Arduino is awesome, but the need to always hook up a computer to use it can be a bit of a pain. Working with Teague Labs, I created the Computerless Arduino. It consisted of two major components; an Arduino-compatible microcontroller loaded with a realtime code interpreter, and a stand-alone 5 button LCD display to display port values and manipulate code. The display could be connected to the Arduino via a 4-pin port at any time to peek at In/Out values, view the current code, and make changes as desired. All code and hardware is made available as open source.
Download the Arduino code, uLCD code, and the protocol specification.
Featured on: Make, Core77, CreativeApplications, ElectronicsLab, DangerousPrototypes, FF3300, and Hack-A-Day.

Working with Matt Wolfe and Teague Labs, we looked into restructuring the creative process commonly used in design and innovation projects. There's plenty of literature out there on how to brainstorm lots of ideas, but unfortunately, the hard part still remains: how to pick the right ideas from a wall of sticky notes and actually turn them into something real? Creationstorming is about making concrete decisions in situ. Ideas are critically debated in the moment, balancing feasibility and impact with respect to the project's timeframe and goals. In a nutshell: There can be bad ideas (don't write them all down), one idea should remain in focus and be critically debated, and all participants should be concise.

Working with the interaction design team at Teague Labs, we looked into measuring water usage, analyzing data in realtime to affect behaviors, and storing usage data to see patterns over time. At the heart of the exploration was a need to cheaply measure water from the tap. We hooked up a WiFi Arduino, a cheap flow meter, and some basic fittings to attach it to a faucet. Data was then streamed back to a server and output in realtime for display on any web-enable device (tablet, phone, or computer). All of the code and circuitry is open source.
Download the complete Arduino project, circuit schematic, and PHP/HTML5 code.
Featured on: Make, Hack-A-Day, and ElectronicsLab.

Working with Matt Wolfe and Teague Labs, we built patchwork as a way to share images, but it's certainly a little different than a blog. It's a locally public image board, projected on our wall for everyone to see it, which gets people in the studio to share and respond to interesting things going on. Patchwork is free (as in beer) and open source (as in freedom). Original posts here and here.
Download and setup your very own Patchwork.

Physical devices make application development messy. Developing for the web, however, is quite different; the same site can function as an application across a very broad set of devices and platforms. Sure, there are limits, but slowly those constraints are dissolving and the two worlds of desktop and web are undoubtedly converging via the WebApp. Working with Teague Labs, I created an overview of how HTML5/Javascript/CSS can make prototyping easier, as well as a coding framework for quickly build touch-enabled, location aware, mobile/desktop applications. The framework was then used to build a few examples, one of which illustrated a recreation of the iOS look, feel, and behavior all running within a chromeless web browser.
Download TeagueProtoJS source code and examples.

Working with Jeff Bartenbach and Teague Labs, we put together a presentation on how one can more deeply understand a problem by the making and iterating (rather than trying to fully spec a design and then hand it off for production). Since beta has become the new release, it is ever more important to release early and release often as a way to both engage the larger community and learn faster by failing as soon as possible.
Presented to: PS SigChi

Here's a quick hack made with Teague Labs to add more physicality to touch screen displays. Using a small to medium sized knob, you can modify it (or even use it by itself) to behave as a rotary input. Similar to the soft stylus, the trick is finding a way to create a conductive path from your hand to the screen. Copper tape can be used to transfer the capacitance of the hand down to the screen, or a simple non-conductive knob can be used if it requires the user to hold their fingers near its base (my personal favorite).
Featured on: OhGizmo, Gizmodo, MobileCrunch, NuzeMe, UberGizmo, SlashGear, ECKiller, and AdaptivePath.

In search of a stylus that could work with capacitive screen, I worked with Teague Labs to try various conductive foams and fabrics in search of something that would mimic a finger. Fortunately, it's quite easy to make a soft, conductive writing tool using some pretty basic materials. All you need is a pencil, an anti-static sock (such as an anti-static sock which contains conductive silver thread), and some patience to cut and sew it all together.
See detailed step-by-step instructions in the Soft iPhone and iPad stylus instructable.
Featured on: Make, LifeHacker, and ECKiller.

