A art object created as a statement for Next Nature. Next Nature is culturally emerged nature, it is the nature caused by human culture. That may sound like a contradiction, but really, it isn’t. Our technological world has become so intricate and uncontrollable that it has become a nature of its own. This means we have to re-investigate our notion of nature.

It seems that yesterdayʼs leaves are being replaced by todayʼs garbage in the streets. This garbage is turning into a natural feature of our environment; we become more familiar with a Coke can or McDonalds wrapping than with leaves falling of trees. This garbage, Urban garbage, is becoming our next nature. It is invading our streets like a modern tumbleweed, effectively creating a phenomenon known as Urban Tumbleweed.

This Urban Tumbleweed creates a footprint of a city. To illustrate this footprint, Urban Tumbleweeds were constructed using genuine trash from the streets of both Düsseldorf and Eindhoven. Though the results appear similar, they offer a lot of detail when being observed from a closer perspective.

What we really would like to experience is the difference between different continents instead of merely comparing cities. What would Hong Kongʼs Urban Tumbleweed look like compared to Africaʼs Tumbleweed?

By: Jan van der Asdonk, Guus Baggermans and Brian Garret Schuur

In modern western society people seem to be caught in little cocoons of boredom; entertainment has become a primary need. However, there is a very thin line between what people need and what people want. Wants are about egoistic and hedonistic pleasure, needs are more deeply rooted feelings. Design in its principle is about creating products to satisfy people’s needs. With the power of the industrial revolution globalization sparked design generalization; design gained the power to satisfy the needs of the masses. Market satisfaction is bad for business. New product communication is aimed at transforming products that people might possibly want, into products that they most definitely feel they need. Modern tactics entail over-quantification and incomprehensible terminology to make advertisements believable and true. Throughout the day, we are bombarded with manipulative advertisements through all of the channels available to the market today; TV commercials, large billboards, people humming jingles, little food wrappers on the floor. Brands are everywhere. We may think we need things, and what we think are of course our own thoughts, they started in our brain, and not in our surroundings, didn’t they? Consumption starts to resemble using drugs; you need increasingly more to get the same rush as with that first fix. Products are released on shorter and shorter cycles, and you believe you need to keep up. There will never be a definitive product that will make you fat and happy. Feed the cattle just enough to survive, but keep them hungry. As designers we have the power to change this. We should to go back to designing products that don’t need manipulative communication; we need honest products.

The posters below are offspring from the manifesto. The posters try to convey the message in the form which is most easily consumed by the masses: an advertisement.

“To design a system that tells the story of the news through the medium of light with which the user can interact to change the view”

Today many people, especially youngsters, just quickly scan the headlines of the newspaper, and then go off to whatever they have to do that day. They form an opinion on a little bit of information, which can lead to simple things like disagreements with people, and even heavier consequences.

The way the news is brought to the actual user, greatly influences the way the basic facts are picked up. The daily news goes through several filters and people, before the general public hears about it. This filtering colors the news, and can actually blur out the original fact. Not only the way an article in a newspaper is written, the articles next to it, the pictures around it, the headline used and even the fact that it is printed or not, define the coloring of the news as a whole. Therefore I tried to focus my attention during the project on bringing the news to the user as unfiltered as possible.

This is why I created project ‘newsflash’. The system projects several search terms the user can follow to start his news reading adventure. When a certain term is selected, the system juxtaposes 2 articles next to each other, and the user can decide which one is his or her truth. By wiping over an article it is removed, and another article from another newspaper on the same subject is displayed in its place. The user can browse between different news sources, different articles, and switch topics. By doing this, the system tries to provide the user a full 360 degree view on the news, instead of the single view a single newspaper can provide. The user can form a better image of the news, and will be better informed.

[See post to watch Flash video]

The prototype shown in the movie above, is a real working prototype. It runs on a flash CS3 engine, in combination with the daylife.com API to fetch news stories from thousands of papers. The interface is projected on the interactive book surface that tracks the users movements.

This project was done as in Industrial Design Student Master project at the Department of Industrial Design at the Eindhoven University of Technology.

“To create an object out of cardboard in 60 minutes, that can impress your design idol”

I chose to design paper headphones for Naoto Fukasawa. Naoto already design a wall mounted CD player and speakers for his ±0 brand, why not create a set of cardboard headphones to match.

The two robots; Hear no evil and See no evil, where created for a module on Autonomous behavior. The robots use a Lego RCX CPU for processing, and they are not connected to any external hardware.

The first part of the movie shows the EMR seeker robot, which marks all of the areas with high EMR noises. The second robot tries to avoid the areas marked by the first.

