Last week I went to the ITP showcase which had a number of amazing projects. I was surprised by the amount of people using Kinect in their projects. Processing and OpenFrameworks were definitely the programming languages of choice for the projects. Here are four of the projects that I liked;
The Cupcake Index takes the results of the World Happiness Rankings and creates cupcakes for every country adding sugar to the cupcake depending on the countries happiness ranking. E.g The sweetest cupcakes are Denmark the happiest country in the world whereas there is no sugar in Central African Republic the least happy country in the world.
Data visualization is a hot topic at the moment. However I think this project shows that there are more senses at peoples disposal than we are currently using to interact with data. Tasting a data point is a really unique way of getting people to interact with data. How could we hear, smell, touch, or sense data?
1. Cupcake Index
The Cupcake Index takes the results of the World Happiness Rankings and creates cupcakes for every country adding sugar to the cupcake depending on the countries happiness ranking. E.g The sweetest cupcakes are Denmark the happiest country in the world whereas there is no sugar in Central African Republic the least happy country in the world.
Data visualization is a hot topic at the moment. However I think this project shows that there are more senses at peoples disposal than we are currently using to interact with data. Tasting a data point is a really unique way of getting people to interact with data. How could we hear, smell, touch, or sense data?
2. BurritoBot
BurritoBot marks a mix between 3D Printing and Food. Looking at the mass consumed burrito and how they can make it into an automated process. They are also taking data about the global supply and demand of the ingredients and changing the recipe depending on this data. Once again an interesting way to taste data in real time.
3. Up!
An interactive experience where by giving a phone call to a specified number you had the chance to blow up a balloon on screen (You blew air into the mouthpiece of your phone and the balloon on the screen blew up). I am really enjoying looking at other interaction points for the phone besides the touchscreen. What I enjoyed about this project is that it really opened up the possibility of what you can do with a mobile device. Here is how ING have been using mobiles to interact with screens.
4. Rºad’io’’
'Rºad’io’’ is an interactive installation that allows the user to explore the American cultural landscape by tuning into the various radio stations playing around the country.' There hasn't really been much innovation around radio stations and the dial. I thought this was a really nice presentation of this information and it looked great!