Design Veggies is a quick attempt at healthy browsing via a curated info-mashup built with Teague Labs. It brings together a wide range of design-oriented RSS feeds and an internal bookmarklet (allowing us to add non-RSS content such as site links and descriptions alongside the dynamic feeds). Each item is given a small amount of space to allow for quickly browsing numerous snippets on a single page. All of the code is open, so if you’re interested in doing something similar, you can give it a try and view the source from your browser, or download the code snapshot. Note that this code was never really optimized for speed.

Here's a quick hack put together with Teague Labs to see what a browser built inside a browser might feel like. It's super simple and uses some basic javascript and iframes to load secondary webapps within a fixed environment. I was interested in exploring what new kinds of interfaces, applications, and content could be purely web-based, and so I figured why not give it a try.
If you're curious, feel free to try it out yourself. All of the code is open for you to play with (just view the page's source).

In an attempt to screen-based keyboard feel more tactile, I worked with Teague Labs to create a quick and dirty mock-up using a screen protector and a hot-glue gun; it's incredibly simple and the keys still work as expected. The glue wasn't quite transparent (somewhat occluding the graphical letters), but it worked well enough to get a sense for the difference tactile screen keys can make.

Radioball is a project built with Benoit Collette and Teague Labs to explore rich, 3D spatial interactions for controlling a radio. With the prevalence of touchscreen devices and digital music players, music selected has become flat and boring. Radioball brings back a bit of the fuzz between stations to discover new channels and physically interact with the device. Each facet of the device is uniquely mapped to a station on the FM dial. The first working prototype was created in less than three days and then shared with users in the design studio for feedback and further development. Original posts here and here.
Featured on: DesignBoom, Yanko Design, Behance, Core77, and Fast Company.

Tweak is an open source tool built with Teague Labs to modify variables in Processing while your code is running. It's simple to setup and lets you tune your sketch on-the-fly; just drop the Tweak.pde file in your sketch's folder and use Tweak variable types (such as TweakInt, TweakFloat, and TweakPoint) for the parameters you want to adjust. When using Tweak, a second window will be displayed where you can make adjustments by clicking on a variable and dragging your mouse. Everything is updated in real-time so you can see the effects immediately as your sketch runs.
Download the Simple Demo, the Complex Demo, and read the step-by-step guide to Tweak on Instructables.

Trackmate is an open source initiative to create an inexpensive, do-it-yourself tangible tracking system. The Trackmate Tracker allows any computer to recognize tagged objects and their corresponding position, rotation, and color information when placed on a surface. Trackmate sends all object data via LusidOSC (a protocol layer for unique spatial input devices), allowing any LusidOSC-based application to work with the system. This is an ongoing project created in collaboration with everyone in the Tangible Media Group. Trackmate was the main focus of my masters research in the MIT Media Lab, and is described in the thesis (PDF).

LusidOSC is an open source initiative to define and support a layer for unique spatial input devices using Open Sound Control. While inspired by TUIO, LusidOSC links many new and evolving spatial input devices (systems that uniquely identify objects such as markers, tags, regions, fingertips, etc. in physical space) with LusidOSC-based applications. The protocol layer is designed to support data from interfaces such as Trackmate, Reactable, Sensetable, and g-speak, and can easily be extended to support others.

Wordsinart is an online webtool that combines lists of words randomly; but with some basic underlying structure. Word lists can be easily changed to accomidate a large range of idea shuffling and facilitate broad thinking. It is up to the user to make sense of the somewhat-nonsensical word combinations.

Piezing is a fashionable power-generating mini-dress. I developed the piezo-based power generation circuitry while working with Amanda Parkes (who led the project and worked on the overall design). Piezing generated a lot of interest in how the future of high-tech clothing could become fashionable, instead of bulky and cumbersome. The dress has been shown in fashion shows and exhibits in Boston and San Francisco, featured on Gizmodo.com, and presented at TEI 2009 by Amanda.

