, the creator’s portfolio can be found here.

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He is beautiful, but shy.

The Project

I have recently been thinking about creating interactions that don’t map perfectly with a happy result. Some of the pillars of UX design are centered around informing the user of how to use a product, so that they can predict what will happen before even interacting with it. I wanted to subvert this expectation, I wanted to obscure my work from the user so that they can never get a full experience.

So to do that, I made a flower. The petals light up when you cover the flower with your hand.

The title of the piece is He is beautiful, but shy

Production

I was deeply unprepared for how difficult connecting all of the LEDs together would be.

Each RGB LED has 4 prongs, and each of those had to be connected together with threaded wire. I do not know how to solder, so I just used pliers and my fingers. The above photo was taken 2 or 3 hours into wiring the back of the flower.

I also expected to place LEDs behind the paper in the flower, and light the petals up by shining the lights through them. However, these LEDs operate more like spotlights than diffuse lights, so I found a flower design that would allow me two layers of petals. I then put the LEDs between these two layers, to allow the light to shine on top of the lower layer of petals. 

Functionality

When it comes to the function of the project, I have three ways to give input. There is the photosensor on the flower itself. It’s located in the center of all of the petals. I also have a switch that can be used to toggle between two colors. And finally there is a button that is used to “zero” the lights on the current luminance of the room.

Code

The code can be found here.

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That’s one sweet interaction with lights.

B-Reel’s Prana

An industry example of the blink project, but taken to the extreme, would be Prana. Using a Norwegian breath sensor used to monitor babies, B-Reel created a giant sphere of LEDs that bloom to the breathing of anyone standing within them. The interaction is simple in that your breathing is matched up 1 to 1 with an output. The intrigue comes from your breath as a control, and not just breath as in blowing on a mic, but rather the breathing you cannot control. Suddenly, an involuntary action controls more than yourself, and expands to determine whether or not a room is lit up.

Prana offers the wheel to the user, but also forces them to accept their lack of control. 

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Works I Look Up To

Slow Games

Slow Games is a project that made me immediately reconsider the artificial design boundaries I had created for myself. Immediately after watching the video I became tremendously aware of how limited my thinking was, and since then I use it as a touchstone to push my boundaries further out, all the time.

Embodied Violence in Film

Bryan Hsu is currently a second year masters student at NYU’s ITP, and I was lucky to work with him over last summer. There is a calm intentionality to everything he does, and that is evident in this project. Infusing violence dissected from known movies into a visceral interaction immediately forces a participation from an audience member that they may realize is acutely uncomfortable.

Glaciers

These poems are steeped in their own weight. These words are authored by the English speaking mass, an island of poetry that refuses interpretation since we are all culprits to their creation. I love them very much.