More news from the weekly workshops started by Design students around the Intel Galileo development boards: we are now able to show you some photos. (courtesy of Jonathan Flint)
Apart from the Physarum project, other ideas are also shaping up- BA Design student Dean Pankhurst is using the Intel Galileo board to build a “Depression Detector”. Here it is described in his own words:
„The premise of the device is that it uses a webcam and facial recognition to detect emotion, and then respond digitally in a variety of ways. I’ve made a series of objects with similar functions, but their effects are quite distinct from each other. A general-purpose ‘insanity detector’ hypothetically uses behaviour monitoring systems to reveal mental disorder symptoms in every day subconscious activity, to highlight that these behaviors are quite normal. The hope is that this will help sufferers of a particular anxiety to realise that mental disorders are loosely defined, and that they should try not give validity to their reoccurring intrusive fears of becoming insane. The device Jon pictured is what I have coined the ‘Depression Detector’, and it essentially uses the same computing procedure as the ‘Happiness Detector’. The light inside the device will remain on at all times, unless you smile at it, deactivating the object for as long as you continue to smile.
I’m now working on the happiness detector again and hope to develop the project further, using knowledge shared within the group, whilst also supporting the Physarum environment project. The next stage for us all is to get Linux working on the boards, this will allow us to develop more complex and versatile programs that will support our projects”.
Goldsmiths Design Blog 