GrabIt allows users to collaboratively explore the principles of power generation, transfer, and consumption via tangible wooden sticks. Pushing on one stick generates power that is transfered to other sticks in real time allowing users to see, and feel, the effects of losses and electrical loading. All energy in the GrabIt system is derived from its users and therefore makes the mapping between input, output, and losses transparent. Variable-color light bulbs can also be connected to the system to serve as simplified voltage indicators during use. GrabIt was created in collaboration with Angela Chang.

FretNot is an exhibition to study the effects of physical constraints on musical composition and improvisation. Three guitars with unique fretboards are used for comparison; fretless, chromatically fretted, and fret-limited (only notes in a particular key sound). Two non-physical constraints can also be switched on by the user to provide background audio containing a rhythm track (temporal constraint) and a chord accompaniment track (tonal constraint).

Tattle Tail is a tangible interface exploring the addition of intentionally abstract social cues to everyday objects. We started with an analog alarm clock and augmented it with an actuated physical tail to expand its output vocabulary. This project was created in collaboration with Kosuke Bando, Michael Bernstein, and Amy Wibowo; I was responsible for the robotic tail, control circuitry, and microcontroller code to interface with a computer. See videos of the prototype's tail behavior and alarm interaction.

Balloon Messenger is a voice recording and playback inerface created in collaboration with Kosuke Bando, Michael Bernstein, and Arthur Mak for MAS.834 (Tangible Interfaces). As voice message is being recorded, the balloon inflates. The inflated balloon then slowly changes color depending on the sound reecorded. To playback the message, the user simply presses on the balloon, forcing the air out and playing the original message with a speed proportional to pressure. One of the goals for the project was to explore the nature of ephemeral data in our ever-increasingly-digital world.

Looking at a series of photographs of Rodin's The Kiss, I tried to reconstruct the 3D sculpture in miniature. Sculpey (a low-temp, oven-bake, polymer clay) was used as the primary medium along with aluminum armature wire and foil to provide internal support. Getting the fine details (such as fingers and toes) to look correct at such a small scale was difficult for me to achieve with the polymer-based clay.

Slurp is a tangible interface for locative media interactions in a ubiquitous computing environment. Based on the affordances of an eyedropper, Slurp provides haptic and visual feedback while extracting and injecting pointers to digital media between physical objects and displays. The Slurp project was led by Jamie Zigelbaum; I worked mainly on the hardware, microntroller code, and PCB layout.

I did a series of Processing sketches to explore computationally generated organic forms. Starting with trees, I branched out to paisley rugs, a nautilus shell, and then a more general purpose parametric rendering engine to create roses layer-by-layer. You can run the applications yourself via the online applet or download the source and use it for your own purposes.

Munsell color space is awesome. Unfortunately, because it is centered on human perception of colors and how they appear relative to one another, RGB space doesn't work so well. This Processing applet first calibrates gamma values specific to your monitor, then uses that information to produce hue/saturation palettes of equal intensity output in the Munsell space (as RGB). This is ideally suited for things like data visualizations where bias between data sets of different color should be minimized. All the code is open source, so feel free to try it out and make modifications as you like.

This is a simple tool built in Processing that allows you to quickly visualize various grid layouts and modify them by clicking. You can change the sizing, padding, and roundness of grid elements, as well as combine neighboring elements together. The tool was originally developed to help with arranging pictures of various sizes and shapes on a wall, but it can also easily be applied to web design.

Imagine what the web would be like if more aspects of our physical human experience were directly incorporated. Rehumanized was a project for 4.381 (a class in the Visual Arts Program at MIT taught by Amber Frid-Jimenez) to think critically about what we lose as we begin to put more of our lives online. The project explores handwriting, eye contact, and the difference between physical artifacts and digital content (which often separates the source code from the resulting application or media).

Home is a shelter from the weather, a refuge from violence, and a place where family and friends gather. But life at home is also often filled with personal responsibilities, pressures, expectations, and burdening complications. In contrast, life at the workplace is often stable, structured, and progressive with clearly defined tasks and goals. EscHome is a wearable office environment consisting of a chair and a desk that offers the comforts of being at work anytime, anywhere.