[See post to watch Flash video]

The second movie shows what happens if ‘hear no evil’ is set loose by itself.

[See post to watch Flash video]

This 20 pound mouse hand was created for ‘Paradise by the laptop light’ at the STRP festival 2007. It counts 158 LEDs that are programmable per pixel line by arduino. This Hand was made by: Brian Schuur, David Menting, Jasper Dekker and Guus Baggermans (me).

Zoetermeer - March ‘07

Helmond April ‘07

Glass material rendering test!

The Smaac actiemarketing is a small marketing company from Eindhoven. I was hired together with Brian Schuur to create their online website. The final product is an interactive flash portfolio, that is easily updatable. It is fully written in Adobe Flash, and runs on almost any internet capable computer.

You can view the website at smaac.nl

For my Individual Bachelor Project I decided to do a project into sustainability. The one sentence project statement I created for this project was:

“to design an interface that helps family members understand their place in the energy consumption of their home or town”

One of my first concepts was the ‘tree-agotchi’. It was basically an electronic bonsai tree, that showed people the ‘health’ of their energy consumption. By using less energy, the tree would flourish, and for energy spoilers, the tree would die.

After some research this concept seemed to farfetched, and I started designing a more down to earth prototype. I decided to keep the anthropomorphic characteristics of the concept, and combine this with persuasive technology. I also decided to go for positive feedback, instead of negative feedback, that only tells the user when he is behaving the wrong way.

3D rendering

The outcome is the Current2 alarm-clock. This alarm clock can help people save energy by switching off devices for them. At day the clock is rotated so that its display faces upward. People can read it easily from a standing position. The LEDs show the current energy usage in the home by simulating a breathing pulsation effect. When people are getting ready for bed, they see they are still using energy, even though they don’t need the devices when they are in bed. By rotating the clock so that the display is readable from a lying down position, people automatically set the alarm for the next morning. The alarm-clock also sends a signal to the central fuse box in the home to switch off all unneeded devices. The LED feedback on the clock automatically changes to a slower pace and dims down, so the user can go to sleep.

3D rendering

Interaction

The shape of the clock triggers the user interaction in an intuitive way. I reasoned through different clock shapes, and came to the final decision that a round shape would be best. With a round alarm clock, the movement would be the most fluent and natural, which was my goal.

different clock shapes

Of course the problem with a round shape is that it rolls, and won’t lie still if the weight is equally distributed.

Therefore I decided a movable weight, that gives the clock 2 states of equilibrium. This way the clock can be rolled into 2 different positions, without rolling of the edge of the night stand.

movable weight explanation diagram

Technology

The technology behind this product is the X11 protocol. On triggering of the alarm clock, it sends out a signal over the power-net to the main fuse box of the house. The secondary part of the alarm clock is installed in the fuse box to receive this signal. This device knows which power outlets in the house are safe to switch off, and which arent’t (i.e. refrigerator). It also sends a signal with the current energy consumption back to the alarm clock, so this in turn can adjust it’s breathing LED output.Below is a small technology map that shows how all of the components work together.

technology map

Prototype

For user testing the alarm clock I built a working prototype. The prototype was built using Phidgets and the Adobe Flash platform. Inside are a LCD screen, 3 touch sensors for the buttons and 8 LEDs for the breather. The outside of the prototype was created out of acrylics to keep the prototype look different from the rendered images.

Electronics inside the prototype

Movable weight

Below you can see a movie of a test-run of the prototype showing the basic functionality of the alarm clock and touch buttons.
[See post to watch Flash video]

The ‘Touch’ is my entry for the annual Bombay Saphire glass design contest. The glass was meant for use in modern clubs and discotheques.

The image says:

“The ‘touch’ provides people to overstep their boundaries by giving them a new and sexy experience while enjoying their bombay saphire.

By sharing your glass with other you don’t only share your drink, but you share your feelings and thoughts.

When you set down your drink, the glass wiggles around attracting you and other peoples’ attention.

Re-render, created after the contests’ entry date

The mixed reality prototype emerges the user in a real life to virtual experience. It combines a real life object to control a beamed image without the loss of direct location feedback.

The prototype consists of:
- a beamer
- a glass plate
- a wireless pen
- laptop running the appropriate software

The software running on the prototype is running on th Adobe Flash platform. It uses a self created calibration algorithm to determine the pens’ position relative to the beamed image. Because the calibration routine is run at start up, the prototype can quickly be set up and realigned. The technology used is the same as the one used in a PDA with touch screen for example.

