Midterm, October 2001
The Beastie
The Beastie is an experiment in fuzzy electronics
– and I mean ’fuzzy’ both literally and metaphorically.
Squishy on the inside, soft on the outside, the Beastie is a toy-sized
object that feels nice to touch, squeeze and hold. Indeed, the Beastie
is intended to reward tactile exploration – it responds to stroking
and squeezing by "purring," "squealing," and "blinking."
On the inside, the Beastie's analog circuits resemble organs more than
traditional circuit boards. As originally conceived, sacks of conductive
gel are meant to distribute power and ground in various circuits without
the hard surfaces and structured logical grids of normal breadboard wiring.
Based on squeezable and strokable sensors, the Beastie's circuits are
simple but react in unpredictable ways to the varieties of human touch.
Even seemingly identical actions can result in very different results,
giving the very fuzzy Beastie an occasionally disquieting
sense of internal life.