ColorCave is an interactive art installation that was shown at Collision 12. Based on the position, rotation, and pressure of the user's hand, a stereo image (two images that when viewed in a particular way create a 3D scene for the viewer) is produced which can either be viewed directly within the viewport or above it on an LCD by other spectators. Two webcams simulateneosly capture the user's movements and acurately reproduce the color, brightnes, and location in the resulting image.

For my first real attempt at scultpure in stone, I set out to make a rose in translucent alabaster. I spent a lot of time trying to learn when to use the various chisels (and when not to use them) and greatly enjoyed shaping the stone little-by-little. Alabaster is somewhat forgiving, but you have to pay close attention to the grain structure of the rock to prevent large unwanted splitting. If you have never carved a piece of stone, I highly recomend giving it a try!

This is one of the first acrylic paintings I have worked on since grade school. I forgot how challanging it can be to precisely control a brush and mix colors to get the exact hue and shade you are looking for. The rigidity of geometric shapes seemed comforting as a starting point, but I am interested in pushing towards more abstract imagery and blending colors on the canvas directly to produce smoother (and more exciting) color boundaries.

avoCADo is an Open Source 3D CAD design/modeling program written under the GPL. It is an attempt to offer a real alternative to commercial mechanical CAD and 3D modeling software. By starting from a solid foundation and allowing for rapid expansion of both functionality and collaboration via plugins, avoCADo aims to be an indispensable tool with an intuitive interface for both engineers and artists alike.

This was my Master of Engineering research: The thesis (PDF) presents the findings of exploratory research in low-cost compliant robotics. The most novel contribution of this research is the Torsionally Compliant Elastomer Joint (TCEJ) which allows for compliance and sensing in a very small package while using extremely inexpensive components. Computational modeling of hysteresis, signal compression, and backlash are also explored to compensate for the non-idealities often found in cheap mechanical parts. Three proof-of-concept systems are described along with a set of experiments used to test their capabilities. Finally, future work is proposed that will may help to shape the next generation of low-cost compliant robotics.

For a research project over the Summer of 2005, I worked along-side the Humanoid Robotics group at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at MIT. This led to the development of a compliant robotic hand using a newly developed actuator, the Elacoil. The final hand could be entirely built in less than a day and required no precision components.

The original goal of my Master of Engineering research was to make an extremely cheap and small handheld ultrasound imaging device for medical use in regions of the world where expensive or large equipment is not practical. The project is no longer being pursued, but you can still access all of the information/datasheets.

To better understand the behavior of signals as they are incident upon boundaries of different acoustic impedances, I created a program in C++ that simulates the amplitude and velocity of a reflected pulsed audio signal. This allowed for rapid intuitive testing of basic echo patterns of pulses incident upon multiple media.

Using a proximity box and a force equation proportional to 1/distance, a set of random particles were placed with imposed boundary velocity conditions. This was intended to mimic 2D wind tunnel analysis without the extremely complicated methods often needed to model this kind of behavior in software. The result was rather intriguing and intuitively pleasing... although I doubt this interesting experiment with fast particle simulation deserves much technical merit.

For a lab class at MIT (6.302 - Feedback Systems), I designed, built, tested, and compensated a magnetic levitation system. An object (with an attached magnet) is suspended below a solenoid by measuring the magnetic field strength (Hall-Effect Sensor) and feeding the value back to a pulse width modulation chip. The PWM output is used to control an H-Bridge motor control chip which, in this case, controls the solenoid.

In pursuit of a cheap device that could help me produce my own Printed Circuit Boards, I built the PCB Mill. It was controlled by two microcontrollers and talked to the PC to download instructions. I also created a layout program in C++ to convert HPGL files into a format that the milling system could understand. The final product worked well, except for a slightly sinusoidal pattern caused by a bend in my guide rods.

I created a simple program that composes songs based on selected emotions derived from my own perceptions of chord combinations and dynamics. Currently it can create a drum track, a series of chord progresions, and a melodic line that reflect a group of emotions. The user is free to pick the Key, the Tempo, the amount of measures for each sub-progression (intro, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, outro), their emotions, and a vocal range. After the program makes the song, the user is then able to select which parts are worth keeping and then continue to run the program until the right sound is achieved.