The final prototype runs a game of circular pong. The goal is to stop the ball from hitting the sides of the screen, by placing the pen between the balls’ direction and the wall. Points are gained every time you hit the ball, but the game also speeds up the longer you last.
[See post to watch Flash video]

To design the aesthetics of a 1500 meter long mobile ice track. This was the assignment we received from our client. Of course, this being an industrial design project, our team wanted to take things a step further. We first started to research the art of ice creation, after we tried to create some indoor skating ice ourselves.

We created a special radiator, that could mount into a conventional refrigerator. We attached a pump to this radiator, that would pump cooling liquid.

Refrigerator with our custom radiator

We hooked the pump up to a special hose, and created an insulating wooden box, for the water to be put in.

Ice creation box

During a brainstorm on ice creation, we came to the idea of adding product to regular skating ice. This way we came up with a new type of skating ice. It is tougher than normal ice, and has the possibility of being sculpted. The toughness made it possible to have a much thinner layer of ice, which is in turn very good on energy consumption, which is of course one of the downsides of regular ice tracks. The sculpting possibilities gave us an idea for making a skatepark for iceskates.

Layered reinforced ice

Of course a normal ice track doesn’t allow bends and banks. This is why we designed a new ice floor. Our ice floor has a base layer of inflatable cushions, so it can be placed on any surface, smooth or bumpy, while always insulating the cooling tubers. The cooling tubes are curved in the direction of the track, giving them the ability to stretch in a curve. Below you can see a blow up of the components.

Ice Mattress blow-up

Finally we also designed the roof construction for the whole track. We used triangular shaped canvas in combination with a curved truss structure. The shape of this structure is arranged so that the track can be set up in different curves. It’s also possible to pull down the roof construction to the ground to lock it off at night.

Roof construction

During our final presentation we used the ‘mixed reality’ prototype to display an anaglyph 3D movie. This movie showed how the track in total would look for an ice skater.

Final presentation with 3D movie

Together with my colleague Brian I created this snowboard, called the funboard. The main idea behind it is to boos the agility and pop that is in a normal snowboard. By making the basic shape in a curve, instead of flat like a normal snowboard, the boarder gains the ability to make quick turns, or stand on one foot. The board also works as a leaf spring, so that the boarder will gain extra height in a jump.

The baseplate of the board is made out of 2 layers of plywood. The plywood was bent using steam, and then glued together.

plywood layers glued together

After glueing, the board was covered in several layers of fiber glass. This gives the board its strengths and bounce. We mounted the foot mounts on top of the first fiber glass layer, and put on the top fiberglass layer.

first layer of fiberglass

To finish the board off, we applied several layers of tar spray paint. This paint never really hardens, so it won’t come off the board.

Finished funboard

[See post to watch Flash video]

This was a collaborative, extra curricular project between marketing and industrial design students. The main idea was to create a cheap, yet attractive, easy to use voip handset, for use with a computer. Together we designed all aspects of the product, from basic idea, to electronics, to design and even a marketing plan.

Robot soccer is becoming more and more popular. This is why I and 2 other first-year students took an assignment of building a humanoid soccer robot leg from scratch. We first started of with research on existing robots. After this we made foam board models, to test the movement of the robot. Below you can see a movie of the ankle joint, built out of foamboard and old servo’s.

[See post to watch Flash video]

Our final leg design has 5 degrees of freedom; 2 in the ankle joint, 1 in the knee joint, and 2 in the hip joint. Because the robot needed to be strong enough to support itself, but light enough to keep it’s agility, we decided to fabricate it out of aluminium parts. We stenciled all the aluminum parts, and screwed them together. The result: a lightweight yet strong solution for the robot leg, with the only major cost being the high power servo’s.

As you can see, the servo’s where used as a structural part of the leg, keeping the used space to a minimum. The reason behind this is to make optimal use of the servo’s strength.

Below you can see a movie of the final leg, kicking 2 golf balls down the room.

[See post to watch Flash video]

After finishing the leg, our part in the building of the robot was done. Other students needed to replicate the already built leg, and create the rest from the hips up. Unfortunately, the project is still unfinished.

Meet Miko, an interactive toy for girls between the age of 8 and 12.

miko

Miko is an interactive toy, that gives children the opportunity to project their emotions onto it. Miko’s heart is an old hard drive component that can produce vibrations and sounds at the same time.

Hard drive needle

The pillow below was the prototype we used to test out a heartbeat sound. The pillow actually amplifies the effect of the harddrive needle, and it really feels and sounds like a real heartbeat.

Pillow with heartbeat

As you can see and hear in the following movie, the sound effects are quite good, while also giving tactile feedback.

[See post to watch Flash video]

The end result: a living stuffed animal. We tested kids’ reactions to Miko, and they where positive. The kids started to play with it as if it was alive, protecting it and caring for it.

Promotional poster for the project