Using everyday materials to lower the entry barrier for Electronic Craft- Design Presentaion

November 10th, 2015 By MLgatech

Textile Tilt sensor courtesy @ http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=5057

Inspiration:

“The materials and tools we use as well as the approaches we take to design, prototype and build technology greatly influence how we think about technology, the collection of people who think about technology, and the look and feel of the technology itself.”[1]

I have encountered a lot of Leah Buechley’s work on maker learning and trying to engage girls in computer science through craft and always felt inspired by it. The paper “Crafting technology: Reimagining the processes, materials, and cultures of electronics” by Wilson and Buechley revealed the research that had gone behind developing some of the craft+electronic techniques. I had always seen the more playful side of their work  but this paper talked about how they spoke with crafters to gain insights on what motivated crafter’s, their experiences with their craft etc. The paper revealed some inherent differences between traditional crafters(sewer’s, carvers and painters) and electronic makers and demonstrated some examples of “high” and “low” tech that tried to combine crafts+ electronics.

A Kit-of-No-Parts demo wall

A Kit of no Parts by Plusea https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/5681337857/in/photostream/

Idea:

My initial idea was in the space of maker learning and aimed to use clay as the material along with everyday conductive objects(paper clips, pencil circuits, batteries etc.) to make analog electronic circuits and to make some of this content on maker-;earning more accessible to audiences who may not have access to stores like Adafruit or Sparkfun.

Craft:

The clay would serve as the material that would give form to the parts. The advantage of using clay over paper and materials was that clay can be moulded into 3-D forms easily when compared to paper, textiles etc.

Digital Intervention:

Since I believed that the circuits being produced at the end of this would be analog I thought of other ways of digital intervention.

I started pondering about what Digital is really good for : speed of production, distribution and this helped me arrive at using Intructables as a digital means of sharing my process with he maker community. This would also mark as my transformation from being a Lurker to a Contributor in the Maker Community. Another transformation I anticipated was people using the process and remixing the projects to make what was most meaningful to them.

Prototype:

 

Feedback on design:

-to bring out the advantages of the materiality of the clay more

-since,there was no guarantee that people would comment on/remix the approach, I should consider rethinking the digital intervention

-using clay to make sensors?

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwLVd0W-_5qwVUJvSVJRbGhKbWtxYnhrTExqUGpUVE05bzQ0/view?usp=sharing

 

References:

[1] Buechley, Leah, and Hannah Perner-Wilson. “Crafting technology: Reimagining the processes, materials, and cultures of electronics.” ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI) 19.3 (2012): 21.

[2] Buechley, Leah, and Hannah Perner-Wilson. “Crafting technology: Reimagining the processes, materials, and cultures of electronics.” ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI) 19.3 (2012): 21.

 

 

 

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