Colorforecast

This is a pretty nice project I stumbled upon doing research on monitoring. It uses webcams and some code to evaluate colors people wear in different "fashion"- cities. Not that I am to much into fashion, but I think it is a nice example on how playful interactive projects can have a value for people who may not even know what that is :)

Colorforecast

summer break

The term ended with a great degree exhibition and party in the beginning of June.

Umeå gets very quiet during summer, as almost all students leave for their families and do not return before autumn. Jassi and me decided to spend some more time in northern Sweden as we don't know when we will be able to spend an subpolar summer again :)

We were in Umeå for the rest of the Euro-Cup and midsummer, which is really a special day not least for the lack of darkness during night. People go crazy here.

I took the opportunity to go for a hiking trip with my family, which was great, even though the mosquitos up here are pretty thirsty when it gets warmer. A net in front of your face and a bottle of "Mygga" is definitely recommendable.

We went to Skuleskogen National Park, which is located around 150km south of Umeå. Even though it is a pretty small area it is stunningly beautiful and offers pretty impressive sights. (This sounds like from a tourist ad)

I spent most of the summer in Germany (Berlin, Cologne and Munich) visiting family and friends. I also did some freelance work for Axiros, an IT company based in Munich. They offer hardware and software solutions for businesses and enterprises to manage networks and large amount of terminal devices. My task was creating UI / usability concepts for database and search-engine applications.

Jassi and me returned to Umeå end of August. In the meantime, the night returned and you could sleep without hanging another bed sheet in front of the window. We drove with the car from Munich to Stockholm and had stopovers in Hamburg, Copenhagen and Malmö. That way you realize how far north we actually are. In times of air travel i totally lost my feeling for larger distances.

free universal construction kit

Stumbled upon this today:

A kit that enables the assembly of different construction/system toys like lego / fischertechnik / knex etc. I think i dreamt of that a long time..

Leisure?!

Studying in Umeå is special. One reason for that is the opportunity for dog-sledding (almost) around the corner. Awesome experience even without technical influence :)

Voices of Umeå

The week before the last we had a short project together with a local composer. He is planning to make a music-piece made up from human voices. Our brief was to give him the tool to collect those voices. It should be some sort of installation in public space, that makes people to record their voice.

Our idea was to use the iconic shape of an old telephone as it is an unmistakable hint that one can 'talk to it'. Providing two telephones, people could have a conversation over a short distance. The rotary dial is used to apply different effects on the voice and by that invite people to experiment with their voices. 

In further development, a sampler functionality could be used to enable the user to create music with his own voice - fun project, and a nice introduction into sound design, which we will work on during the next couple of weeks...

winter_2

One thing you can do with vast amounts of snow: building 3D mazes for ice-marbles. And yes, we actually do have sun in here in Umeå!

We are working on a 'design for sound' project at the moment: How to collect voices for a big music project. It will be done on Friday, so I might post some results soon.

winter

Umeå is covered with snow since I returned from my 2 week trip to Germany. It feels like a REAL winter, not that rainy, muddy German 4 month lasting November. The temperature drops to around -10 degrees, so it's not that cold (yet). Days are getting longer since end of December, it's almost 6 hours now.

shape type

Great game on type to waste time and test the grade of your typefaces-geekyness.

shape type

Wednesday talks. Multitasking.

Wednesday talk at UID: "i think sketch therefore i am" It was about how sketching can improve the creative process, by supporting the right half of your brain. Interesting, no revolutionary thoughts though.

Actually I was interested in the guy next to me - using two iPhones simultaneously. I couldn't resist asking him why: He is splitting up the tasks he performs on them - one, with a phone contract for calling (the older one) and the newer 4G for internet and other stuff. Hm.

He also did some photos with one of them while text-messaging with the other. I actually worked on multi-tasking issues in consumer electronics, but this did not reveal to me.

WLAN in every bus in Umeå

In Umeå every bus now has a free Hotspot. Nice, especially if you still have a German contract :)

workshop introduction

For the next two weeks the first year IxD students get an introduction to the wood and metal workshop. Didn't work on 'real' machines for a while - good to get a brush-up on that!

On the left you see DOLF, our booking system for used materials. At UID you can use every material, even for private purposes and pay in the end of the term everything you booked on your DOLF account.












Simply a great thing - even if some people at UID complain about some details. Okay, it could have a nicer interface :)

A crocodile in New York City

The last assignment for the week: Everyone of us got a picture and a Lego Minifigure as a 'user' ( we were allowed to keep it, YAY! ).  We had to think on how our 'user' could benefit from a networked city and come up with some ideas on that. I had a crocodile in New York City.

nursing home grandparent - at a restaurant - proximity

After the mapping exercise we did a fun brainstorm on service design: Divided in groups of 2-3 students, we received a set of cards in three colors. The task was to group one of every color, while pink was a user, orange was a location and green was a particular kind of sensor. We spend brainstorming for a couple of minutes to come up with a service idea for every group of cards. Then we decided for one favorite idea to present it in the form of a stage play...

Our words were: 'recent immigrant' + 'at the bank' + 'GPS sensor' ... Matt did a movie of every groups play - i hope they will NEVER come to light...

It was a very interesting way to come up with tons of ideas in a very short time - and it was great fun :)

Interviewing and vibrating toys

We did some talks this week, to learn the technique of open-ended interviews. It was harder than expected. Even if i did a lot of interviewing in the projects I was involved - this time it was different. Maybe it was because there was no clear 'goal' like you have in a practical research? But exactly that led to very interesting results after three sessions. Next week we will continue with writing a portrait of the interviewed person.

My interviewee was Daniel. If you want to see what this super nice box is about, see his homepage.

The ping pong challenge with Ben Hopson

                         

To warm up and get started we had a nice workshop led by Ben Hopson ( check out his website! )

The aim was to get a ping pong ball from one table (height 75cm) to another tabler (75cm) - but it needed to go under a wire wich was in between the two tables in the height of 50cm.

See the results here:

ClipArts are not dead!

We had a introduction to the library up at  the main campus ( the designers, architects and fine artists are situated at the arts campus, closer to the city center down by the river ). Please pay special attention to the great MS PowerPoint clipart graphics.