learning by..thinking, talking, touching. And when you realize that you have done so many actions, you will find yourself surely far from the starting point. Leteraly or phisically, sometimes both.
The main areas where we have spent much time are: the creative process, building the prototype, designing the interaction.
Creative Process
Every cupboard has a different content, key and something else. When you open it, you don’t know exactly what there is in, and this state of uncertainly may increase when you use it for a long time. When you want to open it, you have a purpose: to find or to put something. Probably there is everything you need, but you don’t know it even you haven’t the key. Our purpose was always to create a feeling through a device, that literally desappears putting the other person in the same place, as our cupboards…and we think to have all the ingredients to make this interaction possible.
Prototyping
Even we had a short time, our prototype is rapidly grow-up, and more times for day we have improved it, trying to make it as effective and good looking as possible. Our main parts are the aesthetics, the basin and the core. Because of we didn’t know exactly our sizes, we have built a standard structure, in a way that all parts may suit more or less good. Our peculiarity is to work with water, really dangerous for all the electronic components. So after building a really water proof basin, is the carriage cart where we have managed most of the time. Even invisible to the user, this is really essential. The most effective way to do it is based on the worm gear, and we used many tips to make it less noisy as possible.
User Experience
How really engaging is Vyasa?
Our direction was and even is to have a device that becames part of our houses, in or out-door by personal mood. The way of pushing the float remember us the message in the bottle, and it calls to mind that we are alone on our piece of earth. What we like is to use the nature itself as medium and container of the message. Keeping it very clean, we have to make it also clear about how to use it. So we payed attention on the kind of float and the seashore where to put the message. Maybe here we need some little improvement, the challege is to be not too literally. The user should forget all about human artifacts in order to feel and communicate the flow of experience.
Vyasa | concept | early experiments | how it works | prototyping | final prototype | code & physical computing | learning by going | possible improvements | credits | downloads