Design and Concept of the Moving Types App
-with Antonio Krämer Fernandez and David Nickel-
Moving Types is an interactive exhibition in the "Gutenberg Museum" of Mainz. Gutenberg was the inventor of movable type printing.
Over 500 later the city of Mainz becomes "Stadt der Wissenschaft 2011" (city of science 20011) and an interactive exhibition shows
the beginning of moving types in all kinds of film. The following Movie shows a little impression of the whole exhibition.
The main installation of the exhibition were Cubes with QR-Tags. These Cubes can be scanned with the built in camera of the iPad 2.
Our task was to create a concept and the graphical user Interface for the exhibition's App. The next video shows how it looks like when
you scan an app and interact with the movie and the medialibrary.
kinetic sculpture
-with David Abele and Philipp Hogg-
This project was realized in the 2nd semester. The idea was to build a kinetic sculpture with a sinus function in "Processing". We thought about programming a sketch with a dying sinus that looks similar to an earthquake. We first tested the sinus on a plane:
afterwards we decided to put the sinus movement into a sphere-volume and simulate an impact or an earthquake. Through a click on the sphere it was possible to generate a new impact point.
audiovisual design
-with Cora Droysen von Hamilton-
Today audiovisual design gets less important. Nearly every audioplayer has its own "visual-generator" but we as designers know that
the visuals on that kind of generators have nothing in common with the songs structure and its own character. That's why we decided to make
such an audiovisual design in the second semester.
We made some research on which song we could use and searched in all various genres and themes from classic music to rock music, movie themes and hymns. But we decided to analyze a really synthetic music genre: electronic music. That's how we got to choose 45 seconds of the song "Alors en dance" from the french artist "Stromae". The song has a really clear structure. It's devided in 7 instruments, the only problem was in defining this instruments because none of them were real instruments, they were all synthetic. After a parametric analysis we started to create the animation. This visualisation was created in Cinema 4D.
gestics "let your signs be heard"
-with Luise Pescheck, Martha Miosga and Sohyun Kim-
In "invention design I" we had to create a future scenario about an everyday problem. Our professor gave us the task to look out for different technologies and find some way to combinate them and put them in a new context. After a deep research we found a really interesting technology: muscle impulse measurement. It's already used for remote control of mp3-player or for computer games. But our question was:
"can't we use it for more?"
I had the idea of putting it in the context of handicapped people it should especially help deaf mute people. We thought about a device that is able to translate sign language in audiosignals. Here you can see a scenario:This scenario describes what happens when the deaf mute person gets in contact with a non-handicapped one. She activates the bracelet device that contains muscle impulse sensors that are able to read the signs over the tension and relaxation of the muscles. The device is connected to the smartphone. The smartphone decodes the measurements and translate it to audiosignals. When the no-handicapped person answers the smartphone shows it on the display over voice recognition.
But we wanted to make the first step in proving that it is already possible to translate signs with sensor technology. So I started to build a little prototype. I already heard about "Arduino" a "prototyping platform with easy-to-use hardware and software" as its described on their official homepage. So I started working with an arduino lilypad, that is a sewable arduino and flexsensors
We had the idea of buildung a glove that is able to translate a bunch of signs. The flexsensors should read the bending of the fingers and the combination of the different bendings form a translatable sign. For our prototype we programmed three signs "scissor, stone and paper" that is a game with a worldwide recognition. Here a demo of the Prototype:
polymorfeo
-with Andrea Buhmann, Joyce Moore and Felix Schmidtchen-
2010 the "associazione di ceramica d'imola" made a pitch for designing urban spaces. The task was to resocialize a urban non-space and to make it safer, cleaner and more friendly. I had the pleasure to work with product designers of our university. We decided to redesign the marketplace in Stuttgart. This place was so interesting to us because it should be a place where people meet and socialize but when we were there the place was nearly empty and the people were just passing by but we also observed that when 2 times a week the market is on the place it is a place full of life and happyness. so
"how to bring back life on this place?
this is our solution:The floor can be used in different conditions. As long as the market lasts the ground is flat. When the market vanishes the floor „grows“ and offers people the chance to sit down, rest or look. The moving elements can arrest in different heights. So everyday is a different one.
here a top-view of the marketplace. It shows the mosaicle composition of the moving tiles and their color.
mobile helper
In the context of the international seminarweek we had the possibility to choose a course of a different discipline. I chose the course "Design for Disaster" with Prof. Dr. Daniel Barcza and Prof. Benjamin Walker. I was confronted with a project like this for the first time. We had to pay attention on costs and sustainability of the project, because the disaster areas are often in developing countries that cannot afford high cost solutions. After a very detailed research we decided to focus on Guatemala and its hurricane disasters. We wanted to help the people after a flood caused by heavy rains and the hurricane. We found out that germs in food and dirty water is the biggest cause of death in Guatemala. We wanted to create a low cost solution for preparing food and to make the water potable. We started with the first prototypes and tests.
These prototypes proved that our ideas could work. We got about 10 °C difference in the cooler that worked with the evaporative cooling: The flax is wet and the ambient heat evaporates the water, the air ciculation in the box causes the cooling. This system is often used in Australia. The cooker got 70 °C hot it's not enough to cook but our prototype wasn't adjusted perfectly. We needed a parabolic cooker to achieve the best result. To visualize our idea we build a belief model. This whole project was realized in 5 Days and was a cooperation with international Professors:
