This is what happens when engineers play with paper airplanes.
It takes about three seconds for the automatic paper airplane folder (for lack of a better term) to convert a plain sheet of paper into a fully functional, flying paper airplane. The machine-precision extends even to the flying: every airplane flies along the same flight path into a cardboard box a few feet away.
Showing posts with label construction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label construction. Show all posts
Reinventing Payphones
Reinventing Payphones - NYC I/O: The Responsive City
There are 11,412 pay phones in New York City that are almost never used.
So what happens when New York City runs a competition to redesign them into something practical and that uses modern technology?
This is Control Group's winning entry.
There are 11,412 pay phones in New York City that are almost never used.
So what happens when New York City runs a competition to redesign them into something practical and that uses modern technology?
This is Control Group's winning entry.
The BMW sound designers
How do you enhance the driving experience of a popular car brand in a highly competitive market? By considering an often overlooked but integral element of the user experience, the sound design of the product.
At BMW it has become such an exact science that 14 sound artists work on creating sounds that are functional and yet pleasent to the ear.
As one of the sound artists says, "a car needs the right soundtrack for maximum driving pleasure" and he's got a point - not only do the sounds a car makes need to be of a high quality, but also the unwanted sounds need to be removed. I've often thought this after stepping out of a nice car and enjoying the clunk of the door closing - automotive sound design is very similar to user experience design for the web in the sense that if it's done right then it's pleasantly ambient.
At BMW it has become such an exact science that 14 sound artists work on creating sounds that are functional and yet pleasent to the ear.
As one of the sound artists says, "a car needs the right soundtrack for maximum driving pleasure" and he's got a point - not only do the sounds a car makes need to be of a high quality, but also the unwanted sounds need to be removed. I've often thought this after stepping out of a nice car and enjoying the clunk of the door closing - automotive sound design is very similar to user experience design for the web in the sense that if it's done right then it's pleasantly ambient.
SimCity
This gameplay video for the new SimCity game has gotten me really excited. As a big fan of the initial series, this video shows how much cooler the simulation of running a city can look with the added layer of sick graphics over the top of a realistic gameplay model.
Ultimately you can do whatever you want, focus on growing your population, increasing wealth or even build a city that looks like your hometown. Whatever your motivation, you have to the power to experiment with a number of different strategies.
How you choose to play will influence your city, the neighbouring cities and the lives of all the Sims across the region.
Ultimately you can do whatever you want, focus on growing your population, increasing wealth or even build a city that looks like your hometown. Whatever your motivation, you have to the power to experiment with a number of different strategies.
How you choose to play will influence your city, the neighbouring cities and the lives of all the Sims across the region.
21 Balançoires (21 Swings)
21 Swings, an exercise in musical cooperation.
Every spring, an interactive installation takes over a high-traffic area in Montréal’s Quartier des spectacles and sets a collective ritual. The installation offers a fresh look at the idea of cooperation, the notion that we can achieve more together than separately.
The result is a giant instrument made of 21 musical swings; each swing in motion triggers different notes, all the swings together compose a piece, but some sounds only emerge from cooperation.
The project stimulates ownership of the public space, bringing together people of all ages and backgrounds, and creating a place for playing and hanging out in the middle of the city centre.
Every spring, an interactive installation takes over a high-traffic area in Montréal’s Quartier des spectacles and sets a collective ritual. The installation offers a fresh look at the idea of cooperation, the notion that we can achieve more together than separately.
The result is a giant instrument made of 21 musical swings; each swing in motion triggers different notes, all the swings together compose a piece, but some sounds only emerge from cooperation.
The project stimulates ownership of the public space, bringing together people of all ages and backgrounds, and creating a place for playing and hanging out in the middle of the city centre.
21 Balançoires (21 Swings) from Daily Tous Les Jours on Vimeo.
Interactive Plant Technology
Botanicus Interacticus is a technology for designing highly expressive interactive plants, both living and artificial. Driven by the rapid fusion of computing and living spaces, we take interaction from computing devices and places it in the physical world using livings plants as an interactive medium.
Botanicus Interacticus has a number of unique properties. This instrumentation of living plants is simple, non-invasive, and does not damage the plants: it requires only a single wire placed anywhere in the plant soil. Botanicus Interacticus allows for rich and expressive interaction with plants. It allows to use such gestures as sliding fingers on the stem of the orchid, detecting touch and grasp location, tracking proximity between human and a plant, and estimating the amount of touch contact, among others.
