Sketching in Hardware Day 3: David Merrill

The manipulative is the message

embodied media
the narrowing of experience through windows-mouse interface
how can computers leverage our physical-world skills in a way that is generalizable

siftables

• using existing physical gestures: tilting, swirling, pouring, moving closer


• sense physical motion


• display color graphics


• sense neighbors in close proximity


• communicate wirelessly with a computer: standalone or interface to a desktop

software: programming a distributed system

• distributed code/algorithms: robust, enables emergent behavior - but difficult to author complex coordinated bheavior


• centralized control: easier to author, but can be brittle


• so siftables combines both

software: events

• both single events (in a single siftable) and topology changes (a cluster of units, like pouring color from one to another)

interaction paradigm: embodied media rather than "physical cursor"

Sensor Network User Interfaces
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• irst idea: interface to a sensor network


• but can we create an interface from a sensor network - so that interaction with nodes creates interface?


• sensor networks are just barely becoming usable, but lots of opportunity for them


• self-contained/powered mobile nodes! coordinated behavior!


• lots of architecture problems are being solved - graceful degredation, localization, code change

• what is the Flash for sensor network infrastructure? what is the Arduino for sensor network infrastructure?


• Sun SPOTS, SquidBee, XBee

wish-list

• dead-simple mesh networking


• foundation: discovery, position, action,


• higher-level: global, distributed behaviors, easily see what is talking to what -- discoverability