Since analogies are one of the most powerful tools we have for transferring bodies of knowledge from one domain to another, they are explored to suggest new ways to think about how the various resources within the human mind can be organized, shared, and used efficiently. Analysis of modern-day US employee information is used to explore and categorize the many resources available on the national level and the occupations evolved to efficiently handle them.

In an attempt to take my nerdiness on the go, I created a simple electronic testbench (a.k.a. nerdkit) inside of an inexpensive briefcase. After modification, the case included a nice earth-grounded DC power supply, an embedded speaker, terminals for connecting larger devices, and a few places to store small components. The design is fairly simple but solid, and is has proven to be quite useful for prototyping circuits and moving them around.

The Analog Microcosm (a final project built in collaboration with Ji Zhang for 6.101, Analog Circuit Lab, at MIT) is a self-sufficient biodome capable of controlling its environment. The four elements that the Analog Microcosm regulates are temperature, lighting, humidity, and gravity. The microcosm is meant to function as a testing environment for various research projects as well a micromanaged habitat.

In collaboration with Ji Zhang and Xiao Yu for 6.931 (Developement of Inventions and Creative Ideas) at MIT, we created the Inventor's Survival Guide as a quick reference for people interested in learning about how to research, realize, and protect creative ideas. The pamphlet informally presents the major legal framework setup within the United States to facilitate innovation, provides lists of important free resources, and explains the basics of how to get started and where to go next.

When writing code to create a computational design, I often find myself in need of simple mappings between scalar values and a range of colors. With a few simple formulas you can get many continuous (and cyclical) RGB colors that can be easily derived from the percent of a slider, mouse location, etc. The generated mapping diagram sheet offers a quick visual representation of the different paramters on the resulting range of colors.

Interning with a team at Motorola, I helped to develop and prototype a system of tags (Charms) for facilitating interaction with a wireless communication device. Each low-cost addon (in the form of stickers, clip ons, and plug-in modules) allowed users to trigger an action such as dialing a number, opening a webpage, or playing a video. Many tags could also work bidirectionally; signalling to the user via the tag when a message, call, or important event had occurred. This research and prototype eventually led to patent (US 7,433,649).

Interested in a way to create force-air convection without rotating parts, I modeled and prototyped a diaphram-based fan. The original intetion was to use such a device for cooling microprocessors; the first prototype worked pretty well, but was not efficient enough for most CPU cooling applications.

I set out to make a complete electronic-electric guitar with all kinds of extra bells and whistles. The Fretboard was designed to make learning to play much easier with the aid of electronically controlled lighting. An LCD user interface menu system also allowed the user to cycle between different guitar modes and even create new custom scales without re-programming the microprocessor.

The Espion is an autonomous low-cost interface board created by Arnan (Roger) Sipitakiat and Paulo Blikstein in the Future of Learning Group to help people in developing countries sense environmental conditions and control outputs (such as motors, speakers, or lights). I developed additional circuitry for the board for power management and in-circuit recharging (version 1.1). The Espion extended ideas from the GoGo board; an open source hardware platform for education.

Trying to maximize the space in a typical college dorm room (November 2001), John Bartocci and I came up with an idea; the couchdesk. In particular, we wanted to be able to have both more desk space and lounge-like seating. I made a 3-D model in Autodesk Inventor of our idea, and in January of 2002, John Bartocci, Nickolai Zeldovich and I began construction. Three months later we finished the fully working prototype.

Back in high school I created a device that aided lightning photography. I was young and didn't know much about circuits yet (as evidenced by the numerious schematic errors); I thought this was my first real chance to become an inventor so I did a patent search on my own, but was disappointed to find a device that shared many of the same principles. The lightning photography device works by signalling to a camera to take a picture as soon as it senses an increase in the amount of light in a certain field of view.

With the help of a few cheap parts you can pick up at your local electronic store, you can design, construct and use your own acoustic guitar pickup. It sounds great plugged-in and lets you turn up the amp pretty loud before giving any feedback. Follow these step-by-step instructions to build one yourself.