In Botanicus Interacticus we also deconstruct the electrical properties of plants and replicate them using standard electrical components. This allows the design of a broad variety of biologically inspired artificial plants that behave nearly the same as their biological counterparts. From the point of view of our technology there is no difference between real and artificial.
Botanicus Interacticus technology can be used to design highly interactive responsive environments based on plants, developing new forms of organic, living interaction devices as well as creating organic ambient and pervasive interfaces.
Read more here http://www.disneyresearch.com/research/projects/hci_botanicus_drp.htm
Botanicus Interacticus has a number of unique properties. This instrumentation of living plants is simple, non-invasive, and does not damage the plants: it requires only a single wire placed anywhere in the plant soil. Botanicus Interacticus allows for rich and expressive interaction with plants. It allows to use such gestures as sliding fingers on the stem of the orchid, detecting touch and grasp location, tracking proximity between human and a plant, and estimating the amount of touch contact, among others.
In Botanicus Interacticus we also deconstruct the electrical properties of plants and replicate them using standard electrical components. This allows the design of a broad variety of biologically inspired artificial plants that behave nearly the same as their biological counterparts. From the point of view of our technology there is no difference between real and artificial.
Botanicus Interacticus technology can be used to design highly interactive responsive environments based on plants, developing new forms of organic, living interaction devices as well as creating organic ambient and pervasive interfaces.
Read more here http://www.disneyresearch.com/research/projects/hci_botanicus_drp.htm
Buurbecue
Lovely idea from Dutch design company Natwerk, the Buurbecue plays on the Dutch word "buur" which means "neighbour" and is a great way of enjoying cooking outside with the people you live next to.
"Breaking down social walls while enjoying the most popular outdoor activity, because this summer we're doubling the fun. "
"Breaking down social walls while enjoying the most popular outdoor activity, because this summer we're doubling the fun. "
New York City Subway Stairs
Dean Peterson's local subway station has something unique about it. One of the steps on the stairs leading out of the station is fractionally larger than the others which causes a lot of people to trip up on it.
MaKey MaKey
MaKey MaKey is an invention kit for everyone.
Have you ever played Mario on Play-Doh or Piano on Bananas? Alligator clip the Internet to Your World, and start inventing The Future.
Have you ever played Mario on Play-Doh or Piano on Bananas? Alligator clip the Internet to Your World, and start inventing The Future.
Privacy monitor hacked from an old LCD Monitor
Excellent use of an old LCD monitor - turn it into a privacy monitor that looks white to everyone except for the user wearing the "magic glasses".
Full how-to guide is via Instructables
How Shopping Malls Make You Buy
Marc Fennell investigates how shopping malls are designed to make you buy things.
Nuclear Energy Wall Charts
Absolutely incredible collection of Nuclear Energy Wall Charts - fantastic complext illustrations
via NewMexicosDigitalConnections
Russian Domed City
A Russian company has unveiled plans to built a 100,000-person domed city in an abandoned Mir diamond mine in Siberia. The city named Eco-city 2020. The Mir diamond mine is the second largest excavated hole in the world, quarter-mile wide and over 1,700 feet deep, the mine would be completely covered over with a glass dome to protect the city from the weather in Siberia, and the solar cells embedded in the dome would power the city. Designers AB Elise explained:
"The new city is planned to be divided in 3 main levels with a vertical farm, forests, residences, and recreational areas. On of the most interesting aspects of the proposal is the glass dome that will protect the city and would be covered by photovoltaic cells that will harvest enough solar energy for the new development. "
An estimated 100,000 people would be able to live in Eco-city, and architects are hoping that it would help to attract tourists to Eastern Siberia.
Whilst this is not a very realistic project, and is unlikely to actually happen anytime soon, there are tantalising conversations going on about how this type of construction would be perfect for colonising craters on distant planets.
via AB ELISE
The Cube carpark
A new car park in Birmingham has a sophisticated £2m robotic system that enables cars to park themselves. Whilst this space-saving technique has been used in Japan for years, this is a great example of planning, labelling, and archiving items.
via BBC
Extreme Planning
Incredible display of planning taken to the extreme. If you didn't / haven't played Sim City, then this won't be as impressive.
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