Poor Clares, York | Photograph © Interaction Research Studio, Goldsmiths

This week the work of the Interaction Research Studio featured on the BBC’s World Service Program ‘Digital Planet’.

“A community of nuns in the north of England is using a digital dot matrix display that gives a news feed of global events and updates of the emotions and feelings of bloggers around the world. For the last 18 months the Poor Clares nuns from St. Joseph’s in York have been using the device designed by Goldsmiths, University of London to guide their prayers. Bill Gaver from Goldsmiths explains how.”

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BBC Digital Planet

Thermal Aneometer | Photograph © Interaction Research Studio, Goldsmiths

A quiet summer, but last Friday we deployed our first experimental sensor node in a house in Lewisham. The sensor node is a combination of multiple sensors that monitor various environmental factors. The device is battery powered and the sensor readings are  wirelessly sent to the Pachube web site, by way of an Arduino set-up. The sensor will be in this house for a couple of weeks before we move it on to another home.

Sensor Node | Photograph © Interaction Research Studio, Goldsmiths

Gas Sensor | Photograph © Interaction Research Studio, Goldsmiths

André Knörig | Photograph © Interaction Research Studio, Goldsmiths

Fritzing is a really useful project that enables designers working on electronics to make the step up from prototyping, using breadboards for example, to producing PCB’s. It’s something that could be beneficial to introduce to students who are interested in employing electronics in their work, using Processing and Arduino for example.

Experimental Sensors | Photograph © Interaction Research Studio, Goldsmiths

More

http://www.ixds.de/
http://fritzing.org

The Photostroller is an image slideshow device that allows you to drift through photographs from the internet. Much like daydreaming, the slideshow wanders through streams of images – some related and some more random.

©Interaction Research Studio, Goldsmiths

The team took a lot of care in designing the Photostroller for the appropriate level of interaction with the residents. A tuner was designed to enable the residents to tune the slideshow with a dial and slider designed for hands with limited mobility. A moment of wonder for us was seeing a 99 year old arthritic resident handling the controller with relative ease.

©Interaction Research Studio, Goldsmiths

Who knows what they will make of it as time goes by but for the moment the residents seems very happy with it.

Yesterday the Interaction Research Studio hosted a workshop on developing research funding bids. The workshop was led by Bill Gaver and featured an overview of the conditions and climate for research funding in the UK and in Europe provided by Justin Davin-Smith from Goldsmiths Research Office. The workshop focused on how to turn an interest or idea into a research proposal, focusing on key elements of the proposal writing process such as establishing a context for the research, defining aims and objectives as well as detailing methods and work plans to form a cogent narrative for the proposed research.

Here’s some useful links from the day’s event:

http://www.gold.ac.uk/research/research-office/
http://www.gold.ac.uk/media/research-enterprise-strategy.pdf
http://www.gold.ac.uk/media/Horizon_Vol2_03_0910.pdf
http://www.researchprofessional.com
http://www.gold.ac.uk/interaction/

This year’s live projects, set by Kin Design and Imagination, were a great success. Feedback was wonderful and the students made some great work – more to follow.

Physical Apps. from Harriet McDougall on Vimeo.

Congratulations to Ben Redford, Chris Thomas, Harriet McDougall and Henry Flitton. A big thank you to Matt Wade & Kevin Palmer from Kin and Albert Fielder & Ditte from Imagination – as well as the teaching team; Charlotte, Jimmy and Belinda.

ASTROTAGGING BOTS AND CITIZEN SCIENTISTS

8th March 2010

4 – 6 pm

Ben Pimlott Lecture Theatre, Goldsmiths

Fiona has a background in producing community platforms and multiplayer games for the BBC and Disney. Natasha studied science communication and developed exhibitions at the Science Museum. Their recent projects, Astronomy Photographer of the Year and Solar Stormwatch, are developing the Observatory’s first online community, with spin-off exhibits, planetarium shorts, and events. Fiona and Natasha will talk about the challenges of designing distributed experiences for astronomy enthusiasts that play against the context of the Observatory’s historic site.

All ‘Design Means…’ lectures are open to the public.

Design Means… Brendan Walker from Matt Ward on Vimeo.

Sam Hill graduated from the BA Design in 2008 after completing a wonderful project on experience value. Sam was recently asked to post on Boidus about his experience at Goldsmiths [read the article in full]. I really appreciate his reflection, I think it captures both the spirit of Goldsmiths and the underlying philosophy of the programme:

‘Learn how to learn’

Design needs to create and be created by dialogue

Somehow, all the descriptions of the course I do, in all the different mediums – lectures, prospectus descriptions, open day talks, I never manage to articulate this as simply… In the future, I’ll quote Sam